I love reading fantasy and sci-fi books. Throughout this recent counseling journey, I think often times when I'm asked to visualize things, I end up pulling fantastic elements from things I've read into my toolbox. "Visualize a box, and put your negative emotions/thoughts into that box until you are able to work on those things. What does that box look like?" Well, it's clearly a large chest, with three locks - a thrice locked box. It has an enchantment on it, so it is very hard to open. "Where can you put that box so that you don't need to think about it?" In the back of my closet, behind the boxes, so far back, it's like the box has been placed in a portal to another world.
I think fantasy often describes things for the purpose of the story, that may or may not be intended to be an allegory for the trauma in your life. I've been reading more books recently than I have in a long time, which I think has been very therapeutic for me in terms of self-care, and possibly a bit of escapism. What do I want to escape from? I've been working so hard on my anxiety and both developing and remembering to utilize the tools in my toolbox, but I haven't really ever focused on the trauma that started all of this to begin with.
When Matthew passed away a few years ago, it hit me really hard. So hard, I felt like I was having trouble holding everything together. But the it just kind of stopped. It wasn't like I had addressed what was going on, but more like I just didn't feel like I had time to deal with it, so I stopped dealing with it... or acknowledging it... or even feeling it. Then my anxiety got so bad this year after so much build up with COVID, it was suddenly like I had been smacked in the face with everything I hadn't been dealing with for so long, and then all the new things on top of it. I was slowly and then very suddenly, overwhelmed by the physical manifestation of my anxiety. So, with several months of counseling, my anxiety is getting better, but there's still something else, hiding, under the surface, not being dealt with... the trauma. The childhood trauma, the trauma of losing my brother, and everything in between.
We talked last week in counseling if I'm ready to address that trauma, if I'm ready to start processing the grief of loosing my brother. I said I didn't know if I was ready. I felt, I feel, like I just want to start working on it and be done with it! To finally face it head on, and slay it with my mythical sword of truth - all the anger, pain, love, and grief, and just get through it. But it doesn't work just like that. You have to be ready, as in grounded. You have to have your full arenol of tools to keep it from tipping you over the edge.
Thinking about my brother, I'm reminded of one of my favorite fantasy series where a protagonist receives a very deadly wound, a wound that is full of hatred and evil energy, a wound that never fully heals. The protagonist goes on, and the wound heals just enough for him to go about his day to day live unscathed. But every time he has to battle, every time he over-exerts himself, the wound reopens - sometimes worse than others, but continues to remain unhealed fully.
That's my life since loosing Matthew. It's a wound that is so full of grief, and remorse, and pain that it never heals. It's always there with me. It scabs over just enough for me not to constantly think about Matthew all the time, but it's always there. And any time something too difficult happens, or I talk about Matthew (either in counseling or otherwise), it's like the wound has been been freshly received. It's like I'm always starting over with this terrible pain.
So where do I go from there? That's a theme that keeps coming up. What do I do with this? I guess the answer is that I keep going, but do I keep all of this locked in my thrice locked box, or do I push forward into a potential Path of Daggers?
