blog 6 - fairy tale emergence pt 1

I realized something in my drawings. I saw something about myself. I have a theme of princesses looking, watching, waiting off in the distance for some destiny or some event to bring them to life. In yesterday’s drawing, it’s fear and hiding which turns into a call for the girl to go slay the dragon that is terrorizing her kingdom. The royal family has sent her into hiding in the caves of the mountain nearby, and she watches the dragon circling the palace, sometimes landing on its beautiful spires and breathing its fiery breath. At night, she watches this, and sometimes he burns the thatched cottage roofs of dried grass. We are afraid of the dark.

I am a modern fairy tale lover. The princess must master something inside herself to kill the dragon, to triumph over evil, and to set her kingdom free and usher in peace time again. The Oedipal queen has sent her away with a trusted servant into the hills and the caves. But the princess rebels. Day after day she watches the dragon taunt and threaten her home and people. And finally, she senses a way to find its lair. She decides to journey to the dragon’s lair, to go into it when it is sleeping, and fight it herself.

A young woman who is overprotected, but wants the good and wants to act. A worthy queen, a good mother, but struggling with herself.

Hiding.

Watching.

Waiting.

blog 5 - little monster active imagination

Loving my little monster.

I have been working with my dream of being on the toilet, and pooping out a large white egg with a tapeworm-like snake body attached to it and how the piece broke off as I was pulling the worm out like a long rope. 

Later in active imagination, the head of the worm turned out to be a baby crocodile like lizard, with sharp little teeth, but was a pathetic, mewling infant who aroused my pity and tenderness like any infant, however horrible the animal might be. I asked it what it needed and it said “love me” or something like that. 

And the feeling that came along with that was that I needed to love, cradle, and take tender care of that little monster inside me instead of trying to kill it, poison it, and blast it out of my body with laxatives or things like that. I cried in the AI, understanding how I have treated myself like a disgusting, scary monster when inside there is a vulnerable and helpless little rejected life. 

I understood that maybe this new life inside me doesn’t look desirable, but scary and aggressive or like a pest. Something nasty and snappy, something to treat with contempt. But really, it’s a valuable new life that I have refused to value and have been trying to kill off or flush out, instead of gestating it and allowing it to come to full fruition in life. Maybe many parts of our selves begin as small, monstrous little infants, and we infanticide or abort them too soon because we are afraid of them.

And I still want to know what is in the egg. The egg still hasn’t hatched, and it’s becoming a kind of rich inner mystery to me.

I had another active imagination recently where a large snake figure loomed up above me but not with intention to strike. It whispered in my ear with its soft hissing voice and was kindly. I sensed that it was an ally.

blog three - active imagination, encounter with an exile

This was written in Winter 2016, when I had a seven-month old baby. I had read a book called The Undervalued Self by Elaine Aron, the psychologist and researcher who developed the concept of HSP, the Highly Sensitive Person, which has been very important to me and my journey into realizing I am highly neurodivergent, probably ADHD, autistic, and with complex PTSD. It is also similar to Richard Schwarz’ Parts discussion, a form of Internal Family Systems therapy. The dialogue below occurred with me writing from the perspective of two parts—one a compassionate, caring adult, much like the Loving Parent we learn to become in ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholic & Dysfunctional Families) and the other a young part of me who was found hiding.

What are you doing?

Hiding.

Who are you hiding from?

Mom and Dad. They’re fighting again.

How does that make you feel?

Scared and bad.

What kind of bad?

Hopeless and like they don’t love me. It seems like other kids have happy parents. Or at least they aren’t lied to. Even if they get divorced, and their moms and dads don’t love each other anymore, at least they are being honest about it.

I understand that you’re hurting. Tell me more.

Mom doesn’t let me talk about my feelings. Every time I say the words “I feel” she interrupts me and tells me that we aren’t supposed to be led around by our feelings. It makes me feel so guilty. But it doesn’t change the feelings inside.

It sounds like it hurt you that you were not allowed to talk about your feelings.

Yes, it did hurt. I felt stupid and weak every time. And it didn’t help.

So you felt frustrated because you were shamed for having feelings?

Yes, exactly. The feelings didn’t go away either, it didn’t work to just deny them and so I didn’t know how to feel or how to act. I guess I figured out how to act--don’t talk about feelings and try hard not to have any.

That was wrong. It’s impossible not to have feelings and feelings are good things since they are part of life, I like that you have a lot of feelings. I really like that about you.

You do?

Yes, I do. You are a sensitive person.

I am?

Yes.

*Nods her head* I never knew what to do with the feelings, especially the sad ones, the hopeless ones, the lonely ones, the angry ones, the scared ones, the used ones.

You can tell me about them if you like.

Really? But you don’t want to hear that. Why would you want to be burdened with me?

You are precious to me. I value you. You aren’t a burden to me, you are a gift.

I feel like a burden to my mom and dad.

What makes you feel like a burden?

I can see how unhappy they are. Mom lays on the bed and cries. When I ask her about it, she says nothing is wrong. I know she’s lying. Maybe she lies about other things too. Dad says “damn kids” and gets angry all the time. He’s mean. Mom gets mad when he’s around.

