A few summers ago (when I was less of an agoraphobe/freak) a great friend and I, armed with a rather cumbersome, green tent, drove down through the stunning French Pyrannees into the arid, desert landscape of Northern Spain.
As we wound on roads cut through the rock and on to the lower mountain roads, it was obvious that there had been an enormous fire which had swept uncontrollably across vast areas of landscape; ravaging the hillsides, melting and twisting any road signs and killing all the vegetation and wildlife for miles.
A striking experience, to realise the power of the element solely through being witness to the complete devastation that it has wreaked upon the land.
My own landscape looks a lot like the one I have described. If I was to paint a picture of how I imagine ‘the inside’ to look, it would be a picture of something charred and shrivelled. (Though of course, if I WAS to attempt such a thing, the outcome would be little more than a brown and black puddle on a page).
I cannot remember most of the time when I burned and yet, the evidence is everywhere on my blackened landscape. I know the hundreds of tiny deaths. I see and even, in some places, FEEL burns of various intensities, but I cannot really, accurately, recall being alight.
I think I must have cried my way through the night, or rather, howled. I woke up half a dozen times making a hell of a noise.
Bloody therapy. It does that.
In one (of the many) ‘snapshot’ dreams last night, I had an image of a little plastic mould of a human being. Plaster Paris (remember that stuff?) was being poured into it. The liquid was filling the sides of the mould, just as smoothly and beautifully as a heavy, winter Stout fills a pint glass, but the centre of the mould remained empty.
A hollow human figure.
Somehow, this links to the fire but I can't think about it enough to articulate it cos my brain “slides” if I try. Trying to hold things steady in my mind sometimes is an impossible feat.
At this juncture, it is perhaps worth saying that the all these analogies may seem to point to all sorts of terrible things in the mind of readers who may identify with some of the feelings or images. However, I want, and indeed, need to make it very clear that I have NOT suffered physical or sexual abuse (as so many others who are in therapy have).
I can’t explain the whys. Firstly because there are possibly too many and they are too difficult and secondly because getting to the point has never really been my thing. (Actually, more truthfully, getting to the point in this instance feels painful and impossible).
Cumulative trauma is what my therapist keeps saying.
It’s hard to acknowledge that after years of trying to squash it, and then subsequent years spent trying to make sure that it was always ‘less than’ someone else’s pain.
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