Duality

Had a very good counseling session this morning and have been anxious to get back to the computer so I could write about it and give it more, well deserved thought. I spoke about my dreams and the recurring themes, of which T agreed with my analysis. I told her about the wedding dream. She felt the meaning to it was very obvious where I did not, at all! Just a sign that I was too close to it to see the meaning.

She felt the whole dream centered around my duality between illusion/image/"fantasy" and reality. Wanting the fantasy. Trying to create the fantasy. Struggling with maintaining it as the reality keeps trying to make itself seen. I wasn't grasping the entirety of this concept because I thought it just had to do with "A" and the situation with him. Then I went a step further to incorporate my father. But it's farther reaching. This is a central theme of my life. This is a by-product of my abuse. Put on the happy face. Maintain the illusion. Please the people around you. In the dream, when I asked A to take my DD so I could make my grand entrance, I was saying "Here, you take care of my little girl (inner child) because I need to go pretend that everything is wonderful.” A function (wedding) that is supposed to center on love, commitment, couple-dom… and I was in turmoil making my entrance, and subsequent escape, alone.

The gifts symbolize an acknowledgment; a validation of the illusion. Almost immediately in the dream, I was worried about him taking the gifts from me. I was worried about my validation being stripped away. But then I stuffed them in the garbage bag...because I knew they were based on something entirely false. In the end, I was drawn to have control of those gifts and to give them back because I knew they were trying to give acknowledgment to something that didn't exist. There was an element of that in my mother squashing the cake as well and my irritation that she was not able to keep my illusion alive.

T said there was a tremendous amount of conflict in the dream, which was excellent. I'm so glad she enjoys my angst!! She said this is my lifelong inner conflict: illusion vs reality. And she's right. It really is. Image vs vulnerability.

I had more flashes of dreams this morning. One of them involved my talking with a woman who could eat nothing but human flesh. I was watching her eat a piece of an arm. T said this was an expression of emotional pain eating away at me. She spoke of the “Wailing Wall” in Jerusalem; a place where people go to pray and where some will literally throw themselves on the wall in an attempt to bury their sorrow into something strong enough to hold it.

She said I need to find my own form of “wailing wall” whether it be a real wall, a body pillow, etc but something tangible into which I can release my sorrow. Knowing that I’ve placed it somewhere else and I no longer have to carry it. My WHAT?

Sorrow? I don’t identify with that word. T said to me “You have already been hurt.” I gave a flippant “Shyeah! No kidding.” And she said “No, I want you to hear me. You have already been hurt so deeply.” When she said this to me, my chest began to ache. Literal Heartache. Really?

She went on to tell me that I am suffering from faulty thinking. I maintain this level of alarm, of defense. I am continuing to try to prevent something that has already happened and it’s a waste of my energy. I work so hard in an attempt to avoid being hurt when in fact, I’ve already lived through it. I survived it. Not unscathed, but I survived. But because I still deeply believe it’s going to happen, I manage to recreate it. The self fulfilling prophecy; I attract just what I expect. More hurt. The reality is that it’s behind me….it already happened.

This is where a MASSIVE step of vulnerability and of freedom will come into play. I need to choose to live my life free of the defenses against something that I cannot control. By choosing reality, over illusion, I can stay in the present and make calculated risks based on solid thinking, and open myself up knowing that it’s not decreed that I will be hurt. There is also no guarantee I won’t get hurt. I guess that saying which I’ve been known to scoff at, “Love Like You’ve Never Been Hurt” might have some merit after all?