My previous blog post was rather dramatic, being written while I was working my way through a pretty big shift in my psyche. Then I described it like 'waking up', and re-establishing direct contact with my body. Now, a few days later, the effect persists, and I have been able to examine what I think has changed.
Back when I was about five years old, I found myself running away from an adult male who had apparently tried to harm me in some way. I ran into a dark room where I tried to hide. The adult didn't enter the room after me, but just stood here in the door frame. He yelled at me that it was all my fault, before slamming the door close. I was left behind in that cold, dark room. All silent and abandoned by myself.
Regardless of whether my mind is able to recall exactly what happened to me as a child, the effect was the same: part of me never managed to leave that room. Never managed to stop crying, dry those tears, open the door and leave. That part of me would remain there, always tangible in the back of my mind as this persistent sensation of intense sadness and agony.
Anything that would happen to me would also happen to this child in the dark room. It felt as though as the years progressed, the differences between the child and me strained the link ever more, with me never really able to live in either the past or present. As I was being tortured by doctors, psychologists and others on account of my intersex condition it was basically a straight repetition of what the child could still remember vividly, as for the child - this traumatised part of me - it had only just happened.
I'm not exactly sure what allowed this situation to change, but the past days, every time I access this part of my mind where this dark room with the child used to be, the room is now sunny and empty, with the door ajar. The child has managed to leave, open the door and has become a part of me again. It's a curious feeling to describe, and it almost sounds like something what a mad person would say, only I never heard voices or the like.
It's more as though this traumatic event of decades past has now been given a place, finally allowing me as a person to become whole again. I really get it why they say that childhood trauma can literally steal one's life away, because that's how it feels to me. As though in some ways I am still that 5-year old child, albeit with the intellect and memories of someone much older and wiser.
Most of the conflict that I felt inside my head is now gone, and a strange calm has settled. I feel more capable of handling day to day things, and generally less terrified of the world around me. I guess that really was the child projecting its terrors on my mind.
It's interesting to look back over the past months, how I exposed myself to a number of anime series that managed to evoke very strong emotions inside of me, allowing me get into touch with my humanity, as I phrased it in recent blog posts. In a sense I think that it were those stories which really chipped away at the defences that my traumas had created inside of my psyche. Sometimes it's that kind of exposure therapy which is the only real way forward, even if it hurts a lot.
It feels like I am actually alive now, and actually here, right now, in this moment. Not like until a few days ago, when this strange split between the past and present persisted.
Although I'm sure that my therapist sessions also contributed to this step forward, I feel that discussions with friends and my binge-watching of this recent set of series (for full disclosure: Death Parade, Black Lagoon and Knights of Sidonia) were the final triggers needed to break down those last defences. It was while watching one of the last episodes of the second season of Knights of Sidonia when some things really clicked, also because of a certain character in that series who happens to be somewhat like me.
Here's to being human.
Maya
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