Distraction and Disaster

I dropped off on reading WWRWW for about a week, but after last night I was looking for some guidance so I cracked the book open to where I left off last time. Per the eerie usual the message was exactly what I needed to hear, not just for guidance moving forward, but in explaining what happened. 

The deep work is a lot like sexual arousal. It begins from ground zero, accelerates in plateaus, becomes sustained and intense. If the plateaus are interrupted harshly, you must begin all over again. There is a similar arousal tension in working with the archetypal layer of the psyche. If the tension is interrupted, one has to start nearly from scratch. So, there are many bones on the road, juicy, nice, interesting, savagely exciting bones. But somehow they cause us to be carried off into an amnesia, to not only forget where we are in the work but to forget what the work is at all.

And then: 

We begin to understand that this process of remaining conscious, and particularly not giving in to distracting appetites while trying to elicit psychic connection, is a long process, and one that is difficult to hold to. We see the wily little dog trying his damnedest. Yet it is a long way from the deep archetypal unconscious back to the conscious mind. It is a long way down to the names, and long way back to the surface again. Holding knowledge in consciousness is hard when there are snares along the path. 

And finally: 

The little dog learns the names of the women one more time and races back to his master. He ignores the feast on the road and the enticing smells from the bush. Here we see the consciousness of the psyche rising. The instinctive psyche has learned to curb itself, prioritize, and focus. It refuses to be diverted. It is now intent.

But from nowhere a dark thing suddenly jumps out at the little dog. The black stranger shakes the dog and shouts, "Tell me those names! What are the names of the young women so I may win them." The black stranger does not care for duality or the finer points of the psyche. To him the feminine is a possession to be won and nothing more. 

The black stranger can be personified by a real person in the outer world or a negative complex within. It does not matter which, for the devastating effect is the same. This time the dog engages in unrestrained battle. Whether male or female, this occurs in outer life when an incident, a slip of words, an odd thing of some sort, jumps out and tries to make us forget who we are. There is always something in the psyche that tries to rob us of the names. There are many name robbers in the outer world also.

Forgive that you may not know all the background behind these paragraphs. If you are familiar with the book, she is deconstructing a fairytale as it relates to archetypes of the psyche. Without knowing the particulars of the fairytale, I think you can get the gist. 

For me it brings a rushing clarity to the hurricane-like emotions and memories I was pummeled with last night. It was so fierce at its peak I thought I might bash my head into something to make it stop. 

I had become distracted again from my deeper self-knowing, separated again from instinct. I had numbed down in light of Roi's recent renewals to commitment in recovery and his resulting moodiness and proclamations of wanting things to work. To compensate I attended a lot of meetings, read a lot of blog posts, and sought a therapist. All good things, but without listening to the deep instinct I was lost. I wandered off the path. 

I had extinguished the light, letting darkness and confusion come in again. I tried to find an outside source of light, exhausted myself researching the links between emotional abuse, addiction, relational trauma, betrayal trauma, PTSD, etc. Tried listening to the voices of others instead of my own. My inner predator was aligning with the outer black stranger, setting myself up to be robbed of my "names". 

Last night that inner voice was angry and wanting to be heard again, beating against the dark, screaming to be let out, to have the light turned back on. 

I'll continue to go to meetings, to go to therapy as soon as my preferred therapist has an opening, but in the meantime I have to be vigilant against distractions and name robbers, both internally and externally.

 

I Should be Writing

Instead of pacing the dark hallway upstairs; a ghost who can't find peace. Instead of kneeling on the bed moaning and crying. Instead of scratching my forearm with semi-sharp tools. Instead of twisting on the inside like a tortured and trapped animal. 

I've been to a lot of meetings lately, and while they give me some relief it does nothing to validate the cause of the pain I've kept silent for so long. Everyone is calm at the meetings, aside from the occasional "share" turning to quiet sobs. I share, but only a little. More than five or so sentences and I feel my throat tighten. If I let it loosen I'll only scream, unable to put the pain into coherent words.

I've read about people who suddenly remember childhood abuse they had "forgotten", how it comes out of nowhere one day while doing the dishes, or at a therapy session, or while playing with the kids. A spinning, dizzying assault that the mind just decides it's time to release. No heads up, no warning, no time for preparing. 

It doesn't make sense, what happened here is recent. I've been living it as an adult, but under the circumstances of financial dependence, I was burying a lot. Too much, and it's all rushing in at once, roaring hurricane-like in my head and sending me into fits. Eventually it subsides, leaving my skull aching and hollow, my guts compressed, and somewhere I can't locate I feel "it" rebuilding, gathering itself up. 

Lonely-ish Holiday

Facebook. Again. It struck me as I checked in with FB this morning that most of my friends have holiday plans that include friends, family, AND significant others. Per the usual, Roi is somewhere else on this holiday, as he is most holidays (except Christmas). 

It bothers me a little because there's something about it that's so obviously and glaringly wrong and says so much about our "relationship". At the same time, I'm glad to be alone to do as I want without having to be triggered because we're at a party or a beach. I'm glad I don't have to be miserable in that particular confusing sucky way. 

