The previous time I wrote about 'The Dark Night of The Soul', on May 19 of this year, I was generally discussing psychic distresses. This time, I need to delve even deeper into the morass of my childhood PTSD and talk about what has occurred this summer that has sent me into the 'sulfuric acid' pool in the basement of my PTSD, the deepest, darkest recesses of pain that I have ever engaged -- and a 'part of Self' that has terrified me all of my life.
Confronting The Anger About My Abuse
In February of 2016, after a lifetime of being far too terrified to confront it, I finally summoned the courage to challenge the anger that was corrosively eating away at my soul. In my family-of-origin, only my father was 'allowed' to express anger -- and in his case, what he most often expressed was RAGE: violent, brutal, and destructive rage toward his children and spouse. If any of us got angry about being beaten or brutalized by his rage, he beat us even worse. He simply could not tolerate any challenge to his sole position of 'master of the house'. As a result of that brutally instilled learning, as an adult I found it difficult, in fact terrifyingly difficult, to express my anger openly toward anyone. At most, I engaged in destructive sarcasm, which was it's own quite negative expression of anger, and it effectively destroyed many a relationship over the years. Most of the time, when I would feel anger, it was 'inwardly directed', in intensely self-destructive substance abuse or suicidal feelings, as I unconsciously attempted to soothe the awful pain in my heart.
But in February of this year, I finally reached a point (after years of encouragement by my mental health therapist) to SHOUT OUT my anger during 'Anger Workouts'. Anger toward my abusers, anger toward my parents for having unremittingly raped and brutally terrorized me as a child, anger toward the employers who had blown me off for being 'overqualified', anger toward my eldest brother who had legally brutalized me in a nasty inheritance battle, anger toward people I had worked with in politics who promised me patronage employment if they won, and then betrayed that promise after the election, anger toward 'parts of my Self' that had wanted an alternate manifestation of my somatic being [because it felt so thoroughly unsafe to 'be me'] and I couldn't ever help them with that fulfillment. Mainly, I got ANGRY openly about being TERRORIZED the whole of my life. That was the positive side of the outflowing of that anger.
The 'Terrorizing Part of Self' Fights Back
But the 'part of Self' that had terrorized me all my life, the 'part' that had learned how to interact with the world only from the standpoint of terror, who's only reality was to be terrorized and to terrorize in return, fought back, quite in an unconscious way. For the first time in my life, I started periodically washing my underwear with my compression socks. Now, why this is a major problem is that while the compression socks are beneficial in that they control the edema in my left leg (the one that has had two embolisms), they contain a chemical which is incredibly toxic to my system. Interestingly enough, these socks are advertised as being able to be worn AS socks, and many people, apparently, have no problem with that approach. But, for whatever reason, due to my hypersensitivity to materials, which I've been suffering from for at least 6 years (I wore latex compression hose, to control the edema, until I became allergic to the latex), I can only wear the compression socks if I have knee-length athletic socks on underneath. And everytime I handle the socks, I have to immediately wash my hands, as the chemical gets into my skin and makes me quite ill, quite quickly.
Each time I would wash a compression sock with the underwear, thinking that I was NOT doing this (believing that I had properly separated the clothing so this would not occur), the underwear became horribly 'polluted' with the chemical, and the result (sorry to be so intimate, but this is the nature of my present 'dark night') was that my genitals 'burned' from the chemical. A horrible, stinging, burning, incredibly painful sensation. I would talk about it in my therapy, crying with anguish about being 'so stupid and unaware', and then did it again. I was down to 5 pairs of underwear pants and 5 t-shirts that were not 'polluted' in this manner, as I prepared for my trip to New Mexico. Then, equally unconsciously, I managed to wash a black compression sock with my regular black socks and the remaining underwear. When I realized I had done this, it truly felt like it had occurred in an alternate universe, one which I had no control over. Having done so, 'I' effectively torpedoed my planned trip to New Mexico. This was truly devastating.
