Defining Moments

I am quite baffled most of the time at the tenacity of my legacy's ability to control my daily existence. So much so that I have even started questioning the very reality that I seem to be living. I am under no illusion that this is a defining moment for me and that I am in a battle for my very life. It may be startling to some, maybe even most, that I have over the last 3 months become suicidal again. This is not to say that I have neglected my spiritual practices, or therapy, or any of the other recovery based programs in my life. I haven't. But I have been faced with the stark reality of what recovery means for me in real terms and what kind of life I eventually may have. And that view is not what I had expected. Nor is it one I had even hoped for. Lately I have taken firm steps to detach from all expectations, of letting go of any hope for a better life or a different one. I have done this because I have been engaged in a deadly cycle of having hope, having it crushed, then spiraling into deep depression over and over again. I have been utterly frustrated and lost in this cycle for months now not knowing where to turn or what to do. Being stuck in this cycle questions the very tenets of what recovery promises. For instance, will I be able to be present in my relationships whether it be friends or partners? Will I be able to do simple things like get on a plane without having panic attacks or memory flash backs? Will I be able to recover my sense of taste or smell? Will I be able to sleep through the night uninterrupted? Or at a basic level, will I have the ability to feel vulnerable again?

During these last few weeks I have had to come face to face with my legacy without blinking, and the unflinching view has been a sobering one. I am a very visual person at the best of times. I think this is because I love art so much. Over the years I have studied art, graduated with an Art History degree, and generally love to view art in all of its aspects. On occasion I have even dabbled in it. Certainly my garden is a testament to my artistic eye for color, design, and placement of form. I do believe too that this language of art has given my core the ability to speak to me in ways that it was not able to before. In ways that he adult me can understand. Today was one of those days. During my therapy session I saw myself alone in a room with a heavy matte gray colored steel door between me and the outside world. As I felt into what it was like to be there, I realized it was a safe and protected space but sparse. The room was not devoid of warmth though. It had a familiarity to it that was comforting and welcoming. As I looked around I began to understand that the me who inhabits this room is in fact the real me. And that the other me, the adult me, the one that exists outside in the world is really just a very good likeness of that "real me".

I am beginning to tap into a great deal of compassion for the me that is in this room, compassion for why I found it necessary to build this fortress and why I still find it necessary to inhabit it. This room was at one time my sanctuary from the reality of being abused, an extreme safe place to escape the extreme nature of the abuse being perpetrated on me. But now it has become something different. I do understand on an intellectual level that this room is no longer needed but little Stevie does not. He still thinks that the insanity of his childhood still exists just outside the steel door. That to unlock just one of the many locks is tantamount to experiencing horrific things all over again . At that moment my therapist asked me to sit with the possibility of considering going near to the door. I could feel the panic rising uncontrollably from deep within me. It took me a while to ground myself but in that time I realized what I am up against. That this life I had constructed so many decades ago is still controlling my very existence.

Now I am faced with the reality of what these visuals mean for me. What they mean for my chances for recovery.

I am at a defining moment in my life. I have let go of all expectations, surrendered to my reality, accepted that this room may be where I live out the rest of my life. But I have also begun to understand that the adult me is the only bridge to the outside world that Stevie has right now and that I must not let go of that connection. I do believe he trusts me and has for some time now otherwise I do not think he would have let go of so many memories. I believe that he knows on some level I can handle them and that I continue to be able to. But this relationship of passivity, of me being his conduit for letting go is changing, changing into one of activity, of a two way conversation, a conversation where I somehow find a way to become his agent of healing and he mine.

I have an immense amount of empathy and compassion for little Stevie. I know first hand what he has gone through. I hope too that he has empathy and compassion for me as well. For I think he knows on some level that it is as difficult for me to live in two worlds without inhabiting one as it is for him to live out his life in that little room.