54. To be all who we are

Falling Into Place

It feels like Lyn is really there for us but sometimes I get scared we will lose her. To think about that hurts. It feels unbearable, a loss I don’t think I can take. Never have I gone to such depth in therapy before. I feel all of us are trusting her more and more. It feels like I  am being me without feeling so self conscious about it.

And then it hits. We are watching the movie about Truddi Chase (“When Rabbit Howls”). She is also multiple. At the moment the film begins something hits us in our chest. Whump! We stop the move and quickly call Lyn. We ask her “Do we have permission to be all who we are?” She says yes. As we watch the film I know exactly what Truddi is talking about. If it is true for her, if she is really multiple, then it must be true for me too. In my bones I feel it, and know that it’s true, that I am a “we”. Lyn gives us permission to be. If Truddi can do it so can we

---- Shell

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What is Evil? What is it that can blacken a person’s heart so? What can we understand about its existence? Is it an ever gnawing hunger for power? Is it a desire so strong that cannot be ignored, an impulse that cannot be stopped? Is it the urge to wound, to slash in anger, to hate any who are helpless and vulnerable? Maybe. And maybe more than all of that. Maybe it is a beast that looks at itself in the mirror and sees the monster it has become. Maybe it is power over another but it is not empowerment. It is not satisfaction that the brain can register but rather, an empty pledge and a dead end road. One cannot rise from its depths as if in victory. Maybe it is a dark heart in a tangled web, a guardian at the gate of a cold dank prison. Maybe it is a steel trap that captures its prey and holds it hard until some final and devastating end. And maybe a child abused so maliciously is a child who knows, who understands what Evil is, for she sees it in the face of her abuser. She feels it in the body that crushes her. She hears it in the venomous spit from the perpetrator’s mouth. It is The Beast Without.

When all of our rage is finally released a shout will be heard and Evil will fly into the distance with its black wings. Eventually it will disintegrate and fall silently and softly to the earth. No fanfare then. No celebration. Only a quiet stillness will descend and tiny pieces of shattered hate will meet the ground. There will be no power for it then. There will be no satisfaction. Only a right and fitful end.

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A dream. Our father lets another man come in and rape us any time he wants to. When we wake up someone Inside knows this as memory not dream. But don’t tell anyone yet. We don’t want to know.

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Some change has come about. We feel very new in the world like everything is unfamiliar. Seeing the real Truddi Chase on Oprah and seeing her movie has triggered something fundamental inside. The deep Core of knowing. In a way “I” feels even more alienated yet a stronger, braver sense of “we” emerges. Wanting to say “we” all the time, not to hide it anymore.