Friday night someone at my volunteer job asked me how I was doing and since I’m a recent convert to telling the truth I replied, “I feel as if I’m walking through the ruins of nearly everything I used to know and there aren’t very many recognizable landmarks.” In my overheated imagination the scene is one of bombed buildings, cars upturned and on fire, broken pipes spewing water and rubble everywhere. But I am alive and I am walking through it, not into but through and out of it.
Since early this spring I have struggled with anxiety attacks and insomnia, not entirely unknown before but now daily or nearly so. I could see that it appeared to have begun with my association with a certain individual. In a way it doesn’t matter who he is; his role has been mainly that of catalyst and while he doesn’t yet know the full story, I have told him at least a bit about his part. He was in love (not with me) and his intensity set off a deep longing in my heart for that same situation. For the longest time I couldn’t admit that this was something I desired. My usual distractions, namely staying overly busy with projects, reading and eating excessively, etc., no longer worked and when I did sleep the dreams that have so informed my waking life were missing. I was plunged into despondency and confusion and I had only the faintest idea why the concept of wanting love was so disturbing.
Of course I tried counseling, acupuncture and various other treatments which only provided minimal relief. I couldn’t figure out why the symptoms seemed to be like PTSD; certainly my life hasn’t been easy but I’ve done the work on the main issues, no big surprises. Or so I thought. After some intense hypnotherapy a few weeks ago I began having some pretty major meltdowns during which I wept and wailed, sometimes in public, and admitted to anyone who would listen that I felt lonely, depressed, disconnected. Much to my amazement EVERYBODY listened, held me, sometimes admitting that they were also sad. Through truth-telling I have become connected in a way I never imagined.
In the last few days I’ve pondered specifically why my housemates’ coming in late at night engenders responses that resemble those I had in a truly dysfunctional three-year relationship 25 years ago. I had an insight this morning and when I met two of my long-time close friends for lunch I asked them this:
“In our years of association, including all those retreats at the Zen center where we had to lay out our entire life stories, did I tell you about how my lover Steve beat and raped me when I was passed out drunk because he was angry I broke up some of his possessions when he didn’t come home from the tavern? Did I tell you he used to come home drunk and kick in the bedroom door just for fun? That he sabotaged my birth control and I had an abortion I didn’t tell him about (he already had two kids by two different women)? Not that we were particularly careful anyway being as how we were usually loaded.”
They looked startled, shook their heads then we all started crying and hugging. While my memories of that horrible time have never been forgotten, they had not until this afternoon been spoken of except in the vaguest of terms, not even to the people I love the most. They remained buried but influencing nearly every decision and opinion about relationships, personal safety and love (in general and particular) while I soldiered on as best I could.
I have an unknown amount of untangling and healing yet to be done but it’s in this telling that I am set free, albeit in the ruins of my former reality. I’m telling you because you have read my rambling posts this past year and replied with 4s and compassion and my gratitude is boundless.