A Devastating Crisis Becomes Even More So
I was already facing a situation where I could 'tolerate' only two pairs of shoes that I owned (and kept having to repair those two to make them wearable) and only two pairs of black jeans. It's not as though I couldn't afford more clothing or shoes, nor that I didn't have multiple pairs of both that I had worn comfortably in the past. But the hypersensitivity to materials had become so thoroughly overt in the past two years that I was 'running out of clothing to wear' that didn't make me incredibly ill. To add insult to injury, this summer I began to become hypersensitive to belts. I tried to wear belts I had owned for years and got really sick, almost immediately upon putting them on -- intense nausea, heart racing, head feeling like it was going to explode. Really deeply terrifying! I thought at first it was only the fact that they were leather belts, so I saw a cloth belt advertised at Eddie Bauer and tried that. I put it on and three minutes later as I was leaving my house I literally ran into the wall from my equilibrium being messed up. I thought "this can't be because of the belt!", so I left it on and got into my car. But within 5 minutes, I was becoming so horribly nauseous that I grabbed the belt and pulled it off. Some of the nausea diminished, but only slightly. I continued to be deeply nauseous for somewhere between 24 - 36 hours after! This was an even a worse reaction than to the clothing or shoes -- with them, the nausea diminished after about 18 hours.
So now I'm in this really weird, really bizarre world where my underwear (at least the pants that I could 'tolerate' without becoming ill) are 'polluted' in a way that is frightfully painful to me (burning genitals are not something to be rationally tolerated), I only have two pairs of jeans that I can wear without sickness, and only two pairs of shoes that don't make me intensely sick. [And even with them, I have to wear three pairs of socks to create a barrier between my feet and the glue that was used to repair them -- which is a distinct problem, in that I've already been suffering for the past 3 years with burning, searing neuropathy in my lower legs, 24 hours a day.] Luckily one of the jeans is 'tight' enough that I don't need a belt; the other one I need a belt, but have one that is almost totally shredded out, but barely functional and tolerable. On Wednesday of two weeks ago I tried a pair of underwear that I thought were not 'polluted', but which turned out to be. By the end of the day, Linda (my female partner of many years) and I were at an event at Washington University and I became intensely sick to my guts and had to go home. I laid down, sans underwear, for about an hour, when the insanity and total frightful pain of my circumstance finally, utterly and completely overwhelmed me.
For about a half hour I went into total emotional breakdown, laying on a bed screaming in anguish, holding my hands over my face, crying out in the most terrifying psychological pain I have felt in many years, with Linda holding me as best she could, trying to calm me. She had had the experience of being a 'witness' to my 'Anger Workouts' and therefore knew this wasn't 'about her', but it must have been, nonetheless, quite unnerving to her. [As she later said, "this wasn't an Anger Workout, this was the real thing".] I hadn't been that deeply pained with anguish since the nervous breakdown/breakthrough I had experienced in 1985, when as a result of an acupuncture treatment which had gone horribly awry, I experienced non-stop trembling terror for 3 months, and then intense panic attacks thereafter for another two years. [That I made it through those years was rather incredible, and a testament to the excellent guidance and work with my dearly beloved, recently passed away, therapist in Albuquerque.]
I was screaming out that I had utterly and completely sabotaged my world, that what little 'flexibility' I had left in my materials hypersensitivity had been destroyed, and I had no where to turn for relief. The bizarre and wholly weird nature of this hypersensitivity to materials over the past several years simply has had me completely flummoxed and I felt at the end of my rope. I was fully willing, at that point, to die. I saw no way out of this dilemma.
