An untrained pastor is NOT a therapist

The very first time I ever sliced through flesh, I was sure that I would die. I was sure I would carry it out. I was sure I wanted to. I was 19, a nursing student, struggling to develop my own morals and beliefs, in a crisis, at a crossroads. After I slashed with the only available sharp object, ineffectually, I limped to the emergency room, where a physician examined my wounds and said, "I won't stitch these. So you wanted attention, now you're going to get it. Because what you chose is big red scars." I still carry the scars, finally flesh-toned after a decade of red, like slippery obstacles I've traversed.

I went to church camp. Finally feeling rebellious enough to need church camp, like I needed a dressing down old fashioned hellfire and brimstone manner even if the man throwing the first stone was a hypocrite? I showed up with my gauze wrapped wrists and arms, dripping sweat in a long-sleeved shirt of my father's that hung from my guilt-eaten-spare frame. I remember the drive there, my father met us and insisted that I ride with him back to camp, my friend following behind. My father asked why I did it, I said I didn't know, and then we were silent for the rest of the drive, his pulse palpable in the heavy summer air. I've always wondered what he was thinking, my father, there that day with me in bandages and a stoic frown.

I was quickly ushered into a sweaty lamp lit cabin. I sat in the corner, where the logs met and there was a lovely view of some impressive spiderwebs. My parents on either side. The pastor and his wife, conspiratorially drawing us into a circle, bent forward in their chairs. I remember my mom saying, low, "Well, why don't you tell it, Genevieve?" There was a long, charged pause. Then I began to spill, just bare bones, of what I was suffering and why and how much that made me want to die. 

Another long pause. All I remember is the pastor's wife, patting me gently on the arm over the cuts bandaged there, smiling the sickly sweet smile that dripped like corn syrup from her lips, insincere, saying that "it wasn't really a suicide attempt, it was more about getting attention." I quit nodding. I sat stock still. I waited to see what my parents would do, if they would be able to see the little game being played. 

And then.......

Nothing. That sentence from the pastor's wife the last benediction of the vignette now echoing in my mind. And every time since it's been deeper, wider, more dangerous, more risk. As if the only way to beat that whole dreaded segment of my life would be to prove her wrong. To tell her I was serious - I meant to do it! To commit suicide as some plaintive cry that I did try, I just wasn't very good at it, and thank God! because look at all that has been accomplished since then. Suicide as the punctuation note to that sentence? It blasts backward into the past and contorts memories and dreams. It's dust cloud thunders on into the future to eat up legend, and all that might have been, all those who might have mattered, all that wouldn't have happened if I was there.

To think that I would still give someone that power, someone I haven't seen for 15 years, and I've no idea what's happened to her since. Let her have power over me? Let her steal my joy? No way, José. That pastor's wife has no say in my life now and no power over it. Because truth sets people free. So go snake your arms into someone else's future, Satan, cuz I'm takin' mine.

"Broken"

Progressing to exposure

I watch a ladybug lazily climbing towards the flowers. I don't know if this is her top pace or if the sun has made her drowsy. She inches along, bit by bit. This is me, I think. Inching along. Barely making progress. Feeling the "two steps forward, one step back" process is going too slowly.

Reprocessing is the next step in my therapy journey. This technique holds onto the hope that, if you talk about it enough, a memory loses it's power over your present and future. Before I began this part of therapy, I was very nervous about it. I held it at arms length, even thinking about refusing to participate at all. I also noted that I was self-sabotaging the very process that offered me the best chance at recovery.

Now it's started, and the debate is over. Two weeks of it brings a reduction in flashbacks and a return to somewhat normalcy. I wake up today, knowing it is therapy day, and there's that nervous excitement brewing in my belly. My heart speeds up in anticipation. My palms are cool and clammy. There is something about knowing a little surge of relief is coming. It cracks open the outer shell and tentatively tilts the tender to the sun. 

Letting the light in

I spoke of things this week that I never thought would cross my tongue. Childhood hurts locked away tight and buried after all these years of avoidance. I am nudged - gently - to sift through the secrets and unlock the padlocks and let someone in. To this most horrible part of my self. I shy away, trying to trust.

It is difficult to say "yes" to grief. Especially if that thing you're grieving is nearly 30 years old. Why bother now, I ask in desperation? My friend, my therapist - she says it's important to let the light in. That the truth will set me free. That my fear of the thing is bigger now than the thing itself.

So I open, tentative as a blossom in April, and invite her in. Tears fall, sadness wells up in the throat, water from the lip of a petal. Soft and quiet and aching. For a moment, what was unholiest about me feels holy - sacred ground that was trespassed upon. And for that moment, I see myself as He saw me so long ago - His beautiful child in pain. Only by the power of Christ have I held this pain and all His glory and emerged, somehow, whole.

There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love. ~Washington Irving

An eternal spring

Winter's past

and summer's come

snaking green tendrils of growth

through chilled earth;

I open to the warm sun,

sprout healing.

I remember the suspension of disbelief - 

the same thing that

keeps us turning pages -

the drama we love in short bursts

constant, eating alive

a little girl's soul.

Spring turned to summer

that 7th year

and innocence was lost

with finality

as if there was no

going back,

no do-overs

Alternate rebellion:

treating my physical body

like you did -

trash and toilet -

and my soul languished 

fear nibbling

at the corners of belief.

I couldn't hurt you

so I hurt myself

dangerous daring

cliffs jumped off of

airplanes jumped out of

mountains traversed

in mid-winter.

Adrenaline

was my new best friend.

Now I find myself

looking back through fog

at things long ago,

and I am yearning for

spring eternal

the spring of peace

binding up broken

and beauty for ashes.

In hoc signo vincit

It's hard to pick up a habit after you've dropped it. And hard to stop it once you've given in to the habit, hook, line, and sinker. Yoga was part of every day since April - until I got diagnosed with Lyme's disease in late August. Today is the first day I felt well enough to roll out my mat and get to work again.

I have a goal indelibly connected to the rubbery lines of that mat, a dream to play hockey again this fall. I have to drop a few pounds and gain a whole lot of flexibility to fit my goalie breezers again.

But my practice of yoga goes far beyond a physical goal. It is a time of meditation between God and I. It is teaching my children a peaceful form of exercise easiest for the littlest or oldest person to do in a modified way. It is my well of peace in the midst of the chaos of the day.

Today we used the mountain pose in my therapy session, a way I can feel strong when really I am so weak. The mountain pose is a strong, stable, unmoving pose. I am going to use that pose at the end of each reprocessing session to ground myself and remind myself that I am a strong, courageous, world-wise 32 year old, not a 7 year old girl. The mountain pose and the words I say with it will be my anchor, so that I can climb the rope out of the drowning of my past and up into the fresh air of adulthood.

"I am strong through Christ who lives in me. Through His work in my heart, I can do good works. From His hand flow blessings that paint my life with joy."

I'm praying this final step - reprocessing old memories - is the final key to my freedom from the cage I've lived in for so long. Today I feel as though the door is open, and I am timid, sitting on my swing and singing but not yet going free physically. I am afraid. I hope that the reprocessing, the mountain pose and my mantra change that and I truly fly free this time. "Habeas corpus. Vincit omnia veritas. In hoc signo vincit." (You have a right to your body. The truth conquers all. Under the shadow of the cross I will conquer.)