I am putting my blog bit here, so that you know what happened on Thursday. I know it is long and I know it is too long really for here, but I also know you don't have to read it.
Admitting at last how bad it was:
I started the session on Thursday with my husband there. I wanted him to hold me if I got upset. I knew I was going to try and say. I wanted the comfort of being held.
sweetP reassured me a lot but in the end I asked HeartM8 to leave. And I tried to talk again. I admitted how I never really wanted to go to this place in me, in my mind.
"If it hurts don't go there". That is what people say. I was worried that I was too fragile to go there. That I might break. That it might be too much pain for a human being to hold.
The significance of what I was about to say felt potentially devastating. SweetP recognized that. He reassured me that he thought I would live. He said it depends on how I feel about knowing it in the space in my head and then having it known in a bigger way by somebody else and other bits of me. I told him how frightened I was of the screaming that came out on Saturday night. He said screaming is what people do, it is natural when we are frightened or in pain. He said that it was perfectly okay to scream. But I so didn't want to scream.
He talked about how things happen to us. How the idea of something brings up a slightly different reaction to the thing itself and we react differently, it is almost like what the thing means to us and things happen and they are what they are and then there are the connections they have for us, and what they tell us about ourselves and those connections are where the extra pain lies. There is the pain of the thing itself but the pain that stays is about other things too.
He wondered if I had allowed myself to know this.
About keeping it true or maybe not true, sweetP expressed how he thought it can get to a point where it has begun to feel more true than not true and that might be the point where you can let go of it and let it be really true.
sweetP: Maybe there is a point that you get to that, with this. Maybe you have not quite got to that point yet. That is hard to know. It is such a sensitive thing to go near.
I kept saying how I did not want it to be true. But that I can't keep that door shut anymore.
What does it mean to not have the door shut, sweetP asked. I said that it means he – the false guru – had won. He did everything he could to me, the worst apart from killing me, and I was hoping that the very worst had NOT happened.
sweetP just kept being safe and steady and kind and there for me. I wanted so much to hide under the desk in the room. I felt little and vulnerable.
He said it might be okay for it to be a gradual thing, that I work up to talking about it. And that it takes as long as it takes. And the advantage of looking at it like that, is that it takes the pressure off: I don't have to talk about it right now. I can, I could do, but I don't have to.
He pointed out that it is hurting me anyway, though.
He then said he thought he might be off the mark but it seems this is something that the reality of, saying it, will actually feel like it changes my sense of who I am and how I have coped throughout the years.
I tried to explain how initially, when I came back from India, I just wanted to do some counselling sessions and get over it and complete my Ph.D. I was not even sure what I was trying to get over.
I told him how the guru felt like a father, which makes rape feel even more not okay. I had got used to my father touching me inappropriately or saying inappropriate things, but for the guru to rape me, well, no – not that. That did not feel okay. It was just not okay. It just felt so wrong. It felt such a betrayal. It was so much easier, to believe that it was not happening.
sweetP says how he understands how it was just unbearable and I had to make it less unbearable.
So I told how I sort of felt I could cope with the humiliation, or the mocking, or the hitting or the physical assault but not THAT.
And I said how I hated that I can live with this prodding in my mind, and then some days I can think I can get a handle on this but then I think “No – I can't. Please no, let it not be so.”
He said he understood the wanting something desperately NOT to be so, to wind back the clock and let it NOT happen.
sP: “What is it that you recover when you make it not so? When you manage to make it not so, it salvages something for you. What is it that is salvaged or not lost?”
S: “If it is 'not so' then it isn't serious. And the rest was sort of familiar so I could make it 'not serious'. I too was ashamed, of it being so. And I couldn't live there in Indiaeither with it being true. I just couldn't. I couldn't. The small child in me then, just kept asking him: 'please be kind, please stop. Please stop.' Over and over I would say that. And the adult me would keep saying in my head: ' This can't be happening, it can't be, please let this not be happening.”
I told him how the other young woman had not survived and her brother did not live, he killed himself. Yes, I survived but it took all that I have. The guru played with me like small children pull off the wings of insects. He thought it was amusing if I cried. I soon learnt not to show any sign of anything. I just wanted to get out. I just wanted him to be kind. “Please don't. Please stop.”
