Involuntary actions – part 4

Tags

bachelor party, cash for flesh, defiled, Denial, drinking games, Embarrassment, Fear, foreboding sense of doom, French knickers, humiliation, naivety, Night of Monumental Bad Choices, pregnant, regret, Sadness, Shame

This post may be too much information for some. If you don’t wanna know, maybe skip this one?

[Read part 1, part 2 & part 3 first]

I didn’t like to think about it, not even in my most private moments. Except that I did. Couldn’t help it really.

Such a fuzzy combination of nothingness blended with images, loud thoughts and soft, a strange procession of ideas and most pressingly, regret. It didn’t come straight away but with more time to reflect it was glaringly obvious that I’d made a foolish, foolish mistake.

I can tell you what I think, what I remember, what I suspect, but I can’t tell you what really happened. I’ll never understand everything, clouded as it was in alcohol and crowded out by my ridiculous adversity to taking care of myself.

Belief was my downfall. Always a belief in the best of people until proven otherwise.

But people not doing their best is not always evil, is it? It’s not always bad or wrong. Or maybe that just depends entirely on your point of view. In any case, I can’t tell you what happened, if I had sex with anyone that night and if I did, how many.

I suspect I did though. Like, really suspect. I’m almost sure that I did but there’s no way for me to prove it. Not then, and certainly not in retrospect.

And there’s no doubt that I was entirely at fault for being there in the first place.

It was a Night of Monumental Bad Choices. Not my last or first. But certainly a rather memorable one.

I got the call. Others had already turned the job down because of the distance. But the money was tempting, even though I didn’t have a car and it was a really, really long way to go. A bunch of guys for a bachelor party wanting a semi-naked lingerie-clad female to entertain them for the night.

M wasn’t sure about the gig and wanted me to use her driver – have him come and pick me up late in the evening.

We organised to meet at the Portsea Pub because the beach house they were staying at wasn’t easy to get to. They’d drive me there and M’s driver would pick me up later. That’d been the plan anyway.

They were a nice looking bunch of guys – preppy-ish but down to earth and clearly money wasn’t an issue. Conveniently since we were at a pub, they asked what I’d be drinking that night. It was beer for them and Baileys for me.

Off the beaten track and surrounded by trees. It was a pretty weatherboard split level house. Already there were many cars in the drive. I was shown into a room to change and came out in French knickers, suspenders and heels.

The boys decided we’d play drinking games and here’s where I forgot (rather crucially) that I wasn’t among friends, but employers of my flesh. I drank with bravado and really didn’t think it through. Sure I can keep up with the boys no problems! [Are you shaking your head yet?] By the time M’s driver called I was pleasantly wasted and easily persuaded to stay the night, with the offer of a lift home the next day.

What did we do in those hours? I can’t say. There were flirtations and craziness. Games, silliness. The groom fell drunkenly on a glass table, swiftly dispatched to hospital for stitching. Then he was back and still partying of course. It was his party, after all! I ended up in the back of a station wagon with one I thought was cute… but I think it didn’t go anywhere in the end. I think…

There’s hours I don’t recall. Then, the unpleasantly creepy surprise of waking up in the groom’s bedroom with him standing over me, somewhere deep into the middle of the night. He must’ve carried me there and I wondered how he’d done it given the stitches he’d just earned. And I remember leaving the room and finding a bunk to pass out in.

It all seemed harmless enough until I ended up pregnant and unsure of the father. Because I could no longer avoid those burning but muted and pressing questions.

That I didn’t know caused me shame. Embarrassment. Sadness. Fear.

What happened that night? How many? How often? Sure they were nice guys (sorta) but did they intend to get me drunk? (I suspect now that was definitely the case).

They drove me home the next day as promised. It was almost as if the lingerie-clad me and the fully clothed me were separate people – one was a service provided by the other. I even gave them my phone number when asked.

Because I occupied a hollow little world of denial. A vacuum where self-esteem had no foothold, and even knowing that I’d probably done things I wish I hadn’t… I still didn’t tell them “no thanks”.

