eros, logos: therapy

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

therapy

What do you want to talk about today, he asks me.

--I don't know. Nothing. I don't want to talk.
....

You know what just came into my head, he says, --the word 'violence'.
Why do you think that is?

I think about the person I don't want to talk about. Or think about. AlI the many secrets that fall under that category.

I think about the violence that hangs in the air with him and me, heavy and still, and that sometimes is present, alive, a bleeding, raw and bruised entity.

I think of how it's a living thing that runs through my life like a dark and tangled bloody vine binding me to a bed.

--I don't know, I lie.

I can't see my own arms and legs
or know if this is a trap or blessing,
finding myself back here, where everything

in this house has long been over,
kettle and mirror, spoon and bowl,

including my own body,
including the body I had then,
including the body I have now.
Margaret Atwood, Morning in the Burned House

Labels: clever fucking bastard, shrinkage

posted by O @ 01:39


4 Comments:
At 03 February, 2009, Anonymous said… I think this is one of the best blog posts i've read on any blog in a hell of a long time. I identify with being in therapy, for starters, so ther post speaks to me on a more individually personal level than many other posts [in various locations, not just here]. I mean, identification with what someone writes is the basis for the enjoyment by reader of experience by writer -- that's reading-for-pleasure 101. But when there's identification as a result of direct experience, the barriers are further broken down and a closeness established that the writer is general not even aware of. In this case, I read and thought: "Been there, done that." Because i have. It took me a long time and many (pretty much wasted) sessions of therapy to realise that if i wasn't as open as i felt i ought to be in my therapy sessions; or if i did what i had/have been conditioned to do and said what i felt the listener wanted to hear, I wasn't helping anyone, least of all me. We all think we're the only person in the world who dares to lie to our therapist. Obviously we're not. But denial is as strong a state of mind as any, if not stronger. Thanks for giving me something to identify with. Thanks for being so real. Love Sapphire the Elegant Slut x At 03 February, 2009, Aurore said… It's annoying sometimes how they know exactly what it is you have no desire to talk about but that is exactly what you should be talking about. I've definitely been there. At 03 February, 2009, Frequent Traveler said… Rage has kept me a prisoner, sometimes for years. The hurt ran so deep, the wounds so wide, that I could not forgive myself for having made the choice over and over and over to stay with him - nor him for leaving me. The thing was - I finally realized I and I alone was eating my soul up, wasting my precious time and thoughts and heart energy on all that corroding rage. His life was unaffected, and all I was doing was still giving him power over me. I fianlly decided to take it back, to stop wearing the hair shirt of self-castigation, and to heal by no longer making him the arbiter of who I was with his cruelty and rejection. Blessings to you, O. May the words pour out of you and the tears if need be, that this canyon of hurt heals. At 03 February, 2009, selkie said… I had to read this several times, to try to figure out what i thought - I do that a lot - figure out what I"m thiking (am I the only one that sometimes can't really identify her reaction to something??) I know that my gut reaction is sometimes, just sometimes, lies are comfortable. I'm not good at verbalizing, my voice strangles in my throat - but the point is that something like this is SO individualistic - how does it make YOU feel O ... for when all is said and done, avoidance can be a mean virago who comes back to bitch slap you again and again ....
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