It’s so interesting how we can “know” things about ourselves but not know them in such a way as to affect change and really understand them.
This for me is the key to successful therapy – finding a trusting and safe place to say absolutely everything because often, we know the things we’re holding back, but we don’t and can’t know the things we don’t know we’re holding back. And we may not know how pervasive certain things are. Something that seems like an insignificant problem may tie into larger patterns and ways of relating.
This week in counselling I happened to mention my plan for a book I am writing. This book is something about my lived experience. It has taken me a long time to get out of the academic writing mindset and bring in the creative writing. This in instrumental in allowing me to write this book because 1) I’m not an expert in anything, so the academic writing mindset was an obstacle, and 2) I cannot tell the truth about my lived experience.
It’s strange growing up, watching and reading stories about lives that get so tangled up in lies and you think, “Wow, I will never make things that complicated for myself!”
What I began to appreciate this week is the extent to which I don’t show my truth. I’ve always known ‘I can’t be myself’. This was a very early lesson from the age of 4 or 5 years. But even now, when wanting to say something of my lived experience, the impact and the lessons, and the fact that I’ve grown so much from it and it has spring boarded me to where I am now and where I am going – I can’t say it anywhere except in the counselling room. And when I told my counsellor the pains I was going through to ‘dress up’ my story so that no one would feel targeted or guilty or responsible in any way, she was sad. She was sad that I felt I needed to hide, sad at this further example of how I hide. How much I hide, how much I feel I need to!!
No wonder I feel pissed off all the time.
And it was this sadness that was the key. I wouldn’t have had this realisation without our counselling relationship, seeing the impact through another’s eyes. I am seeing how hidden I am to everyone except her. Even with her still, in some regards.
She said some people might be helped by hearing my experience. This made me wonder – have I been living in a cowardly and selfish way?
Then I have to question whether this is the part of me that still feels the need to protect and serve others.
Because the truth is I haven’t meant to lie and to hide my truth. I did it to keep from burdening others who seemed bothered by my presence, who were disturbed by my fear and sadness. I hid to protect them. Even now, choices I make are hidden in order to protect others.
Yet there are people who would be helped and comforted from hearing this experience of hiding, as well as the things I have hidden.
That’s the dilemma isn’t it? Knowing our experiences are not unique and wanting to share, but fear of – hurting others, of being judged. I am trying to protect others, but how much am I also protecting myself? Is that selfish? It was survival, but now? And am I really protecting others or robbing them up potential catalysts to spring board them into their own growth, their own truths?
I know why I feel I need to protect others, but how to counteract this feeling when each ‘transgression’ is filled with the most intense shame and anxiety?
Along with this we discussed creative blocks. One of mine is the fear of running out of time and the need to do something quickly, before it’s too late, before I lose what I need in order to achieve it. How much time has already gone!
So many questions. How can anyone ever be sure enough of anything to make a stand or take a stance? We all need to fit in with others, yet we all want/need to live authentically. Where is the line?
Songs can be so comforting, helping to make lessons easier to swallow!
In the words of the Donots:
“I know myself well enough
to know that I don’t know myself.”
