For many years, in living and coping with a narcissist, I
have suppressed my anger. Pushing it down somewhere into the dark recesses of
my soul, I have separated from it—partial coping strategy, partial delusion of not
wanting to see the shadow side of myself as angry person. Denial will only go
so far. Suppression will only go so far and then the closet door, bulging at
the seams violently bursts open.
This week, I oh-so-nastily went off on one of my helper, healer
people, someone who has, in fact, helped me quite substantially. My suppressed
rage erupted from the deep. In
projecting my own massive pile of shit onto my helper person, the volcano
burned up the already strained therapeutic alliance. Somewhat understandably,
my helper responded by lashing out, giving me quite the ass whooping by oh-so-accurately
attacking me at my known weak points. It hurt and will for some time. On some levels, the striking was
over the top, complicated further by poor communication and misunderstanding—but then so was my own
initial lashing out. Not surprising, raw, dark energy matched with equally raw, dark energy proved combustible.
I get it.
Unfortunately, I get it too late.
The damage is done. The alliance dissolved in an acidic, toxic
soup.
And I am left staring at the bleak, blackened landscape,
oddly enough, that I largely created through my unbridled, destruction
percolating from the deep.
Perhaps, there could have been more understanding, more
space holding for my shit, but, I don’t fault my helper person. Everyone has
their own individual capacity for shit holding. The rain barrel overflowed and
my helper person turned over and emptied the rain barrel. Fair enough.
I find myself deeply longing for the opportunity to look
this person in the eyes, take responsibility for my bad behavior, and apologize. And while I deeply regret the harming, that likely sounds too flowery and too altruistic. It is what it is and is part of the whole. Partially true, yet
incomplete. There is another side of this desire to apologize. If I am truly honest
with myself part of my longing stems from my own discomfort in seeing this
destructive, ugly, awfulness in myself—the very thing that created the bulging
closet of destruction in the first place. I feel compelled to push it away—to see
it outside myself—to not look closely at it—to numb my own wound with the Novacaine
of apology, rather than sitting in the stew pot of my own dis-ease.
And so I shall sit deliberately in my own discomfort with my
own destruction. In so doing, I hope to one day right the balance betwixt destruction
and creation, death and rebirth, endings and beginnings. I choose to trust
experience to lead me and guide me. In the words of John O’Donohue, “Experience
has its own secret structuring. Endings are natural. Often what alarms us as an
ending can in fact be the opening of a new journey—a new beginning that we
could have never anticipated; one that engages forgotten parts of the heart.”
Oh, wounded healer, thank you for your dark work. I am deeply sorry. I send my words out with the breath. May they rinse your soul. I bid you adieau and
wish and hope that healing chases you and always finds you.
