As a child, I often thought I might one day write a book about my life. This idea continued in its evolution as I grew older.
It made sense to write as though I lived in a soap opera. At the time it made perfect sense. Because it was true. That was how a lot of my existence played out. Such drama, every day. Like a soap opera. Full of drama. I had a creative imagination. Out of my fantasies great scenarios grew. Roles were assigned to actors who didn't have a clue. There was no way anyone could know they'd become participants. I was too well hidden.
I could hide in these expanding labyrinths. Filling rooms with fantasies, all make believe, stories too far from truth. This is where I would hide from the harsh world. My defenses were at all times to remain in full battle dress, on the defensive, prepared to annihilate any intruders. Trouble was, the deal I made did not account for defense against good. Trust no one. I remained too gullible to discern between good and evil leaving all kind of nooks and crannies for pathology to enter. Here I could be persuaded to do the bidding of pathology. Everything I had once known in my innocent heart was by this time buried beneath layer upon layer of the "onion peelings.”
Thick and thin. One opaque the next too thick for light to get through. No chance of seeing anything true. Having lost the ability to discern truth from trickery. There was not time to learn about discernment or how I might have been better able to function with it. How I might have been better equipped to function in the world even with my woundedness. I never got the discernment piece. I was stuck in survival mode. So the battles raged. Deep within the maze of deception and lies I hid. Deep within the thick, thick walls. I had built a prison of sorts.
I have been in deep for some long time; decades really. Tripping and falling over myself to find the way out. Frightened beyond original traumas. I was buried beneath lies and deceit. Buried beneath the lie that I was not worthy to be alive.
Since doing the dreamwork I have been facing into, sometimes sideways and backwards, the pathologies that formed my prison. I have needed to face through paralizing fear from traumas. Face into the agony of my pain and my grief that brought me to placing the first stone, that brought me to ever believing for whatever the reason I needed to hide from my essence.
I discovered I could not dig myself out without help. And beleive me I tried. Until it was agony feeling the weight of my prison. I felt surely I was dying. It took a longer stretch to realize that fully. After so long trying to dig my way out of my complex dungeon, I began archetypal dreamwork. In retracing the bricks one by one, a painful and tedious process, I found I had already written the book. Actually I lived it and know intimately every dark corner. The truth is I am still discovering places so well hidden and slippery. Of course the places I refer to are in my psyche. (Although there were times in the beginning I did indeed hide underneath stairwells and in the woods.) There were so many ways. I created scenarios to fit ongoing fantasies. Another way I could avoid the more difficult realities was by keeping the drama going.
This describes how remnants of truths became distorted. After not too long discerning between the truth and "reality" was more often seeming impossible to realize. Far from essence. That is where I found myself. Confused, afraid to turn this way or that. I believed all the lies and no one could tell me different. I was in deep. It was too dark to find my way out. Too daunting to go it alone.
After years in the dreamwork, I found my feet were firmly imbedded in a false world. Stubborn and willfulness made it seem more like rock hard set in concrete. But I knew in my heart I wanted and needed much more. I ached for the truth. Even in the beginning of my work when I saw nothing of true feeling. Fear was a constant, becoming later my greatest ally. Fear drove me to keep reaching and stretching for the truth no matter how painful. No matter how difficult the looking was, is. It has become more and more impossible for me to remain hidden. I hid from the world to conceal my wound. I could lick my wounds, my pain, my grief by staying hidden away. I hid with an ever growing bag of tricks/lies. Now better known as my survival pathology. Necessitated by a need to survive. This was not what I had intended as a child. I had no concept or thought process that told me to do this, "It will work." I just wanted to stay alive, somehow.
For a good deal of my lifetime I stood lurking at the sidelines. An observer of both my life and life in general. From time to time, caught up in the mix of things I would come out the victim, a martyr. During at least five decades my pathology has become quite adept at keeping all of me tightly under wraps. Where I gave up bit by bit feelings that kept me connected to my essence. One wound compounded by another. Still raw and filling with toxic pathology. I would grown passive, shallow, dishonest, angry and hugely condescending.
Beyond a certain point as an adult I needed to take some responsibility for the choices I made. It became unimportant who the original perpetrators were. They had their wounds, after all. In the beginning, I was a child filled with essence. I was purely and simply God’s own. This has been an amazing experience. I feel a bit flabbergasted and happy at the same time to see where I am now.