Down the Rabbit Hole

I have been on this journey without a map, leaving my destination up to the universe. But, instead of turning right and heading out into the world to seek my fortune, I have turned left onto the road less traveled.  In fact, it isn't a road at all, but a path full of turns and switchbacks that continues to take me deeper and deeper into myself and the issues I ultimately must uncover in order to move forward. I think, of all the things I have done in my life, this is the most difficult task I have undertaken.  There is no one who can share this journey, and no one who can really understand what I have lived and what I am currently experiencing. However, I have chosen my partner well, and although he hasn't lived my trauma, he supports me in processing it and provides me a safe place to fall when I need it.

My current journey has included another round of therapy.  In the past, I have sought out therapists to work through disruptive circumstances that have been bound by time, particularly radical change and tragic events.  My therapists have helped me to process my feelings and choose effective responses to these times in my life, and I have come out of therapy with new tools to call upon if I face similar circumstances in the future.  This is how therapy is supposed to work.

My current therapy experience is the result of an incident this summer that uncovered long-unresolved trauma from my childhood in an abusive household.  I was visiting my childhood home (which I escaped from the day after I graduated from high school) to see my step-father whose health has been declining and who is now slowly dying at home from cirrhosis.  In the middle of an innocuous conversation, he asked, "Do you remember when...'" and proceeded to describe one of the most terrifying events of my early adolescence.  I was speechless, not just because he brought this up in the middle of an unrelated conversation, but because being in that house again, all of the physical terror of that day came back in a rush. 

This is not a memory I have suppressed, but I have become very adept at intellectualizing my childhood abuse which effectively removes the emotion attached to it.  In this case, my defenses were down, and I was once again experiencing the terror of that day.  I held myself together for the next few minutes until I made an excuse to leave, and when I got into the safety of my car with my husband driving, the trembling and crying began.  I had shared this particular event, a recitation of facts, with my husband years ago, and we were both surprised by my reaction.  I really thought I had this under control.  But, as I have since come to realize, this is not something to control.  I need to really examine my childhood in all of its ugliness, including the fear, pain, humiliation and deprivation I experienced, in order to move forward. I have headed down the rabbit hole where nothing is as it seems.

The people who knew me during that time in my life would never have suspected that my home life was as awful as it was.  My defense has been to overdo and overachieve and put on a smiling face in public.  I believed my own ruse because that is how I survived.  Through my therapy, I have realized that I developed an amazing skill set that has allowed me to accomplish much, but I don't need the defenses anymore because I am safe now, and those things that have terrorized me for almost 50 years can no longer hurt me.

My treatment includes a good deal of reading, and I appreciate this because this honors how I process information.  I have come to understand that my mother was a narcissist, and because I did not fit into her construct, I became a target for her own anger and frustration.  Trapped in the Mirror has helped me to see myself in others' stories about their relationships with narcissistic parents who were unable to provide the love and care every child needs.  The Drama of the Gifted Child has helped me to understand how my coping skills have been a blessing, but have also shut me off from my own feelings. I am about to start M. Scott Peck's People of the Lie which explores the idea of evil and may provide some insight into how I avoided the fate of many children of abusers who become abusers themselves. 

My own escape is something I need to address because I am not sure, at this point, of how I managed to survive relatively intact.  If I had to guess, I would say that reading saved my life.  I knew, from an early age, that my situation was not "normal" because I didn't see it in the books into which I escaped.  But that is a topic for another therapy session.

In the meantime, I am about to hit the road to go back to my childhood home to visit my dying step-father and hopefully to recognize that even in that house where much of my terror originated, I am safe.  THAT is the work for today.  Wish me luck.