The Long and Winding Road

I've made so much progress but there are those days when I'm struck by how far I still have to go.

I've been reading about "Re-evaluation Counseling" (also known as "Co-counseling") in the last few days (see www.rc.org). While I can't follow its theorists to the full conclusion of their beliefs (at the very least, I am prodded to skepticism by my belief that people are always more complicated than you can put down on a piece of paper), I find their root point very compelling; hurts that we have not healed from stiffen and entrap our thinking and thought patterns.

Say that you suffer some form of hurt; perhaps someone says something mean to you. According to rc theory, either you are able to discharge the hurt by finding a caring eye/ear who will patiently let you cry/talk/tremble/laugh out your hurt *entirely*, or you do not get to fully (or perhaps even partially) discharge the hurt. In our society--fraught with sentiments of "don't cry, it will be ok," uncomfortable with strong displays of emotion--the latter is much more likely. And the latter is what traps our thinking. This theory says that if you are not able to feel/discharge the hurt, it doesn't go away; even if it becomes hidden, it remains as a scab clogging up the pathways of your thoughts. The more un-discharged hurts you have, the more limited your thinking becomes; the effects are cumulative.

This theory makes sense to me. I can feel myself shy away from certain thoughts because of the pain they portend--pain born of the memory of hurts that I didn't allow myself to feel, that I didn't know what to do with. This is actually a very good description of depression as I experienced it; sometimes acute, but more often this incredible stagnation of diffuse hurt, fear, sadness--at the worst periods of my depression, everywhere I looked held the expectation of pain rising from the incomplete way I had processed past experiences of pain. And nowadays, even with all the progress I've made, I have moments (or hours sometimes or days even) where I begin to fall back into depression patterns and feelings--and it is very often an experience of feeling trapped between ominous thoughts--thoughts that old hurts, old dreads, are predictors of my future.

It is interesting the way fear has crept into me yesterday and today. Perhaps reading rc theory has caused me to articulate to myself some things I'd forgotten about; perhaps it's just a case of the Wednesdays (quite often the low point of my week, for whatever reason); perhaps there's some area (or areas) of my current experience that I am not allowing myself to feel fully. I was feeling so strong, and suddenly, I feel so afraid.

Deep breath, baby. Keep going. You are strong and brave; just take a deep breath, take another step.