Could I ever make ANY one understand what it was like? Ever?
sweetP: Somebody treats you in that way, that makes you not matter, that makes you nothing in a way to them, and if that's an echo of something that was already there, then it turns it into something that is incredibly destructive doesn't it. And that is what you have been trying to handle, the destructive power of what he did, that was magnified by what had happened before. And I think that all the things that you have done to handle it, whether it is trying to block it out, trying to escape from it or trying to tackle it in different ways, that is all you trying to hold onto something. I wonder if there's a way of looking at it that says 'whatever it's done to you inside and however it has hurt you, but actually he has not won. He didn't win.' The reason that might be right is because of the life that you have lived, and possibly continue to have. What you actually are, have done and may still do, says to him, he did not win. For all the destruction and cruelty of what he did, he did not win. That is what someone looking from the outside may see. It may not feel true to you but I wonder if there is something there about the measure of your resilience and strength that you have found a way of surviving and more than surviving and some people as you say, did not survive And i wonder if from that, if there is something to say about you ultimately being strong enough to deal with what you have to deal with. I think I am saying that I trust your strength and your resilience. That it will be enough. And there is some evidence for that, I think. That you have that. It does not stop the pain. I am not implying that. It does not stop it being painful. It is the surviving and not breaking bit that I am talking about here.
(bless him)
sweetP: You referred to the shame that you felt. There is something about how even when you know that it wasn't your fault and about power and manipulation and all the different facets, and yet people do feel ashamed about things that have been done to them and yes, they feel responsible despite all the logical reasons why not.
I wonder if what helps with that ultimately is the bit that is about: how do you get to see yourself and believe yourself to be all right and not be wrong? You often use the phrase 'feeling so wrong'. It starts off with what other people do, what parents do and not do. How you still try to love them despite that, because that is what you needed.
Long Silence where I have curled up and am holding onto my legs and have my head down.
sweetP: It seems like you have shut down. And the shutting down is about being so close to something so horrible and needing to just stop it.
sweetP: I don't know if this is right but it is something about what it is to be over powered and not have control about what happens. It can bring up a lot of feelings such as shame and anger as well. Both of those can be there and I am remembering the dream you described before you went away recently, when you were able to stop a man and fight him off, and that need to not feel helpless, vulnerable, it is really important. Obviously.
It seems to me that in many ways you have gradually found resources to give yourself some control and power but it also feels fragile and as though it is hanging by a thread and that if you look too much or acknowledge too much, it will get swept away. So that leads you back to feeling on the brink and feeling incredibly vulnerable.
That leads me back to thinking about your previous statements about feeling powerless and needing a sense that people will listen and you can have some control about what other people can do. You could almost take for granted in most situations that you can have a reasonable amount of control over what happens to you.
I agree with that bit of you that thinks it would be helpful to say what you think happened and to be able to allow that to be so. I think getting to that point might be a winding route and it might necessarily be so. It has to be okay that it is a winding route, as it is about what we can manage at any particular time.
(bless him)
sweetP: what are you feeling now?
S: Say that he did, okay. (much sighing) I just don't ... Don't I have any say here? I am NOT going to say that, I am not going to let that ... No, NO NO, you did NOT do that, you are NOT doing that. I am NOT going to let that be part of reality, you can't MAKE me say. I don't want that. I DON'T WANT THAT. NO NO NO DON'T NO.
(crying.)
It is right in there, right where I don't go, where there are so many feelings, so much hurting and so much, argh,
okay okay okay!
Maybe, he is winning cos I am so frightened. Maybe I could say, “So what, you DID, so what?” but I tried that too.
sweetP: what happens when you try that?
S: I go right inside and think “ YOU can't get me, you think you have got me but you haven't!”
You can't understand, or know, what it's like.
(crying) No, no, this is just STUCK in me. It is AWFUL. (sobbing)
but it is NOT true. He DID get me.
You can't know, you just can't. You can't. No one can know what this is like.
I don't want to live another week with this. I don't. I just don't. If I knew what to say, I would say it. If I knew. I would do it. I would.
I sat in a room about half the size of this room, with a door there and a window there with bars on . I would just curl up here in the corner and try not to be. I would hear him coming. Sometimes I prayed. Sometimes I tried to numb out all over. Sometimes I would pretend to sleep. Sometimes I would try to engage him in conversation. Sometimes, I used to beg: “please don't. Please don't. Please leave me alone, please don't”
but it didn't make any difference so I stopped. but the “ Please don't” kept going on in my head. But it didn't stop him. Nothing stopped him.
crying
I can just be courageous and say “ Okay, Okay so he did” but I don't WANT that. I don't even respect myself for this, as this is not working anymore, it is making me hurt me longer now. If I could just say, “ Okay, it happened okay, right, okay. Alright. Okay”
sweetP: If you say to yourself, that yes, it did happen, then it meant that you really could not do anything and that is horrible.
(I begin screaming)
and that makes you want to scream. And it should because it is awful.
(more screaming but I put the blanket in my mouth so it is very muffled)
S screaming: I just wish I could have stopped him. I just wish I could have stopped him. I just wish I could have stopped him.
