How can we tell of the hurt : some thoughts

So often it seems our body bears the brunt of our abuse or minimization at the hands of another.. Being told we are ‘too sensitive’ by someone invested in denying that sensitivity and misjudging it is not something a young child can throw off and as Patricia Evans mentioned in her book on controlling people when someone tells you you are something or should not be something, unless you have a strong grip on your own inner life you will not be able to hold onto your self in that situation. So often you may be undermined

And this is where I think some of the teachings of Buddhism may sometimes do more damage by claiming the Self is just a construct.. That is not how Carl Jung saw it, he saw the Self as a magical field of knowing that had a coalescing effect and may fragment under the assaults of others invested in denying it or putting it down.

Ideally as adults we can learn to live and let live. That is one of my favorite sayings from my AA days.. In AA ideally we do not dictate another’s path to healing, sobriety, inner knowledge or becoming, ideally we allow them their own way and respect other’s right to their own path, understandings and views even if they conflict with ours.. And also we cannot ever really know what another person’s inner reality is, unless we ask them.. We may also misjudge and impute feelings and motivations to others they just do not have due to being caught up inside our own internal ‘frames of reference’ or ‘windows of tolerance’ (as Dan Siegal calls them.)

Just such a mixed up messy situation is one that Marian Keyes portrays in the novel Again, Rachael that I am currently slowly reading. I can only read a few pages of it at a time as the inner conflict between the two main characters, Rachael and Luke dominates the mid point of the novel relating to the loss of a child and Rachael’s difficulties as person in recovery with dealing with her feelings and is taking me some time to process and digest as it also triggers many of my own abandonment memories.

In the absence of sleep and suffering from grief, lack of acceptance and self judgement she reaches for tablets and this is what infuriates Luke and leads him to walk out on her some time after she loses their baby.

Reading the portion of the book where Luke packs up all of his stuff in the early hours with a mate and wakes Rachael who then desperately pleads with her triggered memories of my husband’s best friend Russell turning up to help my husband pack up his stuff. I remember it being so painful to me I had to go for a walk but in the middle of it, the panic attack I was experiencing was so powerful I did not know how I was going to be able to breathe.

I can look back now, knowing a lot of that pain is behind me.. I can accept my husband left, that I was in some way very stuck and frozen to to my Post Traumatic Stress and that him walking out seemed to be the only way he felt he could ‘force a solution’. In time any support I had disappeared and I was left foundering all alone and in time the second head injury was the result followed by years spent in a trauma cascade wilderness of emotional desperation.

Anyway despite feeling so so much rage with Scott yesterday and struggling to digest and breathe for most of the day, today Jasper and I have been up and walked a very long walk to the lake where he chased ducks and then we made it back to the milk bar for a coffee and a chat with someone. I have managed to write and just made lunch..

At the time my marriage ended I truly felt I would not survive the pain but the truth is I did make it through, head injury and all. Lately I can have empathy for the fury and frustration I have felt and feel true sadness for the way in which, in the absence of true empathy being shown, I was sent into a wilderness, succumbing to both to that second head trauma as well as invasive surgeries (2) and multiple dental root canals and teeth extractions.. all of which had an, at times immobilizing and crippling impact. The breast cancer diagnosis came at the peak of this 18 months after the death of my beloved older sister Judith.

On the positive side speaking for the gifts of Post Traumatic Growth look at all I have learned about myself and my fellow man.. I am not like Rachael seeking pain relief, I am not like my sister putting my power in the hands of charlatans who only lead her further astray while remaining blocked and mystified in my feelings.. Yet lest that come off as arrogant in some way I can also honor she is on her own path and who knows if it may not turn around just as it did for the father in that movie The Bachelors I shared about later this week.

All I can say in closing its that I truly feel that at the moment I am living the best life I possibly can also knowing that in the end that depends upon both the choices I make and my willingness at times to surrender what cannot be changed from my past to the loving and transformative hands of my angels and higher power.