What my therapist asked of me - to express having been hurt by my parents when I insisted I wasn't, I couldn't have been, they never had the power to hurt my feelings for as long as I can remember - made me rethink my metaphor.
Intellectually, I'm now aware a child cannot put on an armor against her parents, preventing hurt. What we as children could have done was, at best, to start sedating ourselves, numbing all feelings, never experiencing any hurt at all.
BUT WE WERE STILL BEING HURT AND WE ARE STILL HURT.
An armor would have prevented injuries. The painkillers leave us unfeeling, but still mangled and bleeding, unaware of these still very acute problems.
This is still a merely intellectual insight.
I'm afraid to feel it because I'm impervious to my parents and what they did and do and said and say.
It is perhaps not a well-known fact that soldiers in wars often go into fighting drunk or on drugs. They have to feel like they can't really feel hurt even if they actually get hurt, or they won't be as brave. It's fake, but it's a necessary survival mechanism. The other option is becoming a deserter, I guess. And I don't want to be a deserter. I want to fight.
I need to keep finding better metaphors. Ones that might actually help me get healthy.
PA, You ARE "fighting" and I'm seeing that with each successive Post. Sometimes stuff starts in my heart and takes a bit to migrate to my head and vice versa. You ARE "thawing out" and yeah, it takes awhile. It seems to me you're well on your way.
ReplyDeleteTW
I think you make a great point here. I've often felt I just went numb. Unfeeling everything.
ReplyDeleteI had never thought about soldiers being drunk or high in battle. But it makes perfect sense.
This reminds me of an article from P.J O'Rourke about how to drive drunk and roll your car over on purpose and hopefully not get hurt. He did a preemptive strike on the people that would give him grief about driving drunk and said if you expect me to die in a car crash sober you are out of your mind.
ReplyDeleteFeelings suck. But I want to have them. I'm trying. I want to live, no be in a zombified state.
ReplyDeleteGood observation about the difference between numbing and armor.