And a key symptom of healing, I see, is beginning to realize what was always there, but I couldn’t name it, couldn’t see it. Imagine if Jupiter were to somehow disappear from sight. As we learned about gravity and the universe, we would begin to infer it was there, based on its effects, but it would be another thing entirely to SEE it with our eyes.
We all live in oceans–Finding Nemo and Dory were interesting metaphors, for me–and things float down from out of sight sometimes. It floated down to me today how often I reached out to my father in my youth for support and reassurance and guidance, and “fathering”, and how completely he rejected me. And how I ignored it and rationalized it, and pretended it didn’t matter.
This pretending, itself, becomes a symptom, that of dissociation. As I read about trauma, I realize how my difficulty in connecting to a sustained purpose is all part of the package.
And I realize that the only sustained emotionally nurturing relationship I have had in my life has been the one I built with my children. And even that is based on the healing nature of giving. I don’t take from them, the way my parents took from me.
Giving and taking are like breathing: a healthy life needs both. Giving, only, is compulsive. It is emotionally unhealthy. Much of Christianity is unhealthy in its basic principles. That is why Christians took over the world, all in the name of Love.
And I wonder, how the fuck am I mostly sane? I wonder that about many of us. My wounds and history are not unique, and of course a great many people have it much, much worse. The only bottom of the pit is actual death.
And I feel, and sense, that underlying everything, there is a love which is made available to all of us. It is in the fabric of the universe, just like anger and hate, but much more powerful. No explanation of survival is needed.
And this love is vastly larger than anything any human could ever offer in any event. Human love is just a pale shadow compared to it.
I say this partly intellectually, but partly from actual understanding. That is what it is now my task to focus on. One day soon my nights will stop being hells, permanently.