But somewhere in there, what I did remember was roasting on a slow burn. Eventually, combined with the abortion, that night must’ve formed part of the foreboding sense of doom I felt. The one that caused me to retire from the world of cash for flesh. It seemed that out of nowhere, I felt panicked by the idea of doing any more gigs and I quit.

Later, I was living back at my parents’ place. I’d moved on from stripping to working as an actor in children’s theatre. Highly ironic, I know. The phone rang one day and it was one of them, the bachelor party boys. M must’ve given them my new number. No, I’m sorry. I’m not in that line of work any more… Another cringe of fear, because now I WAS feeling defiled. Just what did they think my services entailed exactly??!

Ah… so interesting how the subconscious harbours those things the conscious mind wishes to ignore. That’s why denial never really works and why we can terrorise ourselves and become our own worst enemy: in the end we can’t escape our own truths, no matter what.

And so it was that the writing of this series helped me to see. Oh! FUCK! Those terrorising dreams where I thought I’d been molested? Well yeah, maybe that did happen but in a different setting… [heart thudding].

Once thunk, that thought rang long and loud in the hall of truth and I have to admit that’s quite possibly how things played out.

There were at least four of them… and I swear that’s all I really know.

[Epilogue]

~Svasti

Euphoria & other things

Tags

abundance, Corporate-landia, Denial, emotional honesty, Employment, euphoria, Hanumanasana, Malasana, Meditation, nadi shodhana, new job, Reality, Release, samskara, Spirituality, Surrender, Yoga, yoga retreat

Of late, my yoga practice has been revealing inner layers of truth, ironically ‘visible’, during meditation. Especially post-pranayama.

The other week it was two words, pulsing and glimmering like a coin underwater – emotional honesty – yes… that’s taken a little while to understand.

I cast my mind back to Sydney, mid-winter several years ago, on one of the numerous yoga retreats I’ve attended. We were about to do some kind of serious meditation work, and it’s customary to do such things with clean teeth.

Before we started, my Guru looked at us and asked, So have you all brushed your teeth?

My first instinct was to nod my head, even though I hadn’t. Nod, and say yes, rather than admit I’d forgotten, be different and stand out.

I learned a great lesson right there, when one of my fellow students unashamedly shook her head. Go on then, we were told. I scooted out the door with a couple of others.

I’m not a liar as such, but there’s been many a time like that where I’ve lied rather than face a perceived ‘scary’ reality, no matter how minor.

Emotional honestly is not something I grew up with. Just… telling it like it is. Instead it was a constant stream of deny, deny, deny. Deny anything, deny everything. My blood was steeped in denial.

These days I’m much braver but still, I have my moments.

Today, sitting in near stillness, once I was able to ignore the constant stream of inner chatter long enough… I could see… wow, almost like the mechanism of grasping, desperation and neediness that drives my actions sometimes.

Briefly I saw how this force sometimes creates activity that causes me to behave in ways I’d rather not. And I saw that somewhere in there, is the capacity to set that aside. Maybe not today, or tomorrow. But sometime, sure.

Today in our yoga class, we did a lot of very deep forward bends ending with Malasana (garland pose) and Hanumanasana (the splits). Reaching into places that are usually left dormant, un-stretched. Moving slowly, repeatedly and determinedly.

It’s not surprising to find that yoga both generates and releases emotional states. Today’s asana class was highly, deeply and strongly moving and energising in the pits and creases of my body.

After some counter-poses, we eventually finished with nadi shodhana (alternate nostril breathing), which I always find very grounding and centering. It’s important to sit still for a while once you’ve finished and just… allow the sensations you’re experiencing to flow through you.

Right there, the chattering sufficiently ignored… I could see the ongoing suffering I cause myself through my samskaras (deeply embedded patterns of behaviour), and the choice we all have to step away from these patterns. Not without a lot of effort first, of course.

Leaving class, I felt incredibly euphoric and I’m still floating in that state…

Anyway, now for some other news:

Finally, after more than three long months, I HAVE A JOB!

I know… I should be celebrating this fact a little more. But I’m not. I am grateful – it came along right when I was about to have absolutely NO money at all.

