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February 4, 2006
Mansfield, PA -
Back from Goddard, and what a head feels like
after going through a Mixmaster
I feel like I was eaten by sharks, and sewed
back together incorrectly. I feel rearranged and exposed.
Goddard
made me realize that my friends explain me. I realized how important
they are to my sense of identity. I'd been hiding my ugly
bloated body from the light for years, until my friends found something
in me. I'm still confused as to what it is, but Goddard
made me realize that I've been cruising on their assessment
of me, and burying my own assessment of myself, which came back
with a vengeance at Goddard.
When I met all the writers in Harrisburg,
it was from a distance, and they seemed powerful, funny and creative.
I desperately wanted to know them, and for them to like me, and
eventually they did. They deliberately pulled me from the darkness,
and became the finest friends I can imagine having. Now I belong
to a community, and a family.
But at Goddard, I was just another face swimming among the others.
After all the work I've done since
being so reclusive, and all the growth I've experienced,
I thought I'd put this primordial fear and insecurity behind
me. I didn't
expect to feel torn from limb to limb. I didn't expect to feel
disassembled and put back together.
Disassembled. Maybe that bleeds into dissociation. At Goddard I felt dissociated from my true self, which crumbled while I was there. Everyone was so intense, and I'm used to intense people. God knows, I'm intense. But I found few sturdy anchors there, and floated among the fish, trying to maintain my happy fish face, while feeling myself being torn from limb to limb.
And the embodiment. I've tasted tentatively from so many religions, but never felt drawn to any. But embodiment feels transformative, and it bleeds into every aspect of my life, from fleshing out my art, to my relationships with men, to my intimacy with friends, to what I think and believe about the world, to all of my interactions, both mental and physical.
In some way it feels like a cult, and I'm not someone who joins cults, because I was raised to believe in nothing, except the way things and people look. I was expected to look at the surface, and try to find truth in flat non-reflection. I wasn't wanted, and I wasn't good enough, worthy enough, or smart enough. My body was repulsive, and much too big.
Never mind that I was hoarding food in my room as a child. Or that I was always so alone. I was desperately lonely as a child. Always worrying over my mother. Always worried that she'd lose control, and become angry, irrational or hysterical. Embarrass me in public. My childhood wasn't safe. It was terrifying to be the daughter of someone who was so grievously wounded.
My mother must have oozed sadness from every pore when I was born. My father had only been dead for two weeks. She must have been drowning in sadness. In skin-raking agony. And then she had to give birth to me, a baby who screamed whenever she came around. Ann said I was terrified of my her as a child. Terrified of my own flesh and blood.
My own flesh and blood. Wounds. Tearing. Love is pain. Food is love. Food is pain. Food is acquiescence.
I was punished if I didn't eat everything on my plate, and at the same time, I was ridiculed by my family for being fat. And I wasn't even all that fat. The point was, I wasn't enough. I was an unwelcome appendage. An obstacle to my mother's social life, and to relieving her unending grief. I was an unwelcome visitor in my grandparents' house. And I wouldn't let my mother touch me.
Now I swim in my emotions. I also swim in love.
Ann said my mother cursed my name when I was born. My name Alexandra, on her lips, first screamed in fury and hatred. In hatred for my father who wanted me. In hatred of God, who betrayed her. And I can understand it. I love my mother. I hate my mother. But why did my mother's unhappiness translate into my flaws.
Why is this childhood stuff coming up as a consequence of going to Goddard? I guess because I feel stripped of whatever flimsy coverings I used to cover my hideous nakedness before I went to Vermont. Before I went, I was happy with my life, and my loves, my self and even my body, and now I'm stripped bare. Confronted again with being the child nobody wanted. And even I don't want that to be that fat, wallowing, insecure, wounded, wild-eyed baby-woman I turned out to be.
I hate myself. I hate my body. But how can I hate
myself if my mind and body are one? If my head isn't separate from
my body, then this self-hatred are irrational. It simply makes no
sense.
I see the study of mind and body as a key to attacking my lifelong body hatred.
I don't think I can talk about this with anyone away from Goddard, except possibly Bill. Bill fights me. But his clarity, honesty and openness ground me. And isn't this experience and this pursuit all about grounding? About finding a way to ground myself?
I need to find solid ground. I'm floating. Fearful. Stuck forever with my old fears and insecurities. Keith said he no longer has any fears, since facing all of them in the past. What fucking bullshit. It makes me want to scare the crap out of him.
Why am I angry? Because I feel isolated and weird. Trapped here, naked and alone. I've been a fraud for all this time. Afraid. A fraud nobody really knew. I was just responding to their affection. To their assessments of me. If they really knew me...
But oh, crap. I did the mushrooms, and saw the truth, and the truth was that there's nothing to fear. Think about that. There's nothing to fear. I just need to laugh. Spread my arms. And open to the beauty in the world. The beauty in my body?
But of course I cut myself off from my body. I did it because I found it so repulsive. Remember the night Ben told me my body was repulsive? Remember that night, Alex. How can I still love him, when he could attack me like that?
But oh, bullshit. I was probably slinging the meanness better than he was. Our marriage was a war zone. I hurt him as much as he hurt me. Repulsive body. I agree with him. Big, lumpy, doughy body. Soft and white. I hate it. I want to hurt it. To punish it for not pleasing me. I despise my body. Ugly, hoary body. I'm a perfectionist existing in a body I hate. And why now, after Goddard, am I being slammed again with the fucking self-hatred? Where is it coming from? I feel undone. Deconstructed. My underpinnings seemed solid, but now I'm a crumbling statue made of sand.
Writing is cleansing. The greatest gift I can give myself.
This is all about my friends. But why? Why am I casting a jaundiced eye on them? Why do I feel so separate and isolated from everyone? I'm the biggest proponent in the world of revelation. Hold back nothing. Talk, talk, talk. And now I need to curl in upon myself. Find the safe place inside where nobody can hurt me. But why would they hurt me?
I think I'm feeling reclusive again. I need... time in the woods, maybe. Alone. I need to be alone, and process. I've always reached out to others, but now I need to curl in upon myself. But how can I trust this body? Which is not a part of me. A heavy, ungainly appendage.
Exactly the word I used to describe my mother's relationship with me. I was her unwanted appendage. I dove into my head as a child. Chaos, fearful places. Fearful people, who charaded as a loving family one minute, and turned on me the next. Nothing was ever safe. Screaming, loud, noises, hurt stomach. Difficulty sleeping, allergies, asthma. Anxiety. I spent my childhood in anxious watchfulness.
And then I discovered the trick. Of turning my head off, sliding my eyes to the right,and shifting my focus away from what bothered me, into a safer place. It was a miracle. A life saver. And I remember the exact day I discovered it. After that, I practiced it whenever I was afraid.
After that, I could drift above my body, and watch it from above. I knew it was weird, and back then, I thought it had something to do with the feeling of always being watched. My mother and grandparents were always so vigilant, so I was profoundly alone, but I was never really alone. And somehow that led me to the art of drifting above my life, and watching it from above. I continued doing that until the last time I remember, when I was married. We were driving in the car and I drifted up and watched us from above.
It was a way to cut myself off from reality.
Now I just use alcohol. My life is wonderful now. I have great
friends, a wonderful man who loves me, I'm creating art and
going back to school. But even when things are good, I feel the
need to get away. Where do I go? Into my fucking head, but if my
head is part of my body (and of course it is) then where am I really
retreating?
So that means I've been seeking shelter in a place that
never offered shelter. Only pain and hatred. How much anger, and
despair have I wasted on my body?
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