Is There Ever A Real Answer To Why?

You can often hear the desperation and pain in someone’s voice even through the written word. Words are powerful. There is an intensity to them when deeply felt and if you are paying close attention to the words, you will feel the author’s pain. I have a favorite author and as a result, I am an avid reader. I remain completely enthralled. I read more now than I ever have in my previous life and it offers me knowledge and refuge. Mostly knowledge these days. A seeker of information to ensure that I learn everything I can about myself and others. A lifelong study I suppose. Longitudinal research. The world is full of pain these days. So many people struggling with identified and unidentified experiences that have caused them significant harm in their life. As a clinician it is still surprising how much we often suppress to avoid dealing with our truth. How ok we are suppressing than dealing with the pain of it all. Once upon a time, I was one as well.

In the words of Rayya Alias, “The truth has legs; it always stands. When everything else in the room has blown up or dissolved away, the only thing left standing will always be the truth. Since that’s where you’re gonna end up anyway, you might as well just start there.”

Everyone embraces their truth distinctly different. Some truths are ugly and heinous and others consist of fond and wonderful experiences. Each of those truths shapes who we are as we navigate through our one precious life. Our truth is what has us seek out partners, friends, and connections that in many ways are hand selected to help us heal the wounds of our truth. We find people in our life to help us heal or reinforce what we already have engrained in us. Either way we select people on purpose whether consciously or not.

I have often wondered if the feelings of uneasiness and angst ever really go away. I continue to invest in myself and in my healing journey but the feelings that still remain are those angsty feelings that even if I can recognize them, understand where they come from, see below the surface and live in my truth, ugly or otherwise, don’t go away. Could my most recent life experiences have changed me so profoundly to not rid myself of the feeling that something isn’t quite right in the world, in my world. I wish I could solidify the answer but right now I can’t grasp it, perhaps even understand it, it is just slightly out of reach. Voids are voids, they are empty recesses in one’s mind, life, and being that exist where something or someone once resided. What happens when you don’t fill the void? Isn’t filling voids just another coping mechanism? What actually helps someone overcome the pain of the void created by something or someone? These answers are the ones I seek and as of today no answer seems suitable. And I don't even know that answers exist. I will however, continue to look both inwardly and outwardly for some.

Filling voids is an unhealthy mechanism to avoid feeling the pain associated with loss. We call it resiliency and I call it a bunch of bullshit. We are taught to get over things, to move on. Phrases like there are tons of fish in the sea, or you can do better, are designed to have us move on from a feeling of losing a lover or friend. Why? Why do we encourage people to avoid feeling? Isn’t being human to be able to feel deeply? Is it possible for someone who has been assaulted, abused, neglected, abandoned to just get over it? It’s an impossible ask. Even the most healed person will forever be changed by a traumatic life experience. It becomes a part of them permanently. Everything that person could have been or will be tainted. Why do people have to experience suffering? A suffering so deep. Innocence taken, a tremendous violation. A forced leap into adulthood, childhoods stolen, all without consent. We are born to see the good in people. We are born innocent and life slowly erodes that innocence and we are forced to adapt. Don’t mistake my cynicism for missing the beauty in life. Surround yourself with beauty and you will see beauty. That doesn't however erase the ugly.

I have witnessed the healing journey of many people in my role as a counselor. Each one distinctly unique. I have seen the pain, the angst, the pure determination to sit in the discomfort long enough to work through the acceptance that they didn’t do anything to deserve what happened to them. It is a battle between accepting they aren’t to blame and believing they did something so terrible that they deserved what happened to them. It is painful and at times agonizing to watch.

For the first time in a long time, I thought about what it would feel like to get lost in something or someone other than myself to be able to “cope” with my own pain. A very rude and unwelcome feeling. I have my moments where, I feel like I am not enough, where I feel like something is wrong with me. I still very much have my triggers. My programming from years of being told that production equaled love. Right now, I am in and out of triggers. Some easier than others to overcome. And what I am noticing is that if I take my eye off the prize, I could easily lose my way. I work hard all day. I show up for my kids the best that I can, and at the end of the night I want to lose myself with someone I love. My landing pad is myself and I curl up nice and cozy and marvel at the blessing that is life but I miss human connection. I miss human touch. The exploration that can happen when two minds and bodies come together. It is a beautiful, sexy, open, intimate experience. The main ingredient for that, safety.

Be still.......