However, it’s not my dream job. Sure, I’m working in my industry (digital media) but it’s a contract role (not permanent), its back in big Corporate-landia, and it’s really not the best money for a contract job either.

I also discovered the contract heavily favours the rights of the company (they can terminate my role with no notice – I’m sure a sign of the current financial times), while affording me almost no rights… except to get paid.

Then, the organisation I’m contracting through pays fortnightly, but it’s actually going to be three weeks until I’m paid for the first six days of work, leaving me with precious little cash (all I’ve got) to get by on until then.

However, the people there are nice. So I’m trying to stave off the sense of foreboding I feel being back in an uber-large company (it’s been almost twelve months since I quit my previous corporate gig).

Ironically, the day I was verbally offered this role, I was also offered another (less lucrative) contract, and an interview for a permanent role. Even more ironically, I had that interview at lunch time of the first day on the new job this week (Thursday). Then, on the Friday another recruiter rang with an interview request for another permanent role. That one will be Tuesday after work.

Feast or famine, right?

Usually, I’m very loyal to my employer, sometimes to my own detriment. But recent times have shown that’s not the most prudent course of action. So, given the relative lack of stability of my contract job (when is a contract not really a contract? When there’s a ‘no notice’ clause in it!), I’m taking a slightly more aggressive line.

I guess I’ll see what happens – could be I get offered neither permanent role (my fate in recent times) – but then again, I might. And I will keep looking.

In the mean time, I’m repeating my yoga teacher’s oft-repeated mantra – there will always be enough – while I prepare to live on a tiny amount of cash for a few weeks to come yet.

And, I’ll also keep attempting to disengage with the samsaric patterning I’ve just witnessed so clearly. If I can surrender that, and strive to live as emotionally honestly as possible, hopefully I’ll be open to new opportunities I might not otherwise have a shot at.

~ Svasti

So… I said it…

Tags

Andre, Anxiety, Avoidance, Denial, EMDR, Grief, His name, House of cards, Loss, Therapy, Trauma, Trust

I need to come clean about something.

Actually, I don’t. I could ‘not’ write this, and not publish it either.

There’s a lot of ways I could keep this to myself.

But it would be against the spirit of my blog, in which I’ve truthfully (and often painfully) divulged much of my inner world goop. Always, always with the intent of de-clogging myself, and seeing more clearly what’s going on.

And so, I feel if I don’t get this out there, I’m lying. Mostly to myself, but sorta to those who bother to come here regularly, too. ‘Cept, if I didn’t, you’d never know. But I’d know that you don’t know. And that sucks.

So, yeah. I said it.

It wasn’t easy.

Going back a few weeks, this is my second last session in recent times. AN (my therapist) didn’t even know it was gonna be that sort of session.

Til I start talking…

You know, the reason I ended up coming to see you for EMDR therapy, was when H (my other therapist) uncovered my secret. That I never speak his name to anyone. H said she wasn’t sure how important it was for me to actually ever do it, and neither do I…

So what’s his name? AN butts in briskly.

…

[Radio silence]

And tears.

Could a red flag be waved more obviously?

AN says Okay. It’s time.

Nooooooooooooooooooo… I don’t think I can…

We start another EMDR pen-waving session. Me, stubbornly incapable of turning air into sound and forming that word. His name.

His fucking name. That stupid, meaningless word I’d allowed to assume such power. To mean other things. Become a symbol of terror.

Not saying his name it seems, became equivalent to wearing garlic, hopelessly attempting to ward off those vampirical horrors and fears, preying on my heart and mind.

Here on this blog, I’ve labelled him Andre. Where most other people I talk about have been given an initial only. Why? Well, he’s the main character of my story, right?

Right. Or is that denial? Avoidance? Being exceptionally cagey? Lying to myself?

It’s become so impossible to enunciate that I have violent psycho-somatic reactions. Coughing. Choking. Feeling like I’m about to die. An incredible sense of doom.

All of that, rather than speak that word.

Just a house of cards trying to cover for myself, willing to appear helpless rather than face it all squarely.

He was my friend.

He didn’t just take my safety. He took away my friend and replaced him with a monster. One of the few people I’d met down here that I could resonate with on some level. He was my friend, and he screwed it all up!!

