It’s been a couple of days since I’ve seen Dr. Dragonfly. We did a couple of things. She had given me a book to read about how all of out parts interact with the Self. I still have a hard time talking about the Self in the 3rd person and all the different parts. It seems rather alien to me. An exercise in chapter 6 caught me eye, and I suppose my psyche, bc I started coloring it as my different parts showed themselves. It sounds really stupid, but the book would call to me after I did the initial parts of my Self and Resentment, Rage and Anger. I would be sitting playing a game or doing something else and the book would call out to me. I’d finish that part and I was done. I couldn’t go any further. It was that way until I finished the entire page. It was very odd. Dr. Dragonfly was very happy to see it and discuss it. I’m sure it will be discussed on many occasions. I told her that the only part of the book that I didn’t get through was the last part, therapy and religion. I absolutely abhor religion and consider it to be probably the biggest downfall of mankind. Had religion never been invented, especially the book religions, I think we would be far more advanced than we are today.
We wandered back onto the subject of my 5-6 year old self being abused by my father. The emotions were centered on shame, helplessness, frustration and resignation more than even anger or hate at this point. He would wait for me at the top of the steps. He knew I was hiding either in my closet or in theirs (there was a trapdoor to the attic in their closet) so there was no way to get past him. I couldn’t even run into the bathroom closet and hide bc he’d see me. Eventually, I had to go and just get it over with or he’d come find me and beat me harder just bc I made him either come find me or made him wait. I’m not sure which it was. It was both or either.
Dr. Dragonfly presented me with a second door, escape. It was a nice thought that if there had been a window in my closet I could open it, run across the roof to the garage, down the roof to the milk house and to the barn, corn crib or machine shed where I could wait him out for hours bc he’d never find me. I was little and there were lots of places to hide. I liked the option and if I remember right, I think I was able to use it a few times when I was 9 or 10 to get out of my bedroom before he could catch me. He would try to find me, but I would hide myself under the endless bales of hay or straw and there was absolutely no way he could find me. I could do the same thing in the corn crib. I could hide in the piles of corn. In the machine shed I could hide between the derelict machinery that he was always going to get around to fixing. Living on a farm, there was an infinite number of places to hide. At 5 or 6, I just wasn’t able to access them yet, nor was I able to reason enough to hide myself effectively.
It’s also taken me a couple of days to respond bc my anger seems to have dissipated for now. I’m quite sure it can be triggered fairly easily again, but for now the anger and resentment have given way. New actors have come onto the stage that Self is watching. There are two new actors, pity and another that I can’t quite name yet, but they’re not related to me. It is not forgiveness. That is never enter the stage. What he’s done is neither forgivable nor forgettable. They’re both related to him. I pity him that he had to show his manhood, strength and power by abusing a young boy (all the way into his teens) and a woman (his wife and the mother of his children). I have to wonder how horrible of a life he had to make for himself for things to turn out as they did. We were obviously innocent victims of some “bad” decision he thinks he had made at some point in time. His rage was not only directed at us, by extension. I once had rabbits, some were show and others were meat. I was too young to know the difference. While mom and I were out one day, He killed and butchered all of them and didn’t say anything. I ran into the house crying bc of my missing rabbits (pets) and got slapped around bc boys don’t cry. He was miserable so everyone had to be. I pity him. I wouldn’t walk across the street to spit on him bc he’s not worth the saliva, but I pity him and how miserable he must be. I have neither sympathy for him, nor empathy. There’s nothing, just pity and something else I can’t quite name yet.
cazandoconejos 