Why does that make you feel like a burden?

Sometimes it seems like they are frustrated with us and sometimes it seems like because I love dad and she doesn’t, she is upset with me for loving him. I feel that I can’t trust her because she says things so differently from how she seems to feel. They aren’t honest about their problems. They make me feel ashamed for my feelings and make us act a certain way. Especially around other people, they pretend things are fine. 

That is scary. It must be terrible for you to feel so confused--seeing one thing, understanding her, especially since you pick up on things so easily, and then being told another thing. It must cause you to mistrust yourself.

I always believe them. I have wanted to get away from them for so long. I couldn’t wait to grow up when I was a little kid because I wanted to be alone so badly.

Why did you want to be alone?

So I didn’t have to feel all the pain of them being angry all the time and when I was alone, I could stop worrying.

What were you worrying about?

I would see so many signs that they were angry and full of hatred. They pretended things were okay but really there was so much upset beneath the surface. They would get mad at us and be mean. They never wanted to play or have fun. They made us work all the time. It started to seem like going to my room or working were the only things that kept fights from happening.

That’s a lot of stress for a little girl. What did you do?

I played pretend or dress up or read books. I guess I went to other places a lot. Fictional worlds and situations where I was an adult.

It sounds like you wanted to have more power. You withdrew to reduce stress and fantasized about being grown up and in control of your stimulation. Is that right?

Yes, that’s definitely right. I felt overstimulated often. School was so hard--there were so many kids and relationships to navigate, loud noises. The lockers banging, the bells screaming, the kids yelling. The noise in the lunchroom felt like a physical assault. Then at home, the anger and upset was overwhelming. The only way I felt relieved and could relax was to be alone. I’d go to my room and lock the door.

It sounds like you were trying to have control and power. Does that mean you felt out of control and powerless?

Yes, I felt like that very often. I was the youngest and the only girl. It felt like everyone else was always controlling me. Telling me what to do, how to think, and how to not have feelings. I think I even started to like reading and journals because it seemed like the only place where I was allowed to have feelings and control was in journals. In reading, I could experience feelings through characters in ways I felt I wasn’t supposed to in real life.

It sounds like school was almost violent for you. You used words like banging, screaming, yelling, and physical assault. How did you feel about school?

Yes, I didn’t notice that before, but that was how I felt about school. It was so chaotic and hard to learn. It was very stressful and embarrassing and every day I couldn’t wait for it to be over so I could be left alone. I didn’t want to be home-schooled though, I wouldn’t have wanted to be such a burden to mom or to be around her so much. She always said things about loving to be home with us and happy to be a stay-at-home mom but I think she just said that because she felt like she was supposed to feel that way and she felt guilty for not feeling that way. I think she actually hated being trapped with us. She would always make jokes about summers and dreading us, and how back to school was so great. She was so negative about child-rearing, only ever talking about how hard it was. She made me feel very afraid of doing that with my life because of what she said and how miserable she seemed. Yet she would say the opposite and it was a lie.

blog two - buried alive dream

My three uncles were standing on a street corner together, shoulder to shoulder, solemn faced. Grouping themselves together for identification. There was an air of guilt about them.

But one was missing, one was late. One was refusing to arrive. It was my father. He was late and they were all waiting for him. 

Then I was being buried alive in a sand hole.

The sand came down over me and I could feel how heavy it was. I wanted to be buried, I encouraged it and yet I knew the weight and darkness of the sand might overwhelm me. It did. It was like being in water, not knowing which end was up and I lost air so quickly, unbelievably quickly, I could not breathe. My arm was shooting upward like a tendril from a seed sprouting, but who was too weak to reach the surface of the ground and survive to blossom into a plant. 

It was like being in a dry utero, the sand caving in from all sides, filling my nose and mouth, the darkness, the dryness.

Blog One - wherein we meet

“It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world.”

The above is the stock verbiage offered through Squarespace’s blog tool. It makes me a little uncomfortable that I have wanted to launch businesses, and I have wanted to turn hobbies—pretty much every hobby I’ve ever had—into “something more” ie, something I could earn money doing and seek validation from others. Or maybe I have “a creative project to share with the world.” Maybe I don’t.

I’m kind of over all of that. I am content with speaking these words into the void. Hearing only the gently soothing tap of this beautiful Mac keyboard beat a steady rhythm of my own thoughts and the pleasure of the feedback of each little keystroke tapping out the words as they occur to my restless, overstimulated, fearful brain is rewarding enough.

Something inside me refuses to try to perform for the faceless internet any longer. I will only perform for the faceful internet. Ha. I wrestle with mental health, parenting, special needs—my own and my children’s, divorce, abuse, trauma, difficulty trusting others, faithlessness in everything I was told to believe in as a child and young person, being controlled by other people, feeling out of control of myself. Discovering the truth about my self and my situation in the world.

Maybe this blog will partly be a memoir of the junk I tell my boyfriend and have told my therapists. Maybe this blog is for me only to read and try to divine what sort of thing I am—this soul, this consciousness, this form and essence. What is this quintessence of dust?

As long as I don’t give way to hopelessness and despair, I believe I am doing well. And I am not giving way to hopelessness and despair.