I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I HATE YOU I HATE YOU!!

Swift-moving bile erupts from my mouth and body, scaldingly hot.

Can’t get that word out, not with all the grief and pain there. Sitting on the trigger like a trap.

AN asks me again, as we work through various emotions.

…

Still, nothing.

Mentally, I say it. Urge myself onwards. But no… nothing, again.

It’s dangerous. It’s scary. It means something… it means he wins. If I say it, I’m somehow bringing him to life again. And I’ve tried so hard to bury him, bury that night.

I’m powerless to command myself. Powerless. But it’s just a stupid name. Two syllables. Three letters. For fuck’s sake!

I can talk about anything else. Everything else. Just not this. Not this. Not…

Quiet now. I’ve sobbed til my heart is empty of tears. Raw raw, and fragile, and yet… false starts. Many of them.

His name is…

It’s…

I can mouth the letters silently. Only.

AN asks Does it start with a B?

No, it starts with an A.

That’s one letter. Only two to go.

But no. Locked into my seat in a small room with a kind but firm therapist, trying to shake me from my precarious perch. Gently, ever so gently.

My world right then, small and sharp. Pointed and painful. Dangerous, dark and terrifying.

It was coming. I wanted it to, but oh my god… the heartache, painfully beating like a foot trying to stamp its way out of my chest.

Like I’m talking to a child I say, It’s okay. Okay…

It’s okay… it’s only letters… its okay…

Why don’t I believe myself?

Just sitting and breathing now. And I can see, it’s just about courage now. That’s all that’s left. Finding a way to be unafraid long enough to squeeze it out. A little breath. A little sound.

His name. Its… its… okay, its… FUCK! Its… (wish my heart would stop aching), damn it, its….

And now it’s dead quiet in our room.

Its Apu.

AN repeats it a few times, loudly, so I can hear it, while I cry like a child. A child in shock, crying because the expression is entirely appropriate. Suitable to work through the pain. It’s shocking to say it. And hear someone say it. But somehow, its better. Already.

We finished things up, AN making sure I’m okay. And I left and went to a movie.

Then later, I wrote this…

And now you know. And I know you know. And again. It feels a little less covert. More real.

Still tender though, weeks later. Still hard to admit I’m okay with it. Even though its out there. And I’ve said it more than once now.

But guess what? I no longer choke (literally) when faced with those three letters. Not any more.

~Svasti

A tap dance

Tags

Avoidance, Denial, Meh, Permaculture, Repressed memo, Say his name damnit, Service, Therapy, Trauma symptoms, Yoga teacher

So at the end of our last session, you weren’t doing very well, prompts H (my therapist) in our appointment last week.

That’s right. I wasn’t… in a very good place at all…

It begins, accidentally sort of… on purpose sub-consciously… tapitty strike tap tap tap tap… oh but surely you want to hear about the latest with my family, my stressful job, my niece, what else is going on, what I’ve been writing on my blog… tic tac tap tap step ball change…

So how long do you think you can avoid talking about it? H gently questions me as we reach the half-way mark for the session.

Ah, oh… (friggin’ tears, just fuck right off!) I… look I know I need to face up to that stuff but really… I don’t know what to say about it right now. I still can’t say his name out loud. And I know it’s stupid! But it hurts worse than anything else I can think of, for some reason…

[Just thinking about that topic makes me feel like I’m dying. Even when I know I’m not.]

H changes tack. Okay, perhaps it’s not that important to do that right now, or ever… I’m not sure…

Yeah, well me neither.

H tries to pull me in closer; I desperately back away at speed.

We start talking about other things… and in a further attempt to avoid – I mention my annoyance with the length of time all this is taking.

This is the first time H admits that perhaps what I’m going through is somewhat more elongated than normal trauma recovery. The longer the symptoms are around, the harder it can be to shift them. But you can, and you are making progress.

Ah. So if I’d dealt with things properly in the first place…

No, don’t go there. It’s not about fault. It’s where you’re at. That’s all… you did what you could.

[Side note to Self: if I ever come across anyone else who’s been through trauma – insist they go get some help straight up. No matter what. Coz this royally blows…]

Uh huh. Well, I’m so over it.

