One step at a time
When you feel like you are losing control of things, you grab onto to something you know you can control. For me, most times this is not really a healthy choice (I am working on it). There is skill in pulling a razor over your skin light enough not to cut and hard enough to create pain and leave a temporary mark. It is almost like art. Talk about focus and concentration. Probably not the mindfulness exercise at the top of a most-effective list. The real control comes mentally, as much as you want to break the skin, as much as you want to scar, you fight the urge - this is not about damage, it is about control. This is not about punishing, it is about pulling out of one emotional place and into another. It is shameful and full of guilt, which is why I don't talk about it, I don't tell. Until now. You don't heal by keeping secrets.
I was having trouble putting words to my feelings this morning in session. I understood there was fear - a lot of it, yet there was more, it was a different fear, and I didn't know how to explain it. I left it as fear and uneasiness and went for "I'm ok" - more to convince myself than anything else. I knew things were gong to be uncomfortable, and I figured this was just what "uncomfortable" was going to feel like for this part of the journey. As always, just because session ends does not mean my mind does.
There were a lot of feelings and emotions that hit today, yet lets just stay with the the first part of session for now. That "fearful" feeling stuck with me all day, it is still lingering at a certain level. I started figuring it out on the way home. As I sit on the rational side of the fence, I know that what I am about to explain falls fully under the "what we feel is not necessarily reality" and yet, once I identified it, I had no second thoughts of it being any different. Kind of that "AH! THAT'S IT!" moment.
Yes, I was scared, frightened to the core. I was in trouble. Not, I was in distress, no this was I did something bad and now it is out there and I I am going to be in trouble for it. I was wanting to run before the ass chewing and lecturing started in. Simply, I was a frightened kid who just knew they were going to get punished - whether I deserved it or not. I told the big secret and now I was about to pay for it. It was familiar because it was the fear that played such a huge part in me never saying anything during or for years after. It is the fear that has my heart racing right now as I write about it.
Now, just to set the record straight and stepping back over to the rational side of the fence, I was not going to get yelled at, punished, or an ass chewing. It is not going to happen. It did not happen today and it is not going to. I got compassion and sympathy, which sadly I still am pretty unfamiliar with understanding. I still find it very difficult to comprehend "you didn't do anything wrong" and it be the truth. It was pretty easy to figure it all out as soon as I stopped long enough to listen to the phrase that kept playing over and over in the back of mind, "please don't be mad at me." I can only guess that I will have many emotions and feelings that come about and won't actually match up to things. I just wish sometimes that I could identify them much quicker than hours later. Just think of the feedback I could get if I figured it out in session! In time I guess.
I developed a bad habit many, many years ago - punish myself before someone else has the chance. It either made the punishment I did receive feel a lot less or it avoided the punishment all together. Also, as I became my own judge and jury through the years, everything became punishable. My very existence was grounds for punishment. With that, you can imagine the desire (for lack of a better word) to punish myself for today. I told. I told the big secret, I told what happened and if no one else is going to punish me, then I will have to do it. Thing is, just keeping that secret all these years has been a punishment in itself. My mind is so confused, I am so confused. Rational and emotional are battling it out again and good ol' wise mind is just sitting there waiting for them to get done brawling so it can make a ruling.
This all doesn't even touch the second part of session. I still don't know what the hell happened there. That was something beyond fear, that was terror, unexpected frightening terror. All of a sudden I was in danger and I was going to get hurt and it hit so fast. I didn't see it coming. Even though reality was that I wasn't in danger, I was not going to get hurt, and I was safe, I lost that. I am not sure I could have told you where I was as I am not sure what I was seeing around me. I do remember saying, "come get me" over my usual "you got me?" That was scary and I made it through it. There is something comforting about letting myself believe that I am not going to have to go through this alone. Again, another unfamiliar concept, although I am pretty willing to get familiar with that one.
I got through a good part of the day and made it home safely. I tried to take a nap (by Tess' suggestion) yet never could get relaxed enough. She, on the other hand, can sleep anytime, anywhere, and in any position. Silly dog. I found myself laying there thinking about things, telling myself I had not done something bad by writing out the abuse, by "telling the secret". If anything I had done something good even if I couldn't grasp that just yet. I struggled with wanting to punish myself and trying to convince myself that I have not done anything to be punished for. I remembered that it was ok if I was scared and afraid and it was ok to admit that I was scared and afraid. As well, it was ok that I was a bit emotionally distressed, it was a tough round today (that I safely lived to tell about).
I also very bluntly told myself that since I was more on the emotional side tonight, I was not, under any circumstances, to touch the pretty blue knife.