full collection links 1- 10 . 11-20 . 21-30
i am smoking a cigarette outside my hotel, it is 6.21am and a man stops and asks me where the station is, in french. I don’t speak french but i know enough words to work out what he wants and point him in the right direction. I hope it was the station he wanted.
I am smoking because it felt like the sensible option, in case i hit bad moments or my trauma overwhelmed me and i started to drink inappropriate amounts of bourbon, or found a stranger to be inappropriate with, on, or in, or succumbed to the lure of an inappropriate drug induced high. Allow myself a little bad to ease the tension. I can return to vaping when i return, for now i need to self-manage.
I have learnt a new dutch word this week, Durven: it means to dare. Have the courage to do it, be brave and go for it. I spent most of the week holding a juggling ball with the word Durven written on it. Pressing it, holding it, rolling it around in my hands. I had picked it up at the beginning of the week, kept putting it back and picking it up again. I started to realise that it helped me to stay feeling centred, kind of in the room.
At one point i felt myself dissociating and I pressed a little harder and i felt it and the drifting away feeling stopped. When i discovered this i kept doing it and for the first time i felt a little control over it. Control is a good feeling.
We have walked straight into darkness and switched on all the lights. I have stared at things i never thought i would. I spoke of things that i had never voiced. Five decades of silence has been ended and things won’t be the same. Details i never knew i had in my memory were right in front of me and i didn’t flinch. Stared hard and looked at everything again and understood it and faced it.
I have cried more in one week than i have possibly in my whole life. I cried because i could, something seemed to shift on day two and it felt as if my emotions had connected and once started there was no stopping.
Every day there was a different pain, one evening back at the hotel my left hand ached painfully, muscle pain as if i had wrenched something lifting something heavy, the heaviest thing i had lifted all day was a coffee cup. Another day it was a knee and then one morning my jaw on one side felt as if i had lockjaw and i had trouble chewing. A few hours later it passed.
Therapist had asked me to explain feelings and emotions that i was experiencing so i asked about the inexplicable pains i was experiencing, quite normal happens all the time, ok then good to know!
We mapped out the abuse and attributed it to each abuser and my understanding of the impact and damage increased. I began to see clearly what i had done to cope and as we progressed i started to inhale the heady aroma of hope. Maybe there was a way to deal with this, maybe it is possible to resolve some things, maybe there is potential to see a new way.
I am not fixed, i never imagined that fixing was an option. I understand what has occurred. What it did to me. What i have been doing to cope with it. Once you understand something you can begin to get to grips with it.
I feel i have made peace with my inner child and we can start to work together to repair and restore. There is a sense of leaving things behind and walking forward, small tentative steps. There is a stillness in me, a sense of something being right, I feel less fractured.
i had a night off and visited old friends in their home, huge plates of food and large glasses of wine, they asked why i was in Holland, and what was the therapy for? only, they added, the wife has been in therapy for years because her father had sexually abused her. ‘You never told me’ i said, ‘likewise’ she replied. Maybe humanity should just talk to each other more, we could save time and each other.
He asked me to trust him and walk forward, i felt myself dropping the fear and embracing the idea of friendship and intimacy. A few hours in and i looked around to find myself in a friendship like i hadn’t experienced in a long time. We poked fun at each other easily and gently and enjoyed the getting to know each other. There was a security and safety that rapidly wrapped around me and made me feel as if everything would be ok.
We worked in a large room with lots of chairs and big windows, in frustrated moments of anger or uncertainty i would find myself pacing the room and shaking off the excess energy. I found myself gravitating towards him, standing near him, safety seemed to be here. When i had wandered off to growl and mutter i would return to his side or in front of him as if i was returning for guidance. It was a healthy good thing to find myself doing, in a short space of time i had learnt that he had the answers i needed and so it was best to go back for more.
By the time we have reached the end of our time together it is clear that things are not the same. I have a clarity about what we are doing, the last few exercises are smooth and almost easy to involve myself in. There is no need to dissociate, a calm, focused, feeling of purpose and a need almost to finish this and take no prisoners.
I am still a traumatised person and have C-PTSD and other quirks and dissociation is a lifestyle choice for me. I expect that if i manage to take some small steps things will improve as i progress, and subsequently these things will either diminish and no longer be needed or stop causing problems for me.
I am in the airport waiting for my flight home, a canadian teenage boy is reading 1984 and yawns a huge yawn and i recall english lessons where i did the same thing, i tell him and we laugh and we chat and he asks what i have been doing in Holland, i tell him in a couple of lines and he stares at me. His face flushes and he stares again. ‘what?’ i ask quietly … ‘me too’ he says and briefly explains about a man in his life who did things he shouldn’t have done, touched things he shouldn’t have touched The world turns and we walk together for a few moments.
As for the juggling ball, that came home with me, a present from my therapist, it will never be juggled, it has a new home and a new use now.
Durven
a blog less ordinary 