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With A Loving Heart

This is a story.

This is a story about falling into the abyss; a place of darkness and irretractable anguish. It is a story told by way of explanation: for all of us, at some point in our lives, will stare into it's murky bottom and steal ourselves against it. Poised and ready, we fight not to fall. Our feet dig into the earth below us as we struggle to stay upright and grab onto anything or anyone that will stop us from going down. It is a story about fear and about misunderstanding, and about those of us who have made the journey and attempt to survive it.

A friend once insisted to me that we are all the same; none of us truly different from the other. Just like the flowers, by vision, all different and wonderfully unique; each with it's own individual bloom and color but by nature, all alike. Linked by that delicate thread of nature, they are undeniably flowers and, therefore, the same. I denied that vehemently, for who was I if I was not this unique and very special individual. How could anyone, anywhere, be like me?

Certainly I was an exception to every rule, but now I share a common element with every one who has ever taken this journey; we have fought the good fight but we, somewhere along the road, lost hold and found ourselves slipping and falling into the muck and myre.

We knew we were headed in this direction. We dug in our heels and braced ourselves against the wind that might carry us to that place that noone wants to go; but in the end, there WAS no other place to go and we ended up here or we, certainly, would have ended up dead.

Let me tell you this: those of us making this journey know that those of you who have not or who have been blessed with lives that keep this far away from you, are frightened and confused and desperate. You don't know what to say to us and we know you do not.

What could you say, after all?

However, I will also tell you that we are keenly aware of what this pain and anguish does to those who love us and we are desperate to relieve you of any responsibility. We live in a state where reason and sensate are at war with each other. What our brains know, our bodies do not feel. We cannot make meaning out of what we do or what we say.

We have spent so much time looking for the right words to tell those we love, in the best way possible, that we are scared and out of control in our beings. We are fully aware of what this does to you, and the guilt and the remorse that we bare is unbearable. We judge ourselves as we attempt to accept that this has happened, and the most painful aspect of that truth is that we know, that up there, away from this darkness, you are judging us too.

We feel (at least those who are like me in this) terribly concerned that the silence of those who loves us equals a futility with who we are; when who we are is exactly the same, only in a temporary hell. To those of us who travel here, silence keeps us frightened and alone. We came here like newborns following a long and traumatic birthing process. We are stuck in that place before "object constancy": when something is there and then taken away from view, we believe it is gone forever, so that when it returns, we are giddy and surprised and overwhelmed with happiness. This place makes all of us needy.

We see it coming, although we never truly expect it. Usually this journey comes following a long and arduous struggle inside ourselves. We may have had incredible revelations and wonderous discoveries and seem so sure of who and what we are.

Where does it all go bad? How?

One minute the person is full of the great gift of self-awareness and acceptance, and the next, she is perched on the ledge of that terrible dark ocean. What was the key element? I will tell you that you will not find an answer to that, because it is never one thing, never one event, never one person. Some of us have just fallen to the pressure of our chemistry touched off by life events. Noone is responsible. Noone is guilty; but everyone pays the price: most of all the person living in that pool of confusion and pain.

The abyss is not a safe place; it is a place we clamor and scream to get out of. It is not a place we want to take anyone into with us. You are safe where you are; we will not pull you in. We do differ in here just like you out there. Some of us have no intention of allowing ourselves to remain here and we let noone know, except a person we might trust, that we are visiting this place. Some of us survive it with our outer selves in tact. We are charming and lovely and giving and outwardly graceful. We know that our address is temporary, so we have it in ourselves, from whatever gift of strength we have been given, to save for ourselves a place in the world outside. We know we will return; we just don't know when.

I give you this story as a guidebook through a terrain you may one day have to traverse for yourselves. I provide for you a road map to lead you to a friend that might be lost. I write this as a way to be heard because I am frightened and have felt misunderstood and I am trying very hard to grab onto a hand that seems to have been withdrawn. I am living a nightmare terribly alone and it is not how I choose to live. Lest you think I write this as an acceptance and a capitulation of this state, I will beg you to reconsider. I write this as a refusal to accept this as my definition. I write this as a message that, although we are hurting, we are also thinking and seeing and understanding. We are (at least I am) not selfish in this place. We are anything but that. We are generous to a fault.

Loss is the key to the journey to this place. We have lost something of ourselves to something bigger than we are. We get here by learning that we are powerless against the forces within us. We find it hard to reason anything. No sooner are we sure of ourselves, than we find that we know nothing of ourselves at all. It is a terrible realization when we acknowledge just how alone we are; and just as we need it the most, there is noone left to trust. It feels like a cruel and unusual punishment, and I will say to you, dear readers, that it certainly is.

