11. Aug, 2014

Turning point

Understanding the origins of trauma is complicated, working through trauma towards healing feels like climbing a jagged cliff face with no shoes, no gloves and no safety harness in place to catch you in case you fall!

My fingernails are bloodied and raw with the sheer effort of holding onto what is familiar! The idea of complete surrender in therapy is like asking me to relinquish my tenuous grip on the cliff face and to allow myself to freefall backwards into an abyss of uncertainty!

I wrote in a recent blog that I am guilty of internalizing my thoughts and feelings. I am not and have never been a screamer, a shouter, an arguer or a debater, in fact I don’t think I have ever had enough self esteem to believe that I could dominate and win an argument. I prefer instead to slink off and unhealthily process my inner turmoil in my distressed inner world. But this isn’t working for me!

I have reached a turning point in therapy! Every instinct I have is telling me to turn and run like the wind! To mobilize my army of defenses because my border, my boundaries, my inner sanctum are all at risk of being infiltrated.

My therapist is asking me to step into a land that is so foreign, I find myself at risk of becoming an asylum seeker, a refugee of my mind – lost, with no guidance, no familiarity and no certainty.

I am a self confessed control freak!

Can I trust my therapist to hang onto my safety harness? Will she take hold of my hand and guide me through a territory unknown? Will she carefully nurture my tortured soul and help rebuild and restore any damage done in the process of cleansing it?

I have never felt so vulnerable and powerless in my life! But the truth is I do hold all the power!  I can either choose to continue to exist each day in a vacuum of emptiness, or I can take a leap of faith in the hope that I can discover new and exciting lands blossoming with untapped opportunity.