The sky is cloudless.
The bird song is ever present. Jonnie and I sit by an open door at the home of Jo the Belgian in Gigny-sur-Saone, as the sunshine streams in and illuminates our day. Jo and I have enjoyed a freshly squeezed and blended fruit and vegetable juice and Jonnie has dug yet another hole in the dirt to plant herself in and stay cool in the heat.
We are relocating to the South of France next week.
Broken promises, false starts, shattered dreams, emotional cruelty, twisted perspectives, words and actions of such unfathomable vitriol, have dogged the last eighteen months. The perpetrators have been summarily dispatched. Disconnected. All privileges revoked. They still exist in the world but no longer in mine. The harms caused are unforgettable and unforgivable.
I believe I have found the loophole though. I do not have to forgive the adults. I do, however get to forgive myself for allowing the abuse to continue. Even a year ago, I still believed there was hope for everyone, regardless of their health and history.
I no longer believe that.
Today is a beautiful day. I am full of gratitude for my experience. The friendships, the kindness, the novel worthy level of craziness that brought me to this place and to this conclusion. Why choose today, of all days to sit down and to share the things that I had kept buried so deep that they nearly destroyed my life and my future?
Precisely because it is THIS day. Today, in this moment I have everything I need. I created my world from the ground up within a year, despite the horror. Today, I am safe. Physically, psychologically, emotionally and spiritually. I do not wish to forget the past, nor do I wish to shut the door on it. It happened. I talk and write from experience, strength and hope. I am fortunate enough to be able to do this because I got to escape from the cage of mine and others untreated subconscious minds. I don’t live there anymore.
The loophole is the arduous task of self-love and forgiveness for the part I played. My punishments never once befit the perceived crimes. I will give you a couple of examples for context.
Example 1. (Person 1) Crime - “You made me feel small.” (Note: They felt small, no matter what I said or did. There was no correct response other than silence and distance – ‘grey rocking’)
Punishment – Hours of verbal abuse and being pushed over in the dirt while looking in the other direction.
Example 2. (Person 2) Crime – Leaving the country as planned to pursue my future as agreed with family.
Punishment – A newly drawn up will written up on behalf of the Testator (terminally ill) without permission from the Testator naming themselves as the sole beneficiary of the estate and their spouse the Executor.
I had to accept that the actions and behaviours of these people while painful, cruel and extremely personal, have absolutely nothing to do with me. There is nothing I could ever do or say that would elevate my position in the esteem of individuals with untreated mental health conditions. Where I and many others are the villains in their perpetual stories of victimhood.
“……when a person offends me, help me to remember this is a sick person. Help me show the same tolerance, pity and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. Show me how I can help them. Save me from being angry.”
This is the Sick Man’s Prayer. I still couldn’t find it in me to forgive. I tried every God damned day. I worked my ass off until I had to surrender to the possibility that maybe I was doomed to drink a little of that poison every day.
(Resentments are like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.)
Perhaps, like a vaccine, a little poison every day would protect me from the associated virus of rampant, untreated egos intent on the destruction of anyone or anything seeking quieter waters. Calm and free and away from the chaos and casual cruelty.
From all the research on these pathological personality disorders and the havoc the sufferers wreak on those around them, they are living with a mental illness. A particular deviation in brain development which begins with some form of early childhood trauma. Unchecked and unmanaged, it is cemented into thoughts, behaviours and patterns as the individual’s personality becomes more fixed and rigid in their teenaged years.
I knew both the individuals given in my examples as teenagers. Nothing has changed. My attachments to them are familial and through friendship and my mistake was maintaining the attachment despite overwhelming evidence of irreparable damage to myself by association. Selfish, self-motivated, cruel, deviant and dispassionate.
I forgive the child. I forgive the child that was treated so poorly, that was so traumatized and so scared that they built a fortress around their personality so strong and so high that no one would ever be able to see the real human person. The possibility of that person no longer exists. It has been replaced by many masks. The darkness that flooded their world and snuffed out the light of who they could have been, was not their fault.
I forgive the child. I do not have to forgive the adult. It is their responsibility to seek the help they need and for the precise mental health condition that causes so much suffering. I am under no illusion that this will ever happen.
I have an idea about what happened to each of them. Neither will ever speak of it and so I will never know for certain and to a degree it doesn’t matter now. It cannot be changed. Good and evil co-exist in this world. Light and darkness. Ying and Yang. Newton’s Third Law – for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Actions (remember, inaction itself is an action) have consequences and this particular story is about mine.
- Next week, I will introduce some interesting insights from Clairvoyants, a Shaman that reinforced my learning and reflection and how minimizing one sentence from nearly half a century ago created the causes and conditions that allowed others to try to destroy my life and me to nearly let them! I share this as someone who has been forced to recognise victimhood and trauma in my own experience but who chooses empowerment every single day!
After several weeks without any connectivity, we are pleased to be back.
Peace & Love,
Elizabeth and Jonnie
PS. Come and see us over @seeking_quietwaters and @quietwaters_coaching for the daily high jinx!
January 2023. My farmhouse in Gigny-sur-Saone, France. Before it got really crazy!
Thank you for telling your story. I found the writing compelling and honest. It was empowering just to read your journey and I feel inspired to take a look at my own 'story' - you've given me the courage to try! Thank you
Strong story that realy make me reflect how I treat people. Try to be kind and gentle but sometimes too direct. Thank you for your insights snd dharing of your own healing process.