Reflections: Part 1
I was talking with my half-sister a few weeks ago, and she asked if writing this Substack was cathartic. We met shortly after I turned 40, so while I had told her a lot about my life, I hadn’t told her everything. I’ve disclosed most of what happened in the first few decades of my life in this Substack, but still not everything. I have huge blank spots in my life, so I couldn’t write everything even if I wanted to. But, is writing this cathartic?
CATHARSIS: the expression of formerly repressed feelings in order to overcome problems associated with them
Source: Catharsis: Definition & Meaning of Cathartic Release (simplypsychology.org)
CATHARSIS: Catharsis is from the Ancient Greek word κάθαρσις, katharsis, meaning "purification" or "cleansing". In English it can refer to a number of different excreting acts.
It is most commonly used today to refer to the purification and purgation of thoughts and emotions, and to a resulting emotional state that results in renewal and restoration.[1][2]
Source: Catharsis - Wikipedia
This video is a great resource about journaling:
For me, catharsis comes only after understanding what happened to me intellectually and emotionally, so my initial response to her was not yet. But now, a few weeks later, and after pondering the totality of what I’ve written so far, I have had a few more realizations that may benefit my healing.
Whenever I get stuck in anger or negative, repetitive life experiences, I know I’ve missed something in my reassessment of life events and that my energy is not what I thought it was. I know this because one of the most significant learning moments in my healing journey was really understanding that what we think we think and what we actually believe are two different things. What I mean by that is what we think we think is pure intellectual understanding, but we believe in our hearts – that’s where our energy is created. Beliefs are attached to our emotions, and our energy is based on the alignment of our thoughts and beliefs. This alignment is called coherence, so if I want to get unstuck, I must reassess my conclusions about my life events and try to find the contradiction. I know that my energy won’t change until I do, which means my future experiences also won’t change until I can bring my thoughts, understanding, and emotions into coherence.
We deal with the past when it’s standing in the way of the future.
~ Jungian psychologist Liz Greene
I haven’t thought about the tiny details of my past for a long time. There are so many blank spots. Now, I wonder, what happened in those years? Why can’t I remember them?
In his book entitled The Body Keeps The Score, trauma specialist Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk states:
Total memory loss is most common in childhood sexual abuse, with incidence ranging from 19 percent to 38 percent.
It’s interesting to me that the first traumatic experiences I knew I had, the sexual molestation and the first surgery, happened around the same time when I was around ten years old. That first surgery was extremely traumatic. There were so many wounds inflicted in those two months it’s hard to keep track of them all. I was abandoned, shamed, mutilated, and terrorized, and the best part of all? That surgery was 100% unnecessary and did far more harm than good – structurally and psychologically. If you haven’t yet read the details of my first surgery, you’ll find those details here and here.
But even more interesting is the memory retrieved during regression therapy, where I was beaten until I peed myself at six years old. The psychologist I was working with suggested I undergo regression hypnosis, which is where this memory came from. I don’t know if I would have retrieved that memory on my own. If you haven’t read that experience yet, you will find that experience in Chapter 1.
Merely remembering a traumatic event does nothing for healing. Neither does regurgitating it in your mind or talking about it endlessly. All that does is embolden your inner victim. I believe that healing from a traumatic event requires both an intellectual and emotional, or heart-centered, understanding, and to achieve that, of course, you must either write or talk about it, but if you’re talking about it endlessly and not gaining any insight, then the talking isn’t helping you.
In Trauma and Recovery, Harvard professor of psychiatry Dr. Judith Herman tells us that recovery unfolds in three stages. She writes:
The central task of the first stage is the establishment of safety. The central task of the second stage is remembrance and mourning. The central task of the third stage is reconnection with ordinary life.
SAFETY
When I began writing this Substack, I admitted that the pandemic triggered my PTSD, but what I didn’t mention, was that my last round of surgeries in 2012, 2013, and 2015 dredged it up first. I haven’t felt safe in over ten years.
In 2011 I moved to the big city of Calgary. When my left hip started to fail, I didn’t have a family physician so my chiropractor ordered X-rays. When the report came back, I knew I needed to find a GP because I needed a referral to see an orthopedic surgeon. In Alberta, the first appointment with any family physician is a meet-and-greet. I went online and found a female doctor close to where I live who was accepting new patients. I made the meet-and-greet appointment and was utterly stunned at what happened.
In the appointment, the doctor wanted a brief history. After all, you have 10 minutes in total, so it better be brief! I explained that I had undergone multiple orthopedic surgeries and that I was experiencing pain that was out of the ordinary. I asked her for an X-ray and her response to me was, “I don’t prescribe opiates.”
WTAF?
I asked for an X-ray, and her response was to assume I was a drug addict. Needless to say, I never went back.
So, I ended up with a doctor who was….how do I describe him…….well, disrespectful, but I didn’t care because, after the meet-and-greet and the first appointment, it became clear that he would not be helpful. These appointments were only for whatever I needed to get me to the surgeon.
I couldn’t believe that after reading the radiology report I took with me to the appointment, I had to fight with him about everything – including further testing. But, in retrospect, my chiropractor had written a letter describing my understanding of my issues, and I suspect that didn’t sit well with this MD. He reluctantly agreed to arrange for a second radiology test, but I had to insist he write me a referral to the hip clinic so I could see a surgeon. If this isn’t patient abandonment, I don’t know what is! For the first time in my entire life, I didn’t have a family doctor who cared about me or what was best for me. Instead, I had to deal with someone who was in it purely for what appeared to be scientific interest.
