Sunday night was cathartic—truly cathartic, and I am thrilled and proud of what I went through even though it was monstrously painful. Grossed out by the Golden Globes (I lasted mere seconds), I chose to write and thing about why I was feeling worse than ever. As I wrote, some sentences caused me to seize. I knew that meant I was on the right track. What I wrote is for Dr. Shoja. Here is what I wrote:
I was watching a movie that I was really enjoying. It was about a mother of three adult children. The mother was played by Vanessa Redgrave and the major themes of the movie were painting (and more broadly, the visual arts) and family relations (and money). I worked for three decades in the visual arts, Vanessa Redgrave is a goddess to me and ‘family relations’ are always a huge trigger for me. This film resonated.
I’m helpless when it’s Vanessa Redgrave. She seduces me into her character. I was hyperventilating all through the movie. I have breathing issues when I have a seizure, but it’s mild compared to what I was doing during this movie. It’s like my diaphragm goes into spasm; it has the seizure, and not my whole. body.
The night before, I watched a very clever movie about two sets of parents. The son of one couple hits the son of the other couple with a stick—and in the face. The movie covers their one evening together. They assemble to resolve any tensions between them, but it turns into a searing portrait of marriage, status and power. It was horrifying to watch, but compelling. I watched it silently, reading the captions to lessen the emotional impact. Regardless of having the sound off, I was having monstrous physical symptoms in my arms and legs.
Physical stress is a new symptom. When I try to talk, I get severe head bobbing and shoulder lifting, and now I react with physical tremors a lot when I am made tense by a film or my life. I call it dancing. These are two different physical reactions to movies—tremors or shaking, and hyperventilating. These symptoms happen in my life when I have a serious health crisis., but all the time when I watch movies.
I asked myself: What is going on? Why am I developing another symptom andgetting worse? My speech is getting much more challenging. Speech problems are even happening more with my closest friends.
For the past seven years, I have been through a big change. The first two years were torture. The next six had me relocate to a forested island and into a house with 16” wide logs. Silence. Plus, during those 6 years I learned how to function with my symptoms. I spent six years adapting, but now I feel fully adapted thanks to the help I’ve had establishing email relationships with my banking, pharmacy, medical clinic, etc.
So, with all my adaptation done, my mind turned to ponder why all that’s happening to me, and it feels to me, that as I dig deeper into my ‘whys,’ my symptoms get worse. Another way of putting that is this: the reward for thoughtful insight is physical torture.
Also, lately, I’ve been pondering things that you’ve told me. You’ve mentioned my “failure to bond” with the Tyrells and you used the word “neglect.” That word, as I’ve thought about my past, hurts. When I wrote the second sentence of this paragraph, I burst into tears and had to take a break. I cry a LOT. Again, I ask myself why.
The cause of everything about me that I ponder is neglect. Neglect is the sun in my universe.
If I had to paint a picture of myself, I would paint a picture of our universe. I am a universe of thoughts, feeling, and memories; each one of them an object in the universe that is ME. My big life events are the planets; significant events are the asteroids. The Sun is called Neglect. I suddenly see that ‘neglect’ is central to who I am, and it has hurt terribly to realize that.
I’ve been reviewing my past through the lens of all that you’ve taught me. This new word, ‘neglect,’ has become a cancer in my brain. When I wrote that sentence, I had a seizure, and again, I had to take a break. As I write this, I feel like I am live streaming a meltdown. I seem to be feeling now, all the sorrow I never felt as a child.
We have seldom talked about my past. I told you about it in our very first meeting, but since then, we’ve just referenced it. Lately, I’ve been seeing everything in my past differently through this new lens of neglect. And it’s hurting me—hurting at 9/10 sometimes. As I’ve pondered aspects of my character, personality and behaviour—I’ve come to understand how neglect has so thoroughly invaded every aspect of my psyche. I realize that the issues that plague me now have, but to a modest degree, been with me all my life. They exploded in 2016.
I have decided that that night was my ‘rock bottom’ moment. At least, I hope it is. I think what I have been going through lately is because of how sad I am about what happened to me. Some fellows find Nirvana at the end of their journey of understanding of themselves; the end of my journey of understanding has proven very, very painful.
It occurs to me that I may be going through physical hell as I emotionally accept what neglect has done to me; the rest is uphill. That’s why “neglect” is printed on the sun in my painting. I get it. I feel that there is no further to go. I feel there is to be no more searching. I feel I truly understand myself—not in a bravado way, and not as a victim, either. I understand that neglect is central in my mind, body and soul.
That night was very painful. I cried a lot, and for milliseconds, I felt bereft. But there’s one thing that everyone says about me: I’m a survivor. It could be my greatest skill. Although it was very sad for me that night, I am thrilled to believe it was a milestone moment. I feel that the worst is over. I feel this had to happen and that it may help me suffer from my symptoms less over time.
One thing that night has done, is make me more at peace with my symptoms. I see them as a badge of courage for what I’ve been through.
I am going to get better. I am at peace with what happened. I wish it hadn’t happened, but it did. I keep wanting to say, “I get it.” Finally, I do. And I get it deep down inside me. I truly get it and that, I’m sure, is a good, good thing.
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