2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
A person comes to therapy. A year works, another. Deals with the initial request, outlines the next steps. Problems that previously seemed insoluble are becoming simpler and clearer, because for each there is a solution - albeit not always easy, but feasible and within the power. It begins to seem that I have already figured out everything basic, I understood and studied everything necessary - and then bam! … Something is suddenly discovered inside that causes such horror and impotence that hands give up and all hope of healing evaporates
For some, it looks like a bottomless abyss, which cannot be crossed and the bottom in which cannot be found. Someone has this endless sea of sorrow, which, it seems, in a lifetime can neither draw out, nor swim across, nor drain. For some, this is an ocean of dark, greasy substance, like oil, which no human life will be enough to rake and clean.
The reasons for the appearance of this internal substance are not always known. I think that the sea is tears that were not cried in childhood, when you could neither be sad nor cry, because you will not receive either support or sympathy, otherwise you will also get snot. The abyss is loneliness and "I am not", which I had to endure without the opportunity to even share my horror with someone. Oil is a toxic shame that has drowned many, many times, and no one reached out. They seem overwhelmingly endless, because all this was lived by a small child who has almost no adult resources to cope with such conditions. For a small child, several hours of total loneliness and helplessness are equal to five to ten years of complete loneliness and complete helplessness of an adult.
I do not yet know if it is possible to eliminate these seas and abysses and whether it is necessary. This is not the main task anyway.
The main task is to learn to stay close to these internal phenomena and not be destroyed by them. Walk to the sea or abyss at a safe distance, sit down and just watch. Breathe. Just sit and do nothing. Do not try to scoop or scrub. Don't try to escape. Do not try to unsee. Do not try to frantically seek solutions. Just be close. Inhale, then exhale, inhale again and exhale again.
Gradually, instead of horror and panic, other feelings will come. It can be peace from the realization that no matter how endless this sea is and how bottomless this abyss is, they do not destroy us. Or it will be sympathy for a child who alone had to go through something that not every adult can do. It can also be an awareness of the value of your life and a desire to treat yourself more carefully.
It is important to remember that the worst is over (fortunately or unfortunately) - the most difficult and unbearable was already passed then, in childhood. Now we already have the strength, resources, the ability to rely on at least one person (your therapist), access to knowledge and support, the understanding that life is not limited and does not end with the parental home and its rules. Therefore, now you can no longer run away, but you can take the first step to your inner sea of sadness, sit on the shore and just sit in silence.
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