excruciatingness

You had an exhausting weekend.  I hope the dog is okay. I'm glad the rest of you are...okay, too.

I think we all have a bit of dissociation.  In everything, there seems to be a spectrum, from full involvement, to none. And I think many of us dabble. We only need a little to hide. We don't need the full escape.  It seems like the way to survive...It's weird, but I also remember learning to leave my body while living in that house.  I would lift out of me, then up.  I could look back and see my body on the couch. I would travel along the corner between the ceiling and the wall, but I could not get out of the room.  I never went anywhere interesting. I was just leaving me.

We do learn to detach, to withdraw our emotion. I remember being in an RC meeting one night. I was talking about being raped. I was very calm, very conversational. But I was shaking and I could not stop.  I was a little uncomfortable, but my co-counselor said, let it go, just keep shaking. I asked what I was releasing. She said, "Terror."  That shocked me. I thought I had conquered all of my emotions. I did not know I was storing terror.

I read an article recently - Sex? Or Assault?  I was thinking about the title, about the fact that we can't seem to tell the difference between sex and rape.  I started thinking that we have forgotten how to have sex. We know the mechanics, we can go through the motions, but here is another place in our lives where we have forgotten how to be vulnerable.  We use sex to simulate vulnerability and attachment.  We don't seem to know how to be truly bonded with our partners...

And...I am tired today. My son and his wife were having a difficult time together last night.  I was on the phone with each of them for a while. I worried and prayed for them all night. I love them both so much.  I  want their marriage to succeed. But I don't want them to be torturing each other's souls.  They each feel like a victim, both have excuses to avoid therapy. I keep coming back to - they need counseling. They need some outside opinions and they need someone to help them develop and use the tools needed to change their patterns.

But neither wants to go first. Asking for help is absolute vulnerability. It is scary as hell.

I wish I could wave my Mima wand and make everything okay.  Unfortunately, my screaming when my son was young is the root of his side of the problems. And she is carrying pain from what her family did when she was young.

Change is even scarier than hell.  But I think that way down deep we know the pain is almost unbearable when we 1. face what happened to us and 2. acknowledge what we have done to others.These processes are excruciating.

Pray they have the resilience and fortitude and the strength to be vulnerable, to change...

I'm going to knit and them to sleep...

Hope you sleep well.

Love and hugs from Clare