Riding the waves of this present experience is requiring presence in each moment...
The need to control is deeply ingrained, nagging every moment with its millions of millions of suggestions to take charge of situations.
"Even if we could control things and people, even if we got what we wanted, we would still be ourselves. Our emotional state would still be in turmoil." taken from The Language of Letting Go, Melody Beattie.
The first time I lost control of my senses, fear of what I felt.
Fear of knowing things others do not want me to know.
Fear of hearing what others do not want me to hear tormented me.
No matter how hard I try I am unable to shut this knowing, this hearing, this feeling off.
Some girls in women's bodies were verbally accusing me of lying about my past, ganging up on me, lashing out with their words in full out assault, seeking to break me, to expose me as the liar that they were convinced I was. As their attack continued, I felt their need to break me, it felt like they need to destroy me & I could not understand why.
Each feeling another experienced entered my body, taking over every part of my mind. Creating confusion I could not escape from. Every thought in my mind echoed all that I was taught, the thoughts screamed "you are crazy", "You can't know things people hide, you can't hear things that are not said, you are just a girl in a woman's body, uneducated and completely insane." Was I actually feeling the rage from these girls, or was it mine?
Were they truly out to destroy me, to break me into nothing? What would they gain from this?
These thoughts and questions were feeding this fear and it grew, becoming too much to bear, driving me into a corner with no escape. Screaming at the top of my lungs in horror, grasping for some measure of control it consumed me.
One moment I was struggling, as tension froze my muscles and my mind, the next my entire body was limp and I collapsed to the floor.
With no thoughts, no feelings, a nothingness encased me... Silent emptiness held me as I lay motionless against a door frame. I could see these girls, scrambling in confusion. I could see their lips moving, but could not make out what they were saying, chaos was raging around my body in the world I had just been a part of, yet was no more. I do not know how long I remained in this state, only that a ringing in my ears came long before I was released from this emptiness.
I came out of it running, fear driving me to escape the memory, the horror, finding myself in the hospital within days of the event. I do not know how long I was in the hospital or what happened while I was in there, just that I had to get out, I had to get to my babies...
Nothing had changed, I was still me, still fearful, still weak, still in turmoil.
The next time I lost control was worse, I was unmovable and do not remember being taken to the hospital.
I barely remember much about the third time, only that the doctors told me I was traumatized beyond understanding and were placing me on mental disability, telling me I would never have to work or worry about anything. I will be supported financially so that my children were taken care of.
These experiences created a fear that never left and 22 years later that fear awoke as I felt the loss looming, it taunted me with visions of nurses and doctors surrounding me. The need for control drove me to harm myself, I wanted to feel something, anything rather than enter that silent emptiness again.
The next thing I knew was as the grief consumed me while looking in the mirror, the only thing left that I loved about me was my long beautiful hair. As thoughts stabbed me, screaming unworthiness of anything beautiful, I cut off my hair... I knew this would hurt me on a deep level, and make me look as horrible as I felt and it did.
Staring at my long hair laying on the vanity in front of me tears erupted I was afraid to look in the mirror to acknowledge the woman I had become. I had done this to myself, and it had the desired effect, stopping the void from taking me... Yet I wondered if I could climb out of this darkness, was it possible to find a reason for living, for loving again?
That was 3 years earlier, 3 years of the fear of the void driving me down many roads seeking understanding of the fear, of the void before I could no longer avoid its arrival. In those years I learned much, experienced great joy, passion and self-love creating illusory beliefs that I was healed of this fear, of this void.
When familiar horrors wrapped their sticky strands around my mind, panic and fear drove my need to control onward. I began running, I could not go there again, it could not be happening again.
With all the work I had done, all the knowledge I had gained it was not possible, was it?
I ran from moment to moment for over 6 months desperately searching for a way to escape its inevitability.
Yet on it came, when thoughts of harming myself yet again to escape its grasp flooded into my mind I panicked. I did not want to die, I did not want to harm myself again.
Regardless of how I sought to control, how I created the outcome I perceived would set me free, nothing had changed, I was still haunted by the void... I had not changed, I was still in turmoil, still that scared little girl with so many beliefs and fears to climb up from.
Fear pushed on, driving me to a state of brokenness, as I gave into the fear. Allowing it to consume me, allowing the loss of control to consume me, willing it to be done, willingly, waiting for the void to take me yet again. I was beaten and broken, I had no more fight left in me. I resigned to its power and opened myself up to what ever was going to happen, it was not as hard as I believed.
The void approached, I opened myself to it, and released all fear choosing to experience the void seemed my only option.
I had tried forgetting, tried running, tried controlling even tried hurting myself to escape it, now it was time to stop trying and submit...
It did not take me...
I waited and waited for it, yet it did not come...
What did come was years of grief as the flood gates opened.
Grief for the lost little girl who had never been cared for, never been safe, never been allowed to need, to want.
Grief for the years of keeping her trapped in the pain and fear of unworthiness, of shattered hopes and dreams.
Grief for failed attempts at control, at illusory foundations of strength and security.
Grief for years of believing I had healed that little girl as I discovered she was still so very wounded.
I released all need to control the grief and chose to experience it once and for all, regardless of how it effected my life, regardless of how the outside world viewed me. I released the need to be strong, the need to be what my husband and family need me to be as my world shattered around me.
I experienced acceptance as understanding showed me that I had created this world out of fear, out of the need to escape and it was not working, it kept pulling me back to this place of fear, I opened myself to forgiveness for my actions, my thoughts, my illusions and entered a place of humility.
It has been a few weeks now and I am slowly finding my way, slowly learning new ways of living outside of the need to control, discovering that I am okay regardless of the waves that come and go, regardless of the depths of grief that still visit me, regardless of the memories that arise for me to work through and heal.
This breaking of all that I perceived OK, has shifted my world around me, making space for my relationships to begin fresh, with no need to rush out for the next best tool to heal, to repair, to mend, to be...
But who am I, with out turmoil, without fear? Who am I without the need to run from the void?
One wave at a time...
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