I'm going for a bike ride today. It's gorgeous weather. Just right for bike riding and we are blessed with long paved trails just around the corner. After that a graduation party which I'm ambivalent about. Parties for me, with or without Roi, have become difficult. I'm not good at small talk, and maybe I'm not even very good at relaxing and having a good time. I'm too serious for my own good far too often. But I'm going to make myself go, if for no other reason than that I've missed too many celebrations because of some addiction drama playing out in my realm. I've lost too much. 

So I'll go, and I'll try to smile, try to relax, try to celebrate in a friend's small life victory and be happy about it. 

Just for today. Tomorrow can suck it.

Endless Looping

I made several phone calls to therapists the other day and I've heard back from most of them. There is one in particular I want to see because she offers Neurofeedback, a treatment I've found helpful in the past to deal with ruminations, but also with my already present hyper-focus ADD which makes trauma worse. My mind needs to focus on big problems, and if there is trauma present in my life, my mind will happily focus on solving it. Trouble is, without an end to the "outer predator" inflicting trauma I can get stuck in an endless loop. Neurofeedback trains my brain directly to calm down a little, to get back in my body and out of my head, and I'm suddenly able to take care of all the little tasks that need tending to. 

I know that whatever else I do, if I can't stop the endless looping and tend to those tasks, I'll never be able to leave or decide to leave or take the steps to leave if it's what I decide. 

Roi is on his little getaway and reports that it's very good for him and he's able to work well but he misses me. I can't say it back. I don't miss him at all. I wish he would stay away forever. No break-up, no abandonment, just disappear -- dissolve like smoke in a gentle breeze. 

I'm pretty sure he's been sober of all three of his addictions for probably four weeks or so. I have no proof, just circumstantial evidence. I trust how I feel about it. Yet it doesn't make me happy, or at least as happy as he was hoping. For one thing, of course I don't trust it to last, not given the history. I've hoped too many times and I'm tired of that game. I'm tired of being Charlie Brown and him Lucy in the whole, "I swear, THIS time I won't pull the football away", game. Tired of opening myself, letting my guard down, only to find out it was all a ruse. 

Addiction beng a sickness or not, the effects are the same as any other form of emotional abuse and I'm not in the mood to forgive it or excuse it. There are so many amends to be made, and he's still not in that space of feeling like he needs to make more amends, and I'm still firmly in that place of needing serious and thorough amends before I'll even consider opening the doors so much as a sliver.

In Which I'm Disgusted with Myself

Last night Roi wanted to spend some time together before he left. I wasn't very into it feeling a little raw about his trip, but I obliged. Perhaps I should not have, but I wasn't looking to punish him either. I couldn't really sort out my feelings.

We were laying on the bed talking, or rather, he was talking trying to be nice and say nice things. Things I don't particularly trust and I was just trying to breathe. I was staring at the top shelf of our built-ins and my eyes settled on a black binder which I assumed was my collection of photos I developed in college. I felt like looking at them so I pulled the binder down. Only it wasn't those photos, it was a collection of writing I did in the two years following my divorce.

I opened to a page that started, "why can't I get over D?"; my stomach lurched. I took the binder downstairs to read it. I turned page after page after page of me complaining, whining, and pining over my failed marriage, my abusive ex, and the two men I fell for in the aftermath. And suddenly I'm seeing myself in a new light.

How long have I been letting my life be defined by who I'm in relationship with or not in relationship with? How much have I given up of myself? Who am I?

Trigger - Road Trip

Roi feels he needs to get away so he's leaving tomorrow for a week. He's going to visit a friend who I more or less trust so I'm not particularly concerned about Roi's acting out any more radically than the usual low-grade acting out. 

But generally, Roi has used his "need to get away" as a convenient tool for acting out, most of which I only have circumstantial evidence of, but enough that I am convinced despite his denial. He denies everything I don't have direct evidence for. 

Additionally, we are dead broke at the moment and he's claiming we're going to end up in line at the food kitchen if something doesn't change soon, so it seems a little irresponsible to be taking a trip that won't add a LOT of expense, but will add some. 

Lastly, it just rubs me all kinds of wrong ways because it's more of Roi taking care of Roi, which I get you need to do in recovery, but historically Roi taking care of Roi didn't stop the acting out or all his accessory (emotionally abusive) behaviors.

I actually want him to go because I want some time to myself, but I don't like all these ways I feel about this nor the fact that no matter what words I use to bring it up he'll just twist it to try and make me feel guilty for feeling how I do.

The In-Betweens

Last night I was pretty devastated after the meeting. I cried in a stranger's arms with more strangers milling about, I cried outside in the dark as more people approached me to tell me their story, or to just reach out a hand and lay it on my shoulder or my back. I cried all the way home. I cried when I got home. 

That's more crying than I've done in the last 4 years combined. 

But I felt better during the meeting, and I felt better during the Sunday meeting, and I feel better when I write here or when I'm reading WWRWW or when I'm working on my creativity 12-steps. Still, nothing is happening during all the in-betweens. I'm not working, not in my work with Roi or on my own side work. I do nothing in-between my recovery work. Everything has come to a grinding halt and I feel my life like a big warm beast breathing in the dark, silent and still except for the rhythmic breath. 

I don't know how to wake it up, how to get it to move, how to bring back its energy.