Time for a new mind map
After the chaos of the winter months of 1984, I’d like to say things quieted down, and I could then just proceed in therapy to full healing and live happily ever after. For sure, at the time I thought it worked that way — if I worked REALLY hard, fast, and fiercely, I could get over all of this quickly and be “normal” and healed. That statement alone indicates just how far from understanding myself and the situation, I really was.
Yes, I had stabilized and was no longer suicidal. And that was no small achievement. But it just meant I had finally landed at the bottom of that abyss, the crash hadn’t killed me, and I was now standing upright on two legs facing a mountain whose top was obscured by a heavy bank of clouds. I had no idea then just how high that mountain was or that I would still be climbing it today.
Anyway, given the rapidity of changes and experiences I’d undergone in the few months since leaving my parents’ house, this seemed like the perfect place to stop and do a status check. As a former lab person, when I feel overwhelmed by so many thoughts coming all at once, or confused about how to clearly tell the story next, I reach for my strongest talisman, and I make another mind map. Then, with all my thoughts spread out on the paper in front of me, I can see what they tell me — both about the things I was aware of then, and the things I realize only now, as I look back.
To spare anyone the craziness of reading that map, I will distill the essence of what it told me. I think three main things were operating…driving me…in the spring and summer of 1984: Emotional issues, physical needs, and one big problem — sex. Of course. It was the ever-present elephant in the room. But first, the other two.
Emotions
In terms of emotions, there was so much whipping me around. I had just been through a meat-grinder of an experience, riding out the storm of whether to go on living or end it all. Now that I had decided to hang around, there were the issues of how to form a life for myself, especially when you have no idea how to do that.
First, it’s hard to live a happy life without “relationships.” Even for simple friendships, I had no real idea of how to do that well. For all of my life, I’d been cut off from having anyone “close” to me. There had been none of those teen sleep-overs and BFF experiences where you stay up all night baring your soul and talking about “everything.” And it would take me years to understand just how big a loss that was, how it stunted my emotional maturity and development, and how it would drive my needs and decisions very shortly, and for many years to come.
I knew I longed for someone. I FELT such a need for a “mother,” older sister, BFF, trusted confidant, protector, even as I couldn’t articulate that back then. But I’d had none of these growing up, and I FELT its effects driving my actions. I was lonely and insecure, and when I did get a good friend, I clung to them for dear life, desperate that they might abandon me. And I needed outside validation that I had worth, or even to know what was up or down, right or wrong. I didn’t trust friends. I didn’t trust me, even as I didn’t realize it then.
Regarding trust, why would I TRUST anyone after what happened to me? The very people I should have been able to trust most – my parents – betrayed and destroyed that. As to self-confidence, given that anything I had ever felt or thought, my father discredited and replaced with his own programming, I didn’t feel I could make my own choices. And since he raised me to serve him and his needs, I was not brought up to see myself as a separate person. I wasn’t allowed to have my own needs, sense of self, or personal power, much less that I was allowed to use it or know how. I was trained that to follow my own path was hurtful to others and I should always defer to their wisdom.
So I felt the effects of these things and operated from that broken core. I knew I was broken. I just didn’t know how badly or what was causing it, much less that it needed fixing.
In terms of “broken,” I knew I was not a “full adult,” yet. I felt like a baby, ashamed of who and what I was. Not good enough. I felt desperate and like a hopeless case because I was so far behind all the other adults. I was that aberration of nature. I feared that I was so far behind that any normal methods of healing wouldn’t be enough, and worse, that it would show, and others would see my brokenness.
And then, regarding fear, there was one other one…that elephant in the room – sex. I was terrified of men, and especially the idea of having sex with them. Sex seemed like this out-of-control force that caused harm. I didn’t know then that I was deeply traumatized, or that there was even such a thing as trauma.
I only knew I was like this “child-adult,” a child in an adult’s body, desperately wishing she could be like all the other “grown-ups.” They dated, fell in love, made love…were normal. And I wasn’t.
I also didn’t understand then that the programming he’d drilled into me taught me another useless lesson — that all my self-worth was measured by sex. That was all Dad valued me for, and it was the thing he risked everything to get from me. So “sex” had a HIGH value tag attached to it. And from that programming, I equated the ability to be sexual with my self-worth, and with being loved. Without being a functional sexual adult, what good was I?
Physical
And then, add to this volatile emotional stew, a lit match — hormones. I may have been immature emotionally, but I was an adult with a body that had needs. And longings.
I was tired of “waiting for love to find me.” And even if it did, worried that I’d be unable to respond because of my fear. I’d been passive my whole life, always having to just wait for something to change, or wait for someone to rescue me, until I finally learned I had to rescue myself. So I was impatient and determined to take action. Never again would I wait and settle for passive patience.
The “Problem”
So the problem was: How does an adult who is emotionally more like a pre-teen in certain areas, with a background story no one could ever understand, much less accept, and who is way behind in terms of knowing how to find or develop relationships, meet men, and have a healthy, intimate relationship?
Tags: life, love, mental-health, relationships, writing
Soul Mosaic 
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