Luckily, with Linda there, she suggested we call my mental health therapist. Equally luckily, he was back in town from a conference. We talked for about 45 minutes, going over what had occurred this past summer, and what he emphasized -- and I feel this is quite accurate -- is that a 'part' of my personality which is totally focused on terrorizing me had indeed sabotaged my world, very probably as a result of my finally challenging the anger that I had been too fearful to challenge my whole life. And it was 'unconscious', in that my 'conscious' part of Self was unaware of this other part of my personality -- making the nature of my abuse even more bizarre and the degree of my PTSD even more insidious. Linda suggested taking two pairs of pajama bottoms I still had and making them underwear until we could come up with some other solution to this bizarre hypersensitivity to materials. Not much of an option, but at least a minimal option.
The Complete Landscape Of My Present Crisis
Since then, I have had surgery for a malignant melanoma. That is unnerving me, the whole cancer issue. And I strained a muscle in my groin, from bicycle riding, and that hurts mightily (my doctor gave me some exercises to slowly heal the situation). And now, as of today, I have realized that only one of the pajama bottoms is 'tolerable', since apparently I managed at some point over the summer to 'pollute' the other one. So, I'm down to one underwear pants that I can tolerate without getting sick or having my genitals burn. I have taken all the other pairs of underwear (from an older batch and new ones that I bought this year) and washed them MULTIPLE times (up to 15 - 20 times at this point), hoping that eventually they will be tolerable to me. (I tried one brand after 15 washings and got horribly ill almost immediately). Don't know if this will 'work', but I have no other options available that I'm aware of.
So, THAT is why I feel so intensely depressed and 'with my back to the wall' right now. And feeling like I'm in this really bizarre, intensely weird world where my best efforts to keep myself SAFE failed disastrously. And I'm running out of clothes to wear that don't make me sick. I've got appointments next week with a couple of allergists (one Western medical and one acupuncture-related) to find some sort of solution to all of this before I completely feel that my life is finished.
I still have a very loving intimate partner [who says she isn't going 'anywhere', that she is devoted to my healing "because we have a lot of years of joy left in our lives"], a superb and devoted mental health therapist, an excellent Medicare insurance plan, a decent and adequate income, many loving friends and family, a house I own, a religious community that respects and cares about me, etc. It's not as though I don't have 'options'; I'm not poverty-stricken, I'm not facing the likely possibility of being killed by police or other assailants (because I have white privilege and live in a relatively safe neighborhood), I have access to decent drinking water and food. Hence, I'm not unaware of the advantages I have in spite of the truly bizarre nature of this condition in which I find myself.
My mental health therapist strongly believes much of my hypersensitivity is due to the PTSD, of being from a family where I was raped and brutally terrorized, almost without relief, for 18 years, and that my mind is still effected by that terror and my body is 'strained almost to the breaking point' due to the overtaxing of my adrenal glands and other organs from non-stop fight-or-flight syndrome.
What Is Next? Is There A Next? Is There Reason For Hope?
Will I make it through this? I don't know. I really and truly don't know. I want to say yes. I want to live and heal and live into a ripe old age, at least beyond my 65th birthday. But I'm in a state of intense fear right now. Really, really intense fear. [And it isn't solely because of the Presidential election, which is unnerving all by itself -- in my opinion, if Trump is elected, what hope is left for our democracy?] I'm NOT feeling suicidal, in the conventional sense of the term. I want it 'all to work out', but 'hope' feels like it is slipping away.
I know my female partner, who deeply loves me [and whom I feel has been an incredible gift in my later years, whom I deeply love and feel safe around], wants me to survive. I know one of my brothers, who has been a wonderful and loving support in recent years, wants to keep his brother in this world. My mental health therapist (who has been my therapist for 16 years) believes I can survive this and maybe even thrive again someday; he is working very closely with me to keep me from 'pulling the plug' on my life out of shear fright and pain. And, of course, I have many, many loving and caring friends, who would be deeply pained if I exited before a natural end of life.
Hence, while many well-meaning friends believe my only major healing crisis is recovering from the cancer surgery, actually it is all far, far more of a crisis than that alone. Which is why I am deeply and painfully struggling, day by day, sometimes hour by hour, through this 'even darker night of the soul'.