So instead I mention how the anxiety and panic attacks seem to have increased a lot since this whole repressed memory thing. The rollercoaster of my emotional highs and lows right now (I used to be so even-tempered) is particularly unstable. Now much more so than before.

I even spill a little bit… about my general thoughts on not particularly caring if I was annihilated any time soon. I mean, I’m not really a part of anyone’s life exactly… just kind of an add-on. Y’know. Its all one great big dirty pile of… meh.

And… how I watch and witness these insane feelings and thoughts of negativity, completely neutrally (in regards to myself), insecurities running wild and free. I witness, and I do everything in my power not to dive in, but they’re there, all the same. Non-stop.

It takes very little to kick it all off and then… it’s a hike back to base camp.

Tip tap kick spin tap tap tap…

H writes alot today.

I know its devious. I feel a quiet satisfaction that we’re not talking about the other thing. It’s the first time I’ve consciously avoided talking about anything with H. I’m just not ready. And I hate that.

But somehow, perhaps because I’m letting some of the other less worrying negativity out of the bag… we get around to talking about what I actually want to do with myself.

If I’m not, y’know, gonna end up under a truck any time soon.

The words flow out of my mouth faster than I can think.

I wanna become a yoga teacher and a permaculturist. And I wanna… help under-privileged kids somehow. I want to help them learn more of the world than they might do otherwise, open more possibilities… But, I feel like I’ve got a long way to go before I can get there.

So is H my therapist or my life coach? Suddenly she’s got me focusing on what I’d really like to do. Things that would really make life feel like it was worthwhile. In a word: service.

And I still got away with avoiding the friggin’ subject. For now. Phew!

But it was interesting turn of conversation, all the same…

Round of applause. Bow. Cue curtain.

~Svasti

De Nile aint just a river – or – DIY princess

Tags

Bike-y, Boogie man, Denial, DIY princess, Dorothy, Fractured fairytales, Fragmented, Nile, Open wound, Post-traumatic stress, PTSD, Ruby Slippers, Therapy, Wizard of Oz

The awful truth

So do you realise in all of our sessions you’ve never said his name?

H challenges me halfway through Tuesday’s session with a simple pull-no-punches statement. Something I think I’ve been shying away from… I sorta knew it, but also not really, y’know?

Yeah I guess that’s right, I stare at her calmly whilst thinking, and I’m not about to start right now…

I don’t like to say his name, I continue, and I don’t like to remember what he looks like. Any of that just feels like… I’m invoking him…

Okay, that’s the first time I’d acknowledged that one out loud.

Damn it!! As H asks more questions… that familiar unwanted prickling of hot tears arrives… the chunk of heavy metal blocking my throat… then the coughing and choking as that part of the wound re-opens.

Grrrr!!! After all this time the tears still come!!!

I’d walked in feeling really flat after a day of utter exhaustion and hearing of a sister yogini’s death. Low energy, heavy heart, and uninspired. H had to work to get something out of me which is not the way it usually goes… I’d even thought… there’s probably not much to talk about today.

H thinks my experience of what happened is so fragmented, that whilst I integrate one part of the story, others remain hidden away and not addressed. And this challenges my ability to move past it all.

I even belittled this one.

It’s only a small piece of the picture, just another small one. Like a piece of glass that scoots under the fridge, it’s harder to find.

H disagreed.

No. Its not small. It’s really big and significant. You’re completely avoiding looking at an important part of what happened…

So it seems.

But it’s complicated.

What’s in a name?

To most of my friends he’s simply “that guy who assaulted me”.

On this blog, I’ve called him Andre. That was partly to make sure he wasn’t confused with anyone else I talk about. And, it was sort of like ‘outing’ him… without really outing him… his real name starts with the same first letter (‘A’). (You’ll never guess, so don’t even try.)

