(Part of this article has been posted on my blog on MySpace, so if it sounds familiar, that is why.)
I had an epiphany at lunch today that I want to share with you. It was spawned by my appreciation of a friend’s eloquent writings. This morning I read her most recent article, Always the Bridesmaid, on her personal website www.urbandeva.com and found myself crying.
What set me off were these words: “my fanfare of demons are back...”
I identify and resonate with that down to the very depths of my soul. Having crawled out of the muck and mire of domestic violence and into the light, so to speak, I have hid behind a wall and protected myself so resolutely with a shell through which I cannot break. Trapped inside that shell is me AND those demons, creating an illusion of safety.
But I can feel them there, crowding in on me...
After nine years, I fear loving someone again will unleash those demons upon me. And, even though they are trapped in here with me, slowly devouring me piece by piece, that seems, somehow, much more... less scary than setting them free to feast upon me fully.
Thing is... I am choosing to forget that, if I set them free, I will be free as well. And that the only feasting that will take place will be ME upon the feast of Love…
I was sharing the above experience at lunch, in conjunction with something else I have been pondering: there seems to be a very thin line between assistance and addiction. What I am meaning is, when one is healing from, say, a physical injury, it may require a brace or crutches. There is a very specific moment in time along the healing path when further healing requires relinquishing the brace or the crutches and giving it a go without the support. If one insists on using those supports beyond that point, then the body becomes dependent upon them and, eventually, cannot function properly on its own without them.
Another instance I brought up is in the rehabilitation of heroin addicts. When they go into treatment, they are put on methadone, which is another drug. It is used to ease them out of their heroin addiction with the least amount of side effects. There is a distinct, yet very fine, line wherein that methadone stops being helpful and becomes a new addiction.
For me, when I left my former husband in search of sanity and safety, I was so afraid that I was fundamentally broken and irreparable. I took full responsibility for my ending up in despair and desperation. I was very clear and concise in what my fear was: I don’t want to end up in the same place with a different face in front of me. I believed that my reality is as I create it and since I had done it once in such a wickedly painful way, what was to say I wouldn’t do it again? Thus, I walled myself off good and tight.
In the beginning, my mantra of, “I don’t want to end up in the same place with a different face in front of me,” was an assistant. It kept me safe. It kept my eyes open. It kept me alert. Now, however, I realize I have crossed that almost invisible line from assistance into addiction. Now, I hide behind that declaration, that wall, that shelter and I have stopped living. The fear is now running me. It is in control of me. I have allowed my brace to become a shell. It is my obsession.
I am grateful for this awareness because I realize that awareness is the first step in a new direction. It is the key that unlocks the unyielding prison, which I have so expertly built around myself. It also has me asking: in what other areas of my life have I crossed the line between assistance and addiction?
©Angie K. Millgate 3/12/07
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