Those experiences triggered my sense of safety in a profound way, and the surgical experience wasn’t much better. Every MD I dealt with in the hospital was combative and disrespectful. The internist I saw at admission felt the need to argue with me over the definition of an allergy. When asked if I had any allergies, I stated, like I had many times before, that I had an allergy to fish and seafood. Never before did any doctor or nurse question that, but this time, I was asked if I had undergone testing to prove I had an allergy. When I responded no, he asked me how I knew it was an allergy.
“Because when I eat anything that swims, I puke. Violently.” I answered.
“That’s a food sensitivity, not an allergy.” He said condescendingly.
Seriously?
I was told by the nursing staff on duty at my hospital admission that I would be released in three days. No questions. They actually wrote the discharge date on the whiteboard on the wall at the end of my bed. When I questioned that, they said that if something went horribly wrong, they would keep me in.
Whew. Gee, thanks for that.
I had never experienced medical care so dehumanizing, demoralizing, and discouraging. It seemed to me that a lot had changed in the almost 20 years I’d been away from hospitals, and it most definitely wasn’t for the better.
For some unknown reason (although I do have my theories that I will write about at a later date), I couldn’t take any pain medications. The idiot GP I had wouldn’t prescribe me any pain meds anyway, so I literally lived on extra-strength Ibuprofen until the surgery. After the surgery, I puked every time they gave me pain meds. I was able to keep Tylenol 3 down, so that was what I took. My surgeon was brilliant, but he stuck to his department. In other words, whatever other issues I was experiencing after surgery (biomechanical and muscle problems) had nothing to do with him. I either had to find another competent doctor or figure it out myself.
It’s 2023, and I’m still trying to get back to the state of health I was in before this last round of surgeries. I’ve tried several different doctors and ‘rehab experts,’ and I’ve spent my entire retirement savings trying to get my health back, but I haven’t succeeded so far. Now, I rely on myself to figure it out.
How would anyone feel safe in a medical system like that?
My personal life wasn’t optimal either. New city, new people in my personal life, and despite their genuine willingness to support help and support me, none of them even knew me when I had the previous surgeries so they had no idea how to be supportive.
I was just starting to climb out of the psychological hellhole I dug for myself when the pandemic began. The lockdowns and the threats from government agencies heightened my PTSD symptoms. The never-ending lies in the media and the outright censorship scared the shit out of me. I aligned myself with legal agencies that saw what I saw and did what I could to maintain my mental health, but the whole thing set me way back in my recovery. I haven’t felt rage in decades, but I most definitely felt it daily in 2020, 2021, and most of 2022.
I wasn’t scared about catching covid because I had covid in December of 2019 and recovered. Once I had it, I knew I had lifelong immunity. However, a vast segment of the population didn’t believe in natural immunity (score one for Big Pharma’s influence in education) and was scared to catch it. They were fanatical and outright tyrannical in how they wanted the pandemic handled. These people don’t see themselves as abusers or tyrants, but they are. Anyone who believes they have the right to force someone to do something they don’t want to do is an abuser. PERIOD. Anyone who believes they have the right to punish someone (refusing them entry to a restaurant, movie theatre, retail store, etc.) for having an opposing opinion is an abuser. PERIOD.
Another thing I’ve learned through my healing journey is that the obvious is rarely the answer, so aside from the abuse of power, why was I triggered so severely?
In Blind to Betrayal, Professor Jennifer Freyd, one of the world’s leading experts on betrayal and child abuse, discusses the links between betrayal, abandonment, and shame. She states that the need to trust is powerful and blinding and that children cannot confront betrayal on their own. She writes:
Consider the situation of a child who is betrayed by his or her parents. Most children are not strong enough within themselves to confront betrayal by a parent on whom they depend for their very existence.
Dr. Freyd also discusses abandonment as one of a child’s greatest fears. She states:
Abandonment can occur in purely physical ways, that is, through actually leaving children when they are helpless. It can also occur in emotional ways, through rejection and withdrawal of love.
One way children may manage betrayal at the hands of their parents or caregivers is to turn the blame inward. Similar to being blind to the betrayal or forgetting about it later, such shame could protect the relationship by allowing the child to maintain an attachment to the abusive caregiver by blaming him or herself instead of the true perpetrator.
With repeated betrayal, the shame becomes chronic.
Our preliminary findings indicate that shame is indeed associated with exposure to traumas that have a high level of betrayal, but not to traumas with a low degree of betrayal……shame, similar to unawareness and other aspects of betrayal blindness, helps preserve the necessary relationships.
I think it’s fair to conclude that some of the experiences I had around age ten fall into the betrayal and abandonment categories:
a) Being molested by a family member (that story is told in Chapter 4 - Sex and Suicide)
b) Being criticized and ridiculed for being scared when faced with surgery
c) Being left in the hospital alone
d) The trauma of seeing blood-soaked casts in the recovery room
e) Being physically held down while sutures were removed (Items b,c, & d are detailed in The First Surgery Part I and Part II)
f) Being shamed for not wanting to be a spectacle in a wheelchair (see Chapter 3)
But these are the obvious ones and the ones I’m aware of, so they are not likely the culprit behind my extreme response.
I need to look in a different place or get a different perspective on abandonment and betrayal.
Maybe it’s neither.
Maybe I’m looking in entirely the wrong place.