On fear and exile : some reflections

The bible says that perfect love casts out fear, but who amongst us is perfect in this life? Why is fear so close to love for some of us, why does the promise of love given freely without conditions awaken all those memories and triggers of the times love was conditional upon us being or doing things a certain way?

I know my parents tried to love me but there were times Mum would cut me off with a look or a glance, that could cast me to the outer Hebrides or Frost Freeze emotionally. There as also the time when I was 22 when she walked into my house unannounced one Saturday and found me in bed with my then boyfriend. She stormed out and would not speak to me for days and when she did it was only to tell me what a disappointment it was. When I fell pregnant to him a short while later I told no one at all. I just could not bear the shame and I travelled to Sydney in secret to have a termination at the age of 23. Later when she found out about it after secretly reading one of my diaries shortly after Dad died and confronted me I was then told to go overseas anyway after this boyfriend discarded me. I carried all that in secret and never told a soul and my addiction got worse.

I was thinking today when hit with a wave of the most intense abandonment anxiety due to something said to me because I was expressing fears about how being cast out for us humans is equated with death. In our primal days we needed the tribe to live and support us and its hard to be cast out of somewhere and exiled to a lonely place (emotionally it can literally feel like we might die or fail to stand upright). This kind of exile has happened to me more times than I could care to elaborate on and its led me to cut off too at times when I could not risk going and expressing my heart to the person out of even more abandonment fear or a seering anger. Its a hurdle I have confronted with therapists and the latest time was this week.

Today I had that flood again when I was told if I could not trust I could not love and that love would now be withdraw because I was incapable of loving. Wow it seared my heart. It is searing it now as I share it with you.

The truth is not everyone will shame and discard us. Many years later I am sure my mother was very sorry for what she did but her actions had consequences. When I got sober I had to address the wreckage of not less than 6 terminations of pregnancy. I was triggered this week reading in a novel when the protagonist Pearl has a termination and says she knew it was a living soul and spirit not just an accumulation of cells. But the truth was I did not feel fit to bring life into the world. Even in my marriage when I was newly sober I decided not to carry the baby to term as I felt too young emotionally. My husband was very upset, I know that now because as I shared yesterday he ended up being with a woman who gave him a daughter in the end.

The truth is I love children. Maybe I was too selfish to have them. I even wonder now if I can fully give to another person what is needed in a relationship. To be asked over and over to help more and more and more is very hard. I keep trying to extend myself, but what about helping myself?

I have read in Kyle Grey’s book that fear is a sign that something is very important to us. We may fear losing it, or not getting it and he says the way the Buddha handled it was to acknowledge fear and other demons as Mara and just say “Hello, I see you Mara (or fear, or anger, or jealousy)” We then may have an option to see what the fear is saying to us and act anyway. My experience though is that fear can be paralysing. I know performers and other artists say they use their fear, perhaps it is like a wall of fire we have to walk through to get to the other side, to the much loved or desired thing we wish for and if we fail to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off and try again. But there also comes a time when we have been exhausted enough by fear that we just want to sit the old dance out. Draw comfort from the silence, know that we have enough and will not actually die from being cast out. That said we need a tribe who see us and get us too. WordPress provides this for me at present. I would be a little lost without it .

The primal fire of abandonment fear will probably be always with me though as its been such a constant in my life, sadly though I am realising lately sometimes I will project it despite the rejection not being there but just imagined by me based on old experiences. Then my life will become so narrow if I really let those projected fears hold sway and fail to find the guts to reach out and seek for belonging anyway. In Al Anon they “Let it Begin With Me” maybe in the end that is what I have to do, feel the fear yet find a way to act anyway.