I Can't Say it Was a Bad Year, But . . .
It certainly was different from the year before, and it was difficult. At the time, it felt like I'd taken several giant steps backward. I can see now that it was, in fact, forward progress. One sometimes has to revisit painful episodes and in fact, I have had to revisit these painful things over and over again in my life in order to work through them. Most of my journaling was the processing of that very difficult work, and only a very little of it directly relates to my spiritual journey. But here are a handful of excerpts that provide some flavor and context and help to explain later twists and turns. That awful black pit of self-loathing reappeared and blotted out almost everything else:
August 9, 1993 (24 years old)
Which reminds me that I haven’t been doing much of anything about my own spirituality. I have prayed some – just Thank you, thank you, thank you, mostly, because I’ve been so blessed. I am truly grateful, and have been trying to maintain an “attitude of gratitude.” I guess I’ve partly decided that if I can’t operate from a place of love all the time, perhaps I can operate from a place of thanksgiving. I can try, anyway. Perhaps if I really do that right, it will gradually become a place of love. I know when I’m really paying attention, consciously taking note of everything around me that I’m grateful for, I can’t help feel love for whatever Power gave me all this, and I also feel love for the things I have. My love for my friends becomes immeasurably strengthened, fuller, more all encompassing. It’s hard to be petty and self-absorbed while you are appreciating and giving thanks for the world you live in and the life you have been given. I’ve certainly never done anything to deserve this miraculous life. It is grace.
October 31, 1993
God. I’m falling back into a horrible place today. It’s so difficult to find out what is true. I’m feeling ugly and bad today. S [my current boyfriend] says he loves me, but I’m so worried. What if he loves an illusion? What if Dad is right? And how can I change if I don’t even understand what makes me evil? What is it about me that my father can see but no one else can? How can I find out? I guess in therapy, and trying even harder to be honest with myself. The work ahead of me feels so daunting today. I don’t even know how to begin. I’m supposed to call my parents this weekend, but I don’t think I will. I’m not ready to tell them about school yet [I had withdrawn for the semester], and they are going to ask sometime. . . I don’t want to tell them right now, because I don’t even know how I feel about them. Am I angry and hurt because they don’t like me, or am I guilty of being evil and afraid to tell them anything because they’ll see right through me to the real reasons I’m not in school? In which case maybe I should talk to them to find out my own ulterior motives, since I’ve so cleverly hidden them from myself. If I have them. Jeez, I’m confused. Am I good or bad? If I’m okay, how can I explain why my parents, particularly my Dad, dislike me so much? What have I done that they could interpret as evil without either them or me actually being bad people?
And how am I supposed to go through the days as if nothing is wrong with me until I figure it all out? How can I accept love from S when I know there is a good chance he’s giving it to an evil monster? And the killer is, no one believes me when I say I may be really bad. But how can they ignore the evidence? And of course, we all want love, so I’m probably not completely honest or convincing when I tell him because I don’t really want him to stop loving me.
What I want is to be able to tell someone all the things about me that I know are bad and have them still love me. And I have tried to do that with S, but there are things – the worst things- that I’ve held back. And until I remember all the molestation stuff and tell it to someone, I will never really know if I’m truly loveable or not. I guess that is the bottom line. And I can’t even remember it all. Maybe not because I’m afraid of what was done to me – maybe I’m really afraid of what I did.
Jesus Christ! How do I get beyond that one? I have tried so many times to face the truth about myself, and been ready to go to hell on the spot if need be, but I always come out feeling better about myself, and what could that be except that I’ve managed to fool myself again? Maybe humans can’t allow themselves to see the really awful truth about themselves because if we did we’d kill ourselves and wouldn’t reproduce to keep the species alive. At least some of us would. Its like a leftover part of our reptile brain – it never lets me see how bad I really am. But my father sees it. Maybe because he is a minister and he’s more used to dealing with evil. Maybe it isn’t even anything I’ve done. Maybe he can just smell it. And if that’s true – if it isn’t even something I’ve done, but just something I am – what am I supposed to do about it? How can I even find out? How get rid of it? Would I maybe just have to die?
I think I’m just going to go escape into a book or some music or something. I feel like I’ve reached saturation. I mean, what am I supposed to do with all these feelings?
November 30
I want to write something from the book [If I should Die Before I Wake, by Michelle Morris]. She’s talking about when she was introduced to Christianity, and she says, “Suddenly my own plight was illuminated with meaning. The purpose of my misery was to win grace, an ethereal substance that would flow into my soul until my death.” God! I remember feeling this way – to be a martyr – that must be the purpose of my life – I believed that!
Toward the end of this year of intensive personal work, I felt a deep need to reconnect with my family, with my parents. I sought their forgiveness for the terrible ways I had treated them when I was a teen. I wanted desperately to reestablish the closeness we had when I was a child, before I was molested by a neighbor. I believe now (but I didn't realize until very recently) that it was largely that longing that turned me back toward Christianity again when I re-emerged from the darkness in search of a personal faith.
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