Posted by bob on May 17, 2000, at 23:15:06
In reply to Re: Breaking through the trauma - to Greg, posted by Tom on May 17, 2000, at 21:04:40
> ... The one thing about Greek men is that they are all very stoic. So that's the route I took; I wasn't going to be hurt by his death even though it overwhelmed me. As I've recently learned that is a recipe for disaster for a young boy with a developing mind...
Boy howdy can I relate to that, Tom. My therapist practically starts cursing every time I pull one of my "just stick your Irish chin out and take it like a man" routines I learned from my dad! A big part of my self-loathing has come from realizing just how much, in spite of my best efforts, I have become my father.Obviously, he didn't die on me when I was young. His name is Bernard. His father's name was Bernard. And his first son's name was Bernard. His past, present, and future. And on August 17, 1970, his oldest son and his father drowned in Lake Huron. My father and my next oldest brother held onto the keel of a capsized boat through a series of storms, over 18 hours in all, before they were rescued. Waiting for my father was my mother, who blamed him for my oldest brother's death and hated him thereafter. My family basically just died, whether our bodies were still moving around or not. And this all happened when I was 8.
I know about the memory blanks. I remember conversations with friends in high school, trying to remember their earliest memories -- and I couldn't speak up because I could recall next to nothing of my life before the accident. Even now, I have a difficult time remembering what my life was like prior to about 14 or so.
I also know about breakthroughs. Since I had spent most of junior high and high school alone trying to figure out what was wrong with me, when I finally got some counseling it came rather quickly and was completely devastating. Given the state of student mental health care, I got bounced from one short-term counseling program to another, playing lab rat for various clinical psych and social work graduate students. But even though I was suicidal, the University of Michigan had determined I had exhausted all the regular channels for student services and that I was not a candidate for further, more in-depth services. Hell, the best they could manage after a failed suicide attempt was a referral to a private practice.
[that's why, Vesper, I can empathize so strongly with your experiences with those bastards at UCLA]
Tom, there are layers within layers within layers in this. There will never be any "normal" grieving process for you or me (sorry, kelly, but maybe your experience is different). I was stuck between breakthroughs for about ten years -- years in which I tried my best to put it all behind me and live the best life I could. But like Noa said, this infuses itself into all aspects of your life -- of how you see the world, of how you react to it.
If a "final" breakthrough ever comes, I imagine it will be one so subtle that you'll never notice until someone else points it out. That'll be because you'll have made so many other breakthroughs, so many other steps towards healing, that instead of them building to one giant leap, all you'll be left with in the end are small steps.
The breakthrough I made my first senior year in college almost cost me my life. But in terms of its relationship to the core, to the heart of the matter, it was minor. An important first step, but rather small. I recently made what I believe to be my own breakthrough to the core. I did this during my worst depressive episode in ten years or more. If I had realized back then, that first time, what I know now ... there's a cold clarity of mind through which I know I would have found a much more effective, dramatic, and immediate means of killing myself than that which I had used. It took 17 years or so since that first breakthrough, but my mind finally gave up perhaps my most hideous secret to my conscious self.
Maybe the reason I could finally penetrate to that core -- an idea which has always terrified me -- was because there *is* a safe place. Or more than one. I think I have two: my therapist's office, and right here in Babbleland.
I'm glad I don't really have to break the news to you (since Noa did that already) but I'm here to drive the point home: that breakthrough of yours was probably more of a beginning than a conclusion. The more you hold onto the hope that it was supposed to be your release, your "Get Out of Jail Free" card, the more you'll block your chance for moving onto the next step.
Yes, the news gets "worse". I think another reason I made this last breakthrough was my acceptance that it would NOT provide a final release from all the pain. What I am hoping it will provide, in the next months as I come to understand it better, is some direction for finding my way out of the core of my pain so I can heal the deepest wounds first, someday to arrive at the surface with some confidence that there is nothing left underneath to continue bleeding or to fester.
What I find hardest to accomplish is to accept in my heart that I'm not the 8 year-old boy to whom this first happened. Many of my injuries, most of the behavioral patterns that keep me where I am, developed long after that. I wonder if that's how you feel when the pain starts to overwhelm you -- that you've never really grown past being 7 years old.
You see, my life has moved on without me and it will continue to do so, whether I feel I deserve it to or not.
How are you doing with survivor guilt, Tom? When I need some cathartic release from that particular demon, I like to turn my amp up to 11 and put on "I'm Still Alive" by Pearl Jam. Are you familiar with the lyrics? How about:
"Is something wrong?" she said
Of course there is
"You're still alive" she said
but do I deserve to be?
Is that the question?
and if so, who answers?The thing is, its not the question. No one deserves to be alive. If we are, then we are. Accepting that simple truth can be one of the most difficult, heart-rending things someone with survivor guilt can ever do. It means someone is irretrievably gone, and it isn't you. And that means that you need to find some way to start living again, rather than being stuck forever in that last awful moment.
So, whatever I may have learned, particularly in the last four months, I still find it difficult getting myself to go to bed, no matter how tired I am, because going to sleep means waking up, and waking up means that it's another day ... and that is simply the worst thing that can happen. I can't go to bed because tomorrow is another day.
Personally, I think that opening your eyes and getting out of bed can be the greatest act of courage one could ever hope to accomplish.
Well, Tom, you can see you've touched a nerve with at least ONE person here and I'm starting to ramble. If some of it sounds familiar, maybe there'll be some comfort in knowing you're not alone.
be well,
bob
poster:bob
thread:33774
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000517/msgs/33849.html