It was the sensation of need that frightened me most, as if I’d lifted the lid on the unappeasable abyss.
- Olivia Laing
It has been a funny little experience coming back to spend time with my family. I came across a piece of writing of mine yesterday, which at the end of it I had signed, 'I fucking hate you Vancouver,' which now a few years later seems a bit crass. But nonetheless, I know how powerfully I meant it then. Somehow, this time, for the first time, I am so grateful to be here.
Maybe it is because I know I am leaving, or maybe it is because I don't blame the world so much anymore. I saw my mother yesterday and she was really insane—I mean really insane. She started showing me pictures on her phone of the windows in her new house with partially closed curtains, and allegedly, a demon looking through the uncovered parts. But that is not all; she then started to show me pictures of the trees outside her window, claiming that the trees were disappearing. I studied her pictures intently, not seeing a marginal figment that could be generously construed as the remarks she was making. My brother reviewed just to be sure, both of us worried for our poor mother. Later on, I explained the events to my sister and her husband. My sister asked, 'do you think it is drug-induced schizophrenia?', to which I said, 'I have seen her with drug-induced schizophrenia before, and this is nothing like it. This is cognitive erosion.' The difference? The latter is steady, insidious, persistent. The times mother has been schizophrenic have been acute attacks with all tethers released—like that one time she stole a car and forced me to drive her down the highway while she fought off her imagined demons in the passenger seat. No this time, mother was sitting gleefully in the back of our car, scrolling her phone, showing us evidence of thoughts she had been carrying with her over time.
In the moment, I could tell my brother was uncomfortable even though he tried (and always tries) so dearly to hide it. He folds his arms over his chest and protects his heart; he holds his breath and keeps a very serious face until you acknowledge him and then his features soften into a slight smile.
It is pure magic to dote on the face of my brother and only see my entire life sitting before my eyes. There is so little separation between the two of us. Every second my brother lives I have lived already and carry inside of me.
*
Mother said yesterday, 'Oh Carli, I am so sorry I did that to you,' as I rambled on about my recent bouts of anxiety. She understands attachment and fear, and she also understands there is nothing she can do now—which is the Truth, capital T; as close to Truth as it gets. And I am learning this, beyond mental comprehension now, as I relax in the air of my childhood. That is why my experience is different this time because I am done saying 'it is your fault,'—whether 'yours' be mothers, fathers, my brothers, Cloverdale, BC, Canada, or the world.
Lucky for me, I have spent years trying to live away from everything that was related to my pain, and guess what, there was still pain. The pain comes from inside of us, our mental fissures that erupt with the slightest provocation. Pain comes from the body, not the world. It doesn't mean much to say this other than the fact that pain and the event can come apart. They can exist independently of each other then, which means I can be immersed in the events that once hurt me and experience them differently if I am open to it. That is the sense I am making of it anyway, and I am only saying that because so much time has passed and internal peace has been found.
That, and I no longer take love for granted. I am not so sure why that changed, other than maybe because I learned how to feel love. I learned how to allow my body to experience a good feeling in response to care. I don't know how I saw care before therapy. I just remember being numb. I remember being uncomfortable by hugs and affection, and the vocalized appreciation of others. I would self-deprecate anytime anyone said a nice thing, as a way to deflect any gesture of care and stop it from entering my body.
Growing up, I remember mother saying it to me as a child: I am sorry I don’t hug you. I never learned how to be comfortable with it, my mother never hugged me. Then, at 28, I found myself at Padre with a friend who loved giving hugs and teased me about my inability to take or receive one. It wasn’t until I was paying another person to show me care that I was then forced to sit still, as another person saw me, cared for me, that my nervous system would learn how to accept love back. It was either that or waste my money and run.
But that was just the beginning—that was just hugs. I got better at hugging, but it still took years for me to see people independent of my fears of them. My mind was always elsewhere; it was never paying attention. The world used to be a mirror I gazed upon, now it is a window. Now, every other person can be independent of me, and is surely having an experience separate from my own experience. I don't know why that makes love more loving, but it does. Maybe because I know now that nobody has to. Nobody has to give anything, be anything, but sometimes they choose to and sometimes they make that same choice over and over again. The fact that they are choosing to is the most important part.
I was always so caught up in my experience of them, I never thought about their own experience of me. I watched for signs that they loved me, but did I ever love them? And even if I knew I did, because I felt it inside of me, was their experience of me loving? Did I ever show them, did I choose to say something, be something, do something so that they knew that I cared? And I think I can honestly say, in reflection, the answer was often no.
I was very fixated on myself; my own experience of being a traumatized person that everyone else had to understand. And some of my people understood, but others were simply holding on in good faith, like my father, who still to this day won't let my stories permeate his body enough that he will ever understand, but I don't care so much anymore. Why? Because his dire attempt to love me is enough—I can see him now as this separate person, who is who he is, having a completely different experience to I, and is genuinely trying. And sometimes his inability to understand me, and therefore really see me, hurts me deeply and I put my hands up and walk away. But having my good moments with him, and letting him know that I see him, is more valuable to me than idealism. When we can protect ourselves, others protecting us becomes less of a necessity, and more of an experience to marvel. I can shield myself under a mountain, but I can't see the world if I never leave.
*
All I ever wanted was for my family to love me. And the beautiful thing about reconnecting after time apart is that I was able to see that they do, just not in the specific ways I wanted them to. And there is a difference, isn’t there, between imperfect love and abuse. For a