20th May - Change personified

The human psyche breaks new boundaries for me all the time. But this time, it has gone way beyond what I thought was possible. Only a few days ago my head was in such turmoil, where for the first time in my life I wanted to be medicated to numb my pain. In the process of working this through myself I feel more dense, in that my defences are stronger and my understanding of myself has reached new heights.

When I say I have been through this completely on my own I mean that my complete distress was in solitude, the time when I was coming out the other side was when my counselling stepped in. The offer was there for myself to be held when I felt at my worst but sometimes talking about it at the time doesn't help. You have to go through it and then talk about it.

Monday was the first morning for three days where I had not woken up crying. I felt like I had some air to breath and I almost didn't want to start the session. But then I did. I opened myself up and laid myself bare in front of someone I hardly knew. It was one of the most powerful, and empowering meetings I have had in my life. Counselling is not foreign to me, I wouldn't be here without the thousands of hours I have reeled through the shit in my life with people I hardly know. But this one, felt like a liberation, I saw the light above me and swam towards it. Everything spilled from my mouth, all the hurt, the trauma, the abuse, all of it. Most of which I have never told anyone. I burned off the old flesh with a blow torch and laid new seed for which I must grow. My mind, the newly ploughed field was prepared, and two and a half hours later, the reek of the betrayal I was still holding just left. The pain that had deafened me for 96 hours fell silent and I could once again hear.

150 minutes in exchange for 38 years of dense fog and stab wounds that would never heal. All gone.

Incredibly, desire set in. I started to desire. In the course of my mental revolution, brought on the onset of a sexual revolution. I began to desire and felt I actually could be desired. A person came to my attention, an interest picked up, shown. I was not expecting that. I felt uplifted being in contact with them. Excited, accelerated, youthful. I am inquisitive, and in a relentless pursuit of what I see to be an incredibly desirable individual, in every way. My thoughts have not left this person in 5 days, I cannot think of anything else, or anyone else. I have needed exactly this. I feel alive and hopeful. Almost invincible.

The painful lesson is that I have had to be broken in order to mend. I have tried to keep myself complete, knowing that I was only holding onto broken pieces when I just needed to let go, and part of this process is to be completely hopeless, utterly vulnerable, and now I think I can build a person of stature.

And that's the whole point isn't it? None of us know how long we have, what a waste to think that we have never been totally exposed, completely dismantled, in a way that when we claw our way back up we can truly be, truly see and truly be seen.