There has never been a time that I have turned my back on someone in pain; never have thought I couldn't be there for a person that I loved, and yet now, at the deepest darkest moment of my being, I feel I can receive nothing. It challenges one's trust. However, I am fully aware of the burden this places on particular people in my life, although I have asked for little except warmth from afar and a considerate voice.

So, what is it like in here?

It is full of energy. It is thoughts and feelings that run wild and without purpose. It is physical pain and emotional torture. It is sleepless nights and no hunger at all. It is a loss of certain functions that we seem to take so for granted. It is almost a total disconnection from reality and yet things seem as real as ever. We are upside down and inside out. Some of us have never been more creative or more verbose. Others tend to get withdrawn and angry. Most of us know, just know, we are being strange and that every one is noticing.

We are ashamed only because we are made to feel that way. If we reach out and remain ignored, we know we are undesireable and therefore, not worthy of love or friendship. We are too tired to be angry and too hurt to cry out. We absolutely do not want to bring anyone down with us and so we isolate ourselves as if we are a sort of poison to those who are free. We just want you to know we haven't done anything wrong to deserve this purgatory. In this place we are paranoid and suspicious. We misread and misjudge everything. We don't know what to say or how to say it without finding ourselves obssessively wondering how we could have done it differently. We are hyper aware and we wish we were not. But the worst part of it all, is that the abyss is a lonely, lonely place that we are forced to suffer through until it is our time to join the world again. We envy you.

How did I get here?

Well, I can tell you that it started with a broken heart a long, long time ago. I can tell you that it began years before I could ever acknowledge my own difference or sadness. I can tell you that it built over time through years of illnesses and injuries and near-death experiences. I can tell you that I am a survivor of the unconscionable trappings of therapeutic abuse. I can tell you that I was absolutely fine a week ago and that I had thought I had it all pieced together terrifically; but something happened in a split-second; something very intense and very strange: a realization that I was living a lie and could no longer do it. I was allowing myself to believe that I didn't hurt, wasn't angry, didn't feel pain, and that I could forgive absolutely any damage that had been placed on my person. I was also nursing a current broken heart; for although still part of his life, I had, I felt, lost my best friend.

That is, of itself, another story; but in one felt swoop, I went from being his closest friend to just someone else that he loves, and it was happening at a time when my soul was beginning to unravel. It was hard, but I had little choice but to accept it. I had two options: stay with it and accept, or leave it behind and lose my only heart-connection entirely. His conditions had to be met; and although he recognizes the difficulty it places on the people in his life, he feels it is his right to exercise his own conditional choices in order to feel comfortable in himself.

Where did that leave me?

Very lonely and very sad, but in the end, accepting. I loved this person for who he is in his heart, not for how he behaved and I felt that I understood that he needed to be exactly who he was in order to function in his life at present. I stepped away from the heated battles that plagued our time together in recent months, and tried with my whole heart, to be there as a nurturing and loving friend .

There were times when I just needed, for the sake of truth in our friendship, to tell him what I was feeling. I couldn't pretend that something didn't happen. There were times when I just had to say that I was hurting from some of the things he was saying or *not* saying. He always asked for the truth, for complete candor; to say anything, but I learned in a very difficult way, that it seems to work better in theory than in practice. There were times when I wanted us to return to who we were before, when we were the closest and most intimate of platonic friends. It was hard navigating my way through it all, and I became super-vigilant and adept at trying to be honest to myself and at the same time, let him be who he was having to be. I could write, he'd say, but he couldn't guarantee an answer every time. Prior to this, we communicated nearly daily for two years. I could write long and giving mails, but he couldn't promise his responses would be lengthy or considered. He stopped calling me on the phone.

He was working long and arduous hours, had so many mails to respond to, and I would just have to learn to be patient; but I knew if I said something and was met with silence that I would feel exposed and vulnerable. That's just who I am. He had no strength left, he said, to give anything of himself, and yet, he asked me to remain a friend and not give up something special while I was healing something else. I thought to myself: I'm not the one giving up. Certainly it wasn't me; but I did as he asked: I considered and thought and worked at understanding. I tried as hard as I could to accept the friendship for what it was and to remember that my friend was hurting in his way and it was my choice as his non-judgemental and accepting friend, to understand and accept him in his need. Give up some of my own; one being that I had fallen in love with him. I made great attempts and acheived a remarkable joining of my heart and mind. I put romantic notions away and became, in truth and in my heart, able to accept him as my dearest friend.

