"I've hit rock bottom ..." and here's the update

There was a teeny weeny baby lizard outside my door yesterday. In my attempts to shoo it away from the door (my dog eats lizards), it ran inside. It escaped from what seemed like a threat into a place where it would almost certainly be killed. We humans are like this with our own minds. Out of fear, we choose to “escape” into a place that serves us even less. Our coping skills for danger remain long after the threat is gone, whether they still work for us or not. We ingrain them as knee-jerk responses when we feel trapped or afraid. Those responses can be a detriment to our health, but endlessly we repeat them anyway. What is familiar is “safe” – even when it’s not. This idea sparks debates ranging from politics to morality, from warfare to mental illness.

But it’s true. It’s true, and you know it.

The problem is human: knowing it intellectually is not the same as the ability to avoid it. And so it has been with me in my dissociative, delusional, daydreamy mind. I still had the baby-killing/fantasy man movie playing inside my skull every night like a bad film noir. I snuggled against a pillow and tried to name the feelings. “This is grief,” I said. And at the same moment it passed my lips, I felt it disconnect. That wasn’t it. It wasn’t right.

I knew an EMDR session was due, and I came up with the negative cognition for the week: I am the dutiful daughter. I am afraid to grow up and embrace adulthood.

Lying on the therapy couch, my therapist instructed several deep breaths. As I relaxed, the secret came to me: there is a small, frightened, traumatized girl in my mind who needs to be taken care of. It’s NOT an actual child; it is myself as a child … who has been beaten, who has been raped … who has been through a hell too terrible to process all at once. She thinks she is dead, and I know she needs nurturing.

The entire EMDR session focused on this amazing little-girl-survivor and her role in my stunted emotional development. I was scared to grow up because I thought I would have nothing to nurture. In fact, I kept me small and powerless just so I had something to take care of.

And the metaphorical job of Fantasy Man? He is a reminder of a pattern I follow that no longer serves me (if it ever did). You see, I have a habit of picking the most wounded man on the planet and then call it “love”, in hopes I can save him. The ugly truth of the world is that I can’t save anyone but myself. My scared and scarred little Self. When I try (see posts about Bryan and the troubles therein), *I* don’t get nurtured. There ends up being no reciprocity in my relationships and that destroys them.

My therapist and I ended EMDR with the reinforced image of my Child Mind meeting my Adult Mind. Child Mind has the innocence and the opportunity to see “growing up” as an ADVENTURE. Adult Mind has the hands and the power to make that adventure REALITY.

We don’t have to be afraid. This song lyric doesn’t have to be true:

“Your refuge turns you captive all the same.” – Duran Duran