Literally.
One story.
In my life.
It is not a struggle, it is a journey of discovery that began with a Child
who refuses to die.
And now I am in touch with Thing, whose mouth I stitched shut a long
time ago. Thing,
who is not. Who is for. Who is for using.
Yet this is not a story about being used. It is about a glacial
progression, millimeter
by millimeter, back into my body and my life and my self. Back into who I
am. With no thanks to the health services, and that is another story.
This is a story about good helpers who are long dead in the world of
reality, people who were my solace, guides, lighthouses, compasses and bullshit
warners – and still are.
It is about what and whom I meet in my journey: a punitive god, Attila
who is an amazon (“And you thought that this was only a man’s name!”), a
duchess with wide, sweeping skirts that frightened children can hide under, a
Ministry of Truth, a critic who knew that the world would be a better place if
I were dead, a volcano of violence who
wanted to kill me because I stopped him from “doing angry”, a restaurant with caged
little people who are tormented by experts on non-violence – and a moon who
sees everything, understands everything and judges no one. And many, many
others.
All the entities in my story have their own story. Some, Like Critic,
can tell me what they did to help me survive my childhood, and others, like
Thing and the violence volcano, can finally get the chance to tell me what I
did to suppress them … and what they did when my control slipped and they took
over.
My story is about meeting them all with recognition and respect when
they emerge, accepting what they have to tell me, thanking the ones who helped me and
owning my denial of those who were not allowed into my life.
And my story is about telling them, each and every one of them, as
often as is needed, that we are now in a new situation with different needs:
Old dangers are no longer relevant, old defences harm more than they help.
My story is about asking, with genuine respect and acceptance, what my
Selves can help me with in the future, and about seeing how we can work
together to meet the needs I have now.
It is a story about allowing them to contribute
what they do best: warn, react, protect, think, feel, fight, analyse, plan, enjoy life, evaluate … and letting them all find their place in the wholeness that is me.
I have lived with this story a long time, telling it to myself in
dreams and thoughts and writing. And I will continue to do so as long as I am
capable of it. To me, the story is a part of being human. Being me.
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