I knew I was only acceptable as long as I was able to bring some light to his life. I gave up and gave in to some pretty fierce grief and then bounced back with a flourish, but something wasn't right about me and I knew it. A series of errors and a very normal and typical misunderstanding sent me into a tailspin. It didn't feel right to me; it shouldn't have been happening. Something inside of me had broken. I knew it was all spiraling downward. I was way too angry at myself. I had finally succumbed to the years before through a series of current events I didn't let him know because I didn't want to break the very fragile peace that finally existed; I didn't want him to feel responsible in any way, but I felt wierd and strange and frightened and out of control. He told me he loved me. It couldn't warm me. He told me he was thinking of me and yet I felt unsettled. I couldn't write. Something was wrong. He needed a friend to embrace him without their own neediness getting in the way, and I couldn't forgive myself.

The clear fact of the matter was, and is, that he can't be needed (presently) for anything, and here I am, needing so much. For me, right now, a sad truth. For others who live here, maybe a catalyst. It is the presence of overwhelming emptiness, or of the unraveling of reason, or the anxious attempt to unwind that mental ball of twine, or simply an unmitigating grief that sends many to the edge of this place. The final catapult is the delicate chemistry that we possess; most of us intelligent (perhaps brilliant), incredibly creative, sensitive, and without much internal defense. I say again: it is never one reason, or one person, or one event; but once we get here, the past is over...finally. It is, in a sense and very strange way, a relief.

Without warning, the belly begins to ache, the heart begins to flutter, the hands begin to hurt and the jaw begins to lock. Sound intrudes through every pore. Light is an insult and every thought is abstract and absurd. It becomes an agonizing ritual of mind over matter as you try to go about your daily chores and work. In my work, I am with people all day and alone at night. I counsel and I teach and so I am "up close and personal" to everyone. I set examples, make recommendations, soothe troubled souls. I am a shoulder to cry on, a hand to hold, and a heart that heals. Yet, I was dying inside at those very moments and I prayed to nothing in particular that I can hold it together for one more moment. I then would run to the nearest private area and hold myself until the panic subsided.

I fixed myself up and began again. Noone knows; noone can unless I tell them, but to tell them (to tell you) is to risk their judgement and that is almost worse than the experience of living it. I feel luckier than most; I am climbing out. I simply refuse to get lost.

I tell you this as a way for you to understand, and with the hope that you might read it with consideration and thought. It is not written to evoke sympathy; for I have never wanted any of that from anyone. Sympathy is distant. Of course, anyone who feels would feel a sympathy for another who hurts. Without that, we are no more than sociopaths; but this writing is about letting you know that your fears of entering this dark and difficult place should be without judgement about any who might visit there.

We are you. Some of us are momentarily here, while others stay for a long, long time. We feel resented, and judged, and pushed away, and lost; especially if we have reached out and have been denied. Most of us are working hard to get out: we take potions, and pills, and meditate and exercise. We talk about ourselves (but never to each other) and write journals. We are always looking and learning and attempting to find peace. We are hungry for the company of those at peace; we think that their very presence will infuse our spirits with light.

In all of this, I have never been stronger in my life. I have never been more sane or more loving. I have never known myself to be more ready to leave my past behind. I am not hiding from anything and I am accutely aware of everything. I can write this because I am one of those people who will emerge better and happier; but I believe I will find myself just a bit more skeptical about love and friendship. I believe that my journey to this place is not an ending of any sort, but a beginning to something else: to accepting my vulnerability and my tenderness; to allowing myself to hurt without hurting myself; to standing up for my right to ask for the help without being judged in friendship, and to accepting myself as a person with all the difficulties and pain inherent within. I did not do this to myself.

I did not choose this for myself, and although I am cursed at present with this burden, I remain steadfastly certain that there is love to be given and received, friendship to enjoy, and life to be lived.

I stand before you, readers, as a living example of a damaged life in transition. Those who abandon me now will never reap the rewards of what is to come. I have been here, in a sense and differently, before. I was abandoned by someone I loved very deeply at that time. I was ill, bedridden, and alone, in a cold and sterile hospital bed, listening to words noone should ever have to hear from people who should never say them, and yet I remain loving in my heart and open to so many possibilties. I have remained intensely private since that time because I know the damage people do to each other when they possess this knowledge; how their fear overides their common sense and they are quick to feel overwhelmed and fed up.

Remember this the next time a friend, or a family member, or a lover, screams out from the depths of their beings (even in silence) that they are drowning in this energy field of darkness and confusion; remember that someone you never knew told you that there is a way out for that person because she spoke to you from that place in the present.

I am alive and I am fighting and I am not giving up. You don't need guidebooks and maps to reach that person adrift in that journey. All you need is to hold out your hand and say, "I'm here, I hear you, and you are not alone..."

Peace to you all.


~ a friend ~



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