Okay, let’s take another stab at this whole “be here now” issue of mine.
In this space, we’ve established that when I was raped, I withdrew deep into my mind, and this created a sort of buffer zone of total emptiness between me and the world.
It is this void that is the crux of why I am not really here. Ever since then, I have never been truly one hundred percent emotionally or mentally present. I do everything by remote. It’s like instead of dealing with reality directly, I extend tentative tentacles across the void and manipulate reality that way.
And at the slightest sign of trouble or pain, I reel those suckers back in and withdraw within myself once more.
Obviously, this is a bizarre and clumsy way to deal with reality. It puts me at a distinct disadvantage on many many levels. I would be far better off if I just closed the gap and committed to being present in the present so I can learn to deal with life in realtime.
It is, of course, not that easy.
It’s never that easy.
That gap was installed via the brutality of sexual assault when I was only four years old. It manifested to protect my fragile psyche from the reality of what was happening to me.
And that’s still what it is doing 43 years later : protecting me from the reality of the rape – from its memory.
So to close the gap, I would have to remember the incident that shattered my psyche and made me a shell of my former self and crippled my mind, heart, and soul.
This seems…. doable, now. I am fully and consciously aware of the facts of the incident, so there is no tender tissue of denial to delicately remove.
It definitely happened. I was definitely raped by a stranger in a shower stall at a gym called The Spa. I clearly remember making the decision to take my mind away, telling myself “this isn’t real, this isn’t happening”.
This happened right after I had almost drowned in the gym’s pool. Luckily, I was rescued by a stranger, possibly the same one.
Perhaps he felt I owed him. After all, the hero always gets the girl, right?
Or in my case, the cute little redheaded boy.
I still don’t know why my father brought me there in the first place. I also don’t know why he abandoned me twice – once in the pool and once in the showers.
I have a dim recollection of the steam in the shower making it hard to breathe, and feeling the humidity. And of the soap and water circling down into the floor drains.
But the actual rape is still locked away in my vault. It’s been there for a very long time. And keeping it there has exacted a terrible price for all that time.
But this I know : it won’t be there forever. Some day soon, the walls will fall and I will finish experiencing the worst moments of my life, and after that, I shall be free.
It’s only a matter of time,
More after the break.
How French am I?
Weird question, I know, but work with me here.
It’s a question I ponder fairly regularly because it seems like a way to get in touch with and understand the parts of me that don’t fit in my hyper rational “British” mindset.
Largely, this revolves around emotion. Feeling it, trusting it, following it, expressing it openly, and so on.
The “British” part of me is the part that demands total self control at all times… despite the fact that it rarely gets it. It’s my overactive punitive superego that constantly holds me to impossible ideals of rationality and efficiency and all that rot.
It’s the side of me that says “be quiet, don’t draw attention to yourself, don’t make a spectacle of yourself, sit down and shut up, nobody wants to hear from you…”.
It is inflexible, unforgiving, and inhuman.
My nascent “French” side, then, is the opposite. It’s bright, happy, energetic, demonstrative, eager, and filled with esprit and bonhomie.
I also think of it as my “Mediterranean” side. My people come from the sunny south of France, after all, not the practical but frigid North.
It is therefore a potential key to adding necessary balance to my psyche by introducing a healthy dose of “grasshopper” to my excessively “ant” personality.
I always identified with the ant in that story. Ant was smart and planned for the future. The grasshopper was an asshole to the ant and lived for the moment.
But that doesn’t mean he deserved to die.
One of the main “French” parts of me I want to tap into is my passions. I am actually a naturally passionate, emotional, enthusiastic person, which is why I have languished away in this tiny restrictive cage of false “reason” and “logic” I’ve been in ever since that fateful day when I was four.
When you retreat that deep into your mind, mind becomes your whole universe. The real world, not by accident, is pushed to the fringes of your consciousness.
But there is so, so much more to life than the “safely” stale, sterile, and stagnant world of the mind.
And some of that shit is super important for the healthy functioning of the human psyche. Things like connection to others, sensory feedback from your environment, a sense of belonging, and that all important feeling of love are all to be found exclusively outside the cramped playpen of infantile intellectualism that keeps me trapped in this woefully inadequate and unsatisfying life of mine.
Man, do I write long sentences. What can I say, I have very long thoughts.
Everything I want and crave and need lies outside my crushingly cramped cage.
All I have to do to get it is throw the crib doors wide and forsake the entirely false sense of “safety” it created in order to finally… finally go out there and explore.
Because I need more, god dammit.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.