But H has suggested in doing this, I’ve actually given him more power, made him ‘bigger’… Hmmm… Perhaps…

Images? I can handle a few seconds of seeing his face or a memory of our time together pre-assault. But that’s all. Letting them play sequentially? No way…

There’s something very sticky and messy in there because we were sleeping together for a few months… all that intimacy and vulnerability… when we met I was so glad to have him in my life, someone like me (so I thought)…

And remembering those times… where he played jazz & blues on one of his many guitars for me on a lazy Sunday morning whilst I lay in bed… passionate nights of love making… gentle and funny evenings together just hanging out… dancing all night at some live gig… Well, it’s confusing.

Then there’s the eyes – for a long time they were a constant photo negative hovering behind my eyeballs. Angry. Like a brand.

Ah-ha!

As my sobs subsided, H mentioned that in refusing to look, I’m actually refusing to fully accept what happened.

I am?? Yes.

I didn’t hear it the first time but I knew she’d said something important. I asked her to repeat it:

And as long as you do so, you’re holding the foundations of the trauma in place.

Oh.

That in fact, refusing to look, creates anxiety which hurts more than the actual looking would. Kinda like the boogie man. It means I can’t think straight about what I’d do if I saw him again. I can’t tell myself I could handle it…

Ahhh…ha… Huh.

All this stops me moving forward.

Now, H tells me, she can finally understand why this is all still in play. I haven’t cut down the underlying anchors. This fragmented suppression of memories, might’ve been a way of handling it all, allowing me to keep functioning… but now its hurting my ability to put it behind me.

And you can put it behind you, you know…

I really, really want to. I do…

An open wound

I leave this therapy session with an open wound instead of one that’s healing.

I’m in that down place, that sad and heavy place. That place where I don’t want to get out of bed. Where, if the earth opened up, I’d jump right in. Unless I don’t…

On the train I’m standing, holding up Bike-y. But who’s holding me up? I want to crumple on the floor of the train. I feel so hollow. So pointless.

I’ve got to get off now at my station and climb the ramp to the street. I can’t quite go on, not just yet. So I stand there just outside the station at the bottom of the ramp. And I breathe and I wait.

This inability to name him. To see him in my mind’s eye. It’s cost me dearly. There’s no room in my heart… not for me or for anyone else.

I’m needy, that much is clear. But those needs can’t be fulfilled externally. Not that they ever can for anyone… but it seems I’ve been hoping they could. That someone could walk in and make all the ‘bad’ feel like just a dream from long ago.

But I’m not that kind of princess.

Fractured fairytales

My story is not the ‘swept off my feet by the handsome prince/live happily ever after‘ kind. There are people with that story but its not mine. Never has been.

It’s generally the story women are raised to believe though. It goes something like this:

Princess is assailed by evil forces, and must go through great suffering. But something wonderful is coming her way soon – to go through all that… she deserves every happiness… her prince…

Well-meaning people will regurgitate this fable to friends in pain. And part of me has wanted so much to believe. That it could be true.

But… I don’t believe that any more.

I do think things can and will improve. However the improvement’s all of my own making.

After all, I’m one of those DIY princesses, so there’s no sweeping me off my feet. We’d probably trip over each other in the process anyway…

Well, that’s assuming there’s a prince. And if there is, he’s busy sorting his own shit out right about now. That’s my kind of guy – enquiring, reflecting, learning, seeking. He’s down there in the muck with me somewhere. Maybe… but I don’t even believe that’s a given any more.

The whole ‘there’s someone for everyone‘ story? Just another myth.

I am my own banisher of the evils in my life. And I’ve learnt the secret: when I look in the magic mirror and see that any demons are of my own making… and that I get to kiss the toad and lift the evil curse myself… all on my own… then I’m home free.

Dorothy: Oh, will you help me? Can you help me?
Glinda: You don’t need to be helped any longer. You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas.
Dorothy: I have?
Scarecrow: Then why didn’t you tell her before?
Glinda: Because she wouldn’t have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.

I’m almost there, almost there. I know the spell backwards and forwards. But apparently it’s a matter of timing and stuff…

Its coming, I think I’m almost home; I can feel it, taste it. I sense the power-packed-kick-ass-take-no-prisoners–Svasti, waiting in the wings. She’s strong and fearless, she’s cheering me on… whispering what she can through the veil that separates us.

The veil of my own creation.
~Svasti