Expanding, letting life in

He really did rape me. He really did. He really did rape me. Over and over that’s all I think, suddenly. I say it out loud, to feel my own reaction ot my words, I am sobbing as I say it. I’m reading a book by an author that is hitting the nail on the head for me, I’ll give the name of the book later, and it occurs to me that I’m only reacting to this book about survivors in the way I am, breaking into tears of self-recognition every page or so, because I am in fact a survivor. There are things about my life that I don’t consciously know, details, but I have seen the scars on my vulva, I have seen them. They’re long and they are from a terrible wound, and all of this proves, he really did rape me. It’s old news, it’s new news. It’s feeling the same thing at a different level, letting it in, letting myself see myself.

I knew this fact as an article of faith, coming from my commitment to believe my own self, the feelings and memories, but somehow hard visual evidence, the picture I took of those wounds I didn’t see until a year ago, is so unalterably true that there is no layer of protective denial any more. Fuck my brothers’ arrogance, fuck his saying he always believed me. He doesn’t believe me even now. even now.

What more don’t I know about my past? What more am I shielding myself from?

I’ve been noticing, walking outside today that I have two ways of holding my eyes. I habitually narrow my vision, which has been deteriorating these past two years, to the extent that I need glasses again. Lately I’ve been experimenting with purposefully expanding my field of vision, using my peripheral vision, which makes all my sight more clear. Normally, even with my glasses off, I see as if I’m wearing glasses, noticing only what is right in front of me and relatively close. I don’t even realize I”m doing it, most of the time. Now I’m trying to learn not to, to see the whole big picture at once. When I do it outside, even on a cloudy day, my eyes water. The light seems overwhelming. It’s like I don’t ever open my eyes all the way. I believe I’ve been shielding myself from seeing the full picture, and it feels like I’m doing it because to see it all at once, the sky the tops of trees the buildings in the distance, to expand my focus from the close, the immediate the controllable, makes me feel overwhelmed. I worked with an affirmation of ‘it is safe to see everything’. I practiced looking around and feeling the slight overwhelm of all the information coming at me visually. Interesting that I hadn’t noticed this before. I’d noticed the two ways of seeing, but not this, not in this way, this depth.

Photocredit: Chaval Brasil via Flickr “Great view”

No wonder I”m emotional tonight after doing that so much today. I was successful at it too, tolerating it for quite awhile, eventually even my eyes stopped streaming. The book was talking about the difference between feelign numb and dissociated, barely alive really, avoiding all the closed boxes of memories and feelings, and choosing the risky process of living life with those boxes all open. I am opening. I am writing and singing and being creative and it is bubbling up. I want to see it all.

He really did rape me. He really did. Perhaps there is more too.

Adrenaline makes our vision narrow too, opening up my field of view feels unreal, to look at this suddenly panoramic view of where I am. When I do it, everything seems small, like I”m viewing it from a great distance.

ps: The book: The Myth of Sanity: Divided Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness by Martha Stout, Ph.D.

0 thoughts on “Expanding, letting life in”

  1. Hi Sword Dance Warrior,

    Yes he really did. He really did rape you. I’m so sorry dear. I have been going through the same thing about my mother, she raped me, she really did.

    I found a great quote from The Courage to Heal, that reminded me so much of you. I am posting it to my blog tomorrow at noon.

    Good and healing thoughts to you.

    Kate

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