Processing

It’s hitting me again, all at once. The whole thing repeats itself every so often. Fresh and new, like it’s happening all over again, all that feeling. Deep, deep down, all the way down inside, so heavy, so everywhere and thick, like there’s nothing else. There’s just so much emotion that there’s this actual, physical fluidity to it. It’s really too much to describe, and way too much to process all at once. I need to dismantle it and handle the parts separately.

I know that it’s tied to a root of rejection and abandonment, and that this must have been grounded in place very early, because that same agonizingly intense longing was there, even when I was weirdly young…the longing to be loved, and needed, and nurtured by a woman in a deeply intimate way, together alongside a sort of absolute certainty that this need must forever go unfulfilled, and thus be an immutable source of endless pain.

The pain happens in response to a perception of inevitable, permanent disappointment, and to apprehension about a deep seated fear of intrinsic worthlessness being confirmed.

The anger that rises up to defend me isn’t really what I think it is; it isn’t a righteous indignation at genuine abuses and mistreatment. It’s just another actor on the stage, trying to coerce me along deeper and deeper into the deception. I will stop following it and walk calmly back to my place, where I will sit down and figure things out like a normal, healthy human being. Because that’s what I am. All of that old stuff is gone. Only the shadows of those former tyrants remain, manifesting themselves through the power of my imagination, like a PTSD attack stuck on random repeat mode. These dark, ugly things that have attached themselves to me and try to drag me down into their pit…they are not me, and they cannot have me.

I have been redeemed.

This is the reality of the situation: whatever happens, I know who I am and what I am worth. I know it in the core of my being, even if those old neural pathways are still well worn, and burned into place, and easy to slip back into at times. My awareness of this is becoming more and more solid and real to me every moment of every day, because when these onslaughts of fear and pain happen I do not bend to them. I do not allow them to control me anymore. Instead, I use these attacks as an opportunity to process what is happening. Every time this happens, I learn more, and I grow stronger.

My life is on a different wavelength now. Watch me burn all the way up with zeal and love for the truth behind every molecule in the universe. The flames don’t hurt anymore. They feed the spirit. They make me stronger as I burn.