The Pain of Healing

I am grateful for so much. In both my past and my present, I have been incredibly blessed. Sure, there have been some tough moments, but the gifts that I have received and am still receiving show me that the love of God is incredible. Even with schizoaffective disorder, and the regular psychological pain that I endure because of it, I can see how generous God has been in my life. I found an amazing man at nineteen that has stuck by my side through intense calamity over these last 27 years. We have been in love and made love. We have soaked in the kisses of the sun, the omnipresence of the mountains, and the cleansing air from the rivers and forests. We have raised many cats and dogs, and loved and cared for them. Steve and experience taught me a lot about how to raise a dog, and today, my German shepherd, Jay, is one of the greatest blessings in my life. My sister has become a close friend, and her children and family bless my life. My parents, too, have become my best friends, and I know that I am loved. God blessed me with my creativity and I have painted so many pictures, written countless words, and sung many songs. I learned to teach children through education and experience, and these educational journeys taught me many things, and helped me heal my inner child. I am blessed now to live on a beautiful property on an idilc island, and my housing and income are stable.

In healing, we must learn to let go of our painful past and past experiences. It is true, however, that in order to let go of these painful moments, they must be brought to our awareness in the present. What I struggle with is that I cannot always look upon my past congruently. So much is a blur because of my psychotic episodes. Trauma too, can be obtuse, and live in our bodies as sensation without the cognitive story to accompany it. I do however, want to make peace with my past. I do this through writing currently, and by sharing and listening at meetings. Today, I feel psychological pain, and I cannot necessarily determine why. I know that recent stress has caused me to deal with some symptomatic emotions that I have been handling. I found myself lying in bed and remembering high school, and imagining some old bullies yelling at me as if they were with me in my bedroom. How is it that I have been unsuccessful at bringing forgiveness to this part of my past, and have failed at letting it all go? Thirty years have gone by with me holding onto the psychological pain in my mind and my body. Trauma over the years has piled on, and somehow I still need to do the work to let go of it all.

My program and the twelve steps offers a recipe for living, and an answer to my quandary. The eighth and ninth steps are: 8 - “Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and become willing to make amends to them all,” and 9 - “Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.” These steps speak to the willingness I must have to admit my resentments, and then see what my part was in these wounded places within my heart. I have been in the program of AA for over five years, and I still have not been able to fully practice these steps. Eventually, I joined a secular meeting, because I felt more able to interpret the steps as I wished, as few people in those meetings read the Big Book or even practice the steps at all. Many in those rooms practice the first step: “Admitted we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become imaginable,” and they leave it at that. Essentially they admit they have drinking or using issues, show up to meetings, and don’t partake. The support and intelligence in these rooms seems to be enough for many atheists and agnostics to find successful sobriety. Steps eight and nine may just have some answers for me, though. Why didn’t I stand up to my bullies, and why did I run and change schools? What was my part, and there was a part, in any harm that I inflicted or endured? Perhaps owning my presence in the situation, and not blacking it out, I can bring in further awareness and heal.

I know many will agree that our formative years hold a lot of weight later in life when we get around to doing the work and the healing. Over and over, I have wished the pain away, but what am I not looking at? Obviously, there is a part of me that is still incredibly wounded. I suffered greatly in middle and high school because I was bullied, and I didn’t talk about it. Then I developed an eating disorder and a dependance on drugs and alcohol, and I still did not talk about it. I began to open up at seventeen when I struggled with major depression and panic attacks, but still, I kept pushing down the majority of the pain. This moved me right into my first hospitalization at 18, and then “Bob’s your uncle”. I was transported to a future world, that was beautiful in so many ways because I found love, but struggled greatly with mental illness, and thus doubly locked the door to my formative years and any early trauma. I have no excuses. I need to have patience with myself, and work my programs of AA and Al-anon in order to unravel my past and find a way towards light and healing. The saying “Time takes time,” comes to mind. It may seem like eons have passed with this pain inside of me, eating away at my soul, but healing takes time. The more time I spend sober and in the rooms of Al-anon and AA, I just may find a way to finally let go, and to practice true and honest forgiveness. For me this looks like having a relationship with God, and while returning to this recently, I am reminded how much Faith can serve me in my healing. I am grateful for that today. As I give myself the time to heal, I live only for today. When I bring myself back to the healing moment, I find that I live less in my past.