I feel in my bones that my CFS is a legacy of the abuse. (Even if it turns out to be a virus, the severe stress has to have something to do with it). My journey had taken me so very far and I'd managed it without killing myself, dying of substance addiction or ending up in an institution. I'd built a life, I mostly liked myself and, in the words of Joni Mitchell, I was living every day. I was devastated when my hard won functioning was taken away by CFS.
In my early thirties I was in the throes of coming to terms with who I was after I had realised the depth and severity of the abuse I'd suffered. I was also bringing up my daughter and training to be a teacher. It was brutal sometimes but it was a time full of revelation and discovery, like opening a door thinking it was a cupboard and finding a ballroom behind it. The lovely A and I were in about our third iteration of trying to make it work. As a man, he felt somehow responsible for what had happened to me, I pushed him away, and I lost him - for twenty long years.
It's only now, after the joy of being reunited, that I am really feeling the enormity of that loss. When I was young all I really wanted was to marry him and have a houseful of raggle taggle children. I married someone else in a fit of pique and had a beautiful daughter. You win a few, you lose a few. There's more though. The loss of growing together, of journeying together, if I think about it too much I can't bear it. And it's all wrapped up with the other losses: my job, my health, my freedom. It strikes me, yet again, that all of these losses are to do with my identity, as a mother, a survivor, a worker. I'm grieving for them all.
I knew that, but didn't realise the import of it until I came across this a few days ago.
Sue Jackson: Quote it Saturday 21/11/2009
...It was a catch-22: If you didn't put the trauma behind you, you couldn't move on. But if you did put the trauma behind you, you willingly gave up your claim to the person you were before it happened.
- The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult
I'd forgotten what it can feel like to move on - like a betrayal of who I was before. It's easy to understand if someone dies and you find it difficult to move on after grief for fear of betraying that person. Not so easy to recognise the fear of betrayal of self. To do it willingly, that is the key word here, is so much harder.
Here I am in that place again, remaking my life through the extraordinary miracle of A's forgiveness of me and his courage in seeking me out. I must let go of the high-functioning, independent, coping Me; say goodbye and thanks for getting me thus far. I will become a different me but essentially still the same Me. A person not afraid to depend upon another, I will recognise my physical limitations and celebrate my spiritual growth.
So, as we pack up our respective temporary gaffs this weekend, and as our separate lives finally get all mixed up together on the removal lorry of life, I shall be content.
- The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult
I'd forgotten what it can feel like to move on - like a betrayal of who I was before. It's easy to understand if someone dies and you find it difficult to move on after grief for fear of betraying that person. Not so easy to recognise the fear of betrayal of self. To do it willingly, that is the key word here, is so much harder.
Here I am in that place again, remaking my life through the extraordinary miracle of A's forgiveness of me and his courage in seeking me out. I must let go of the high-functioning, independent, coping Me; say goodbye and thanks for getting me thus far. I will become a different me but essentially still the same Me. A person not afraid to depend upon another, I will recognise my physical limitations and celebrate my spiritual growth.
So, as we pack up our respective temporary gaffs this weekend, and as our separate lives finally get all mixed up together on the removal lorry of life, I shall be content.
