Psyche-Quakes

I’ve had some interactions with people lately in which I’ve experienced a profound recognition of dynamics in them that I have–those moments when I can suddenly and clearly see something about myself from the outside.  The more interesting parts of those interactions were actually probably more what I learned or gained by listening to them, getting to know them, connecting–but I feel like making it about me for a moment.  Or maybe not just about me, but about that uncanny sensation of otherness/sameness in a single moment.  And how a lot of how we know ourselves is in relationship, in knowing others.  And how incredibly hard–almost impossibly hard–it is to look honestly at ourselves (or at least to try) and even consider changing.  

Especially, I am struck by how crushingly hard it is to try to sort through what goes on in the head (and body, and heart) of someone who’s at the end of her rope with alcohol.  We get so tangled up in our thoughts, pain, anger, fear, desire, and desparate need that we sometimes drown in it all.  This happened to a woman I loved (love) last year, and she’s gone now.  It could have happened to me; it might still for all I know.  Right now though, I’m sharing in someone’s process, and she’s right in the thick of it.  It’s a powerful reminder of what it’s like–what it was like for me and would be again if I give up my little perch here above the flood, this little ledge where I live my life away from the currents that would take my down deep in a heartbeat.  This is no fortress, just a little ledge.  But that’s all right–I can still plant some little daisies here and make a life and home here.  It’s just as well that I can still see the closeness of the rushing waters, and hear them at night in dreams, lest I forget, lest I count myself invulnerable.  I am not; none of us are.  

But some of us are still here, and I am honored by this company I keep, these lives of bottomless courage and persistence and open-heartedness and kindness beyond words.  Not quite beyond words–I know this kindness intimately and can and will describe it.  I have had women open their hearts wide to share what they have with me, purely as gifts, and this is a debt I am proud to carry.  I have the privilege of sharing others’ struggles–the privilege of trust and honesty and vulnerability.  These things teach me.  They honor me.  And none of this is at all contingent on anything except my being real and genuine.  

I also was talking with someone about something deeply icky and terrifying, something neither one of us wants to delve into, but both of us are feeling impelled to tackle, or maybe feeling tackled by.  It’s emotional/physical stuff that isn’t supposed to go on between a adult–especially a parent–and child.  That’s about all I can bear to say.  I  barely know anything anyway, but I sense depths.  And as I was talking with this woman I caught some glimpses of what I’m dealing with, vague grey-obscured glimpses only but that’s really plenty for now.  It’s deeply unnerving; it’s terrifying; it’s overwhelming.  But I am impelled to move closer to it, and not to flee, as she is also impelled.  I don’t know how.  I don’t know if I can stand it.  

But I know to that once these things start they can’t be stopped.  This need, this drive to understand and heal in a new deep and excruciatingly painful way won’t be denied, not for ever, and perhaps not anymore.

Once I got into recovery from addiction a process began that I couldn’t abandon, no matter how scary it was, no matter how impossible it seemed.  But when the heart tastes what it needs it won’t accept anything less.  

It’s gotten another taste of something else it needs.

It’s too late to turn back.

I am afraid.

But the path beckons.

Explore posts in the same categories: Body-mind, Change, Coping strategies, Embodied spirituality, Fear, Grief, Living, Psychology, Recovery, Risk, Social Experience, Spirituality, or Something, Therapy, loss, trauma

Tags: Change, connection, Fear, healing, hope, Recovery, relationships

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