Learning to Share

       
     


     After the discovery of a threatening memory I had the natural response of flight. Run away seemed the best thing I could do to avoid the unpleasant emotions I felt. Even after learning that this part of me was reliving the bad memory I still wanted escape. She was caught with nothing more to base life on than a rape.     I could not feel enough sympathy for a part of myself to take on her problems. I had been playing the game of forgetfulness for so long why remember now was my question. I had some great rational for putting this whole yucky thing off. One of the delay mechanisms was to suggest that it simply can't wait. You have been waiting 20 years so what is a few more? And when the whining five year got on my nerves with repeating “I can't wait... I have already been waiting...”then I got mad. I could not afford to get mad at the perpetrator yet as I did not know who it was at first. I did not want to know more about it. It scared me too much.     
     My next rationale was that I was responsible for three very young needy children. This simply was not a good time for falling apart. I needed to take care of so many people and things. How could I add any more stress and responsibility to my life. I would say to myself “Not now dear, I need to be a mommy. You understand how you need a mommy. Well I can't just take care of you. I need to take care of them now.” Because of time restraints and circumstances I was not aware of it was time to deal with it. If I would have been successful at putting it off I am sure I would not have been able to live to mother my children. I had to learn to balance the high demands of my mental health with the equally high requirements for caring for a baby and two toddlers.    
      I found myself asking if Elle could just go to sleep. Couldn't this all go away and why couldn't the part go to sleep. I found out that she slept when I did. She wanted to share consciousness and her memory. She was me and I was her and healing meant getting to that truth by sharing her reality.     
      It's funny to me how referring to myself in third person is still so much more comfortable, like it happened to her, not to me. After I got good and mad at myself from directing the anger I felt over being placed in between a rock and hard place I yelled at myself. There is nothing quite so painful as rejecting or being angry at yourself. I quickly reversed this to change the pain I felt.     
     I accepted the job of loving parent to my part and asked my dear husband to do the same. I know it was very hard for him and that the whole burden of care-taking in our relationship was not fair. It may have been too much to ask a husband to be my father and to play therapist also, but it enabled my survival.      I jumped from denial and procrastination to making myself grandiose promises I could not keep.” I said I will always listen to you. I will never leave you.”I then would need to do something else for someone else and that was interpreted as promise breaking. At first I just wanted to build trust and get the whole thing over with. The therapist explained that mercy and love would go a long way. He pointed out that if I could see this part of my with some gratitude and love instead of feeling threatened it would aid my healing. It took me some time to truly feel this way.