(awful crying, terrible sobbing)
I wanted to stop him and tried and I couldn't move him at all, I couldn't move him, I tried to push him I tried
I tried to scratch his face but he got hold of my hands and he held them above my head so that I couldn't get him off.
(I want HeartM8 back.)
I hit him and he hit me harder and I tried to kick him and he kicked me harder and more.
sweetP: You tried and tried and you couldn't get him off.
S: I couldn't. I tried.
I once bit his face. He bit me back, more times and harder. My face and my arms and my shoulder, they were bleeding. I scratched him and he scratched me back. He would wait some days later, he would kick me and say: you shouldn't kick. It would take me a while to work out where that had come from. I can't work out how a human being can do that to another. And all you do is work out “ how can I survive? What can I do?” and of course there are gaps, mostly of daylight. And there is nothing in that room, an empty room, I used to watch the way the light changed as the day wore on, how it changed the light and colour on that wall and that wall.
I used to try and stop it bleeding so much.
I used to ask if I could go and wash. If I asked reasonably if I could please go and wash, sometimes I could. But he would watch.
(awful crying again.)
I don't want to go there anymore. I don't want to remember. I don't. There are so many doors. I don't. I don't even like you knowing. I don't. Part of me wishes that we can just close this up again. Can we? Can we just shut it down?
(I am shaking and my teeth are chattering.)
sweetP: Yes, we can. We can just decide we don't have to talk about this now, anymore. Not now.
S: I don't like you knowing.
sweetP: What I want to say about that is that you telling me and not wanting it to be so, is about you trying to make it okay. I want to say that it can be okay. I think it can be okay.
S: Can it be okay that you know?
sweetP: I think it can be.
S: I would not treat another human being like that.
sweetP: S? do you want to put the blanket around you?
(I am shaking).
sweetP: It is the intensity of what you have experienced. It needs some time. We are going to come away from it. S? We are just going to have a few minutes when we think about what is happening next, you going and being with HeartM8 and move on to the next part of the day and you will probably be exhausted and you will probably crash and you will need to look after yourself and let HeartM8 look after you and let your body come back to normal which it will do slowly and gradually.
(My teeth are chattering)
S: I kept this down for good reason.
sweetP: You did. You did. Everything you have done has been about trying to survive and be okay. You've done okay. You have really done okay.
S: he is pathetic. He is not ... and I got away, didn't I! He didn't see that coming, he didn't see that coming AT ALL!
sweetP: his assumption that he could crush you was wrong. It was wrong.
(my teeth are chattering still making it very difficult to talk.)
I tell sweetP that my retreat mistress said that maybe he was a true tantric master, that I was just not ready for his teachings.
and I believed her for 48 hours and it put me into more shame and more feelings of being useless and pathetic. But then I thought, if this was something that was meant to be right why did he hurt me so much? And I thought about how kind HeartM8 is and how kind that which we call Christ is, and nothing that is like this, can be right. If it does not have kindness.
sweetP: I don't have words that are adequate and it is beyond most people's experience and my own experience and I know that I can't say anything that does justice to it, but I think your strength in surviving that and hanging on to that as you did, says a lot about you.
So I tell him about how the amazing tenacity to survive that I had as a burnt six months old baby, when my parents were told that I would not survive but I seemed to refuse to go under and ate pureed apple and rice and I fought to live. And when I got to India, I had that same tenacity to survive, I fought to survive in the same way.
sweetP: I certainly think it is true that some people would not have survived what happened to you in India, and would not have survived what happened afterwards when you came back.
Carrying all that pain inside of yourself and feeling alone with it.
S: He was trying to break me down moment by moment. It was so cruel. He kept admitting that he found it interesting, wondering what I would do next. Buddhism says that it is my karma, I must have done something that bad and now it comes back on me. I think instead that I must have wished to know what it is like to suffer and wanting to experience it so that I might know and then I really will be there for others in there suffering.
But there have been times when i thought “ I blew it didn't I! I blew it!”
sweetP: ”I find I want to plead with you never to think that. It is so far from my understanding of what happened. I know you can think that but I do plead, ...
S: but if that was true, he should not have hurt me. He should have walked away, he should not have pushed it on me. It is just rubbish.
sweetP – it is a rationalisation for sadistic and other unhealthy impulses.
I give sweetP some presents from India and show him some pictures of me with my present teacher. And a picture of me just before I went to India the first time.
S: It's awful that you know. Oh god. What do I do? How do I hold this for a week? Do I just lock it down again?
sweetP: It remains to be seen what you can do. You may be able to do that. If it is more difficult, it is about what you say about it too.
S: I can say to myself that it is okay that you know, can't I!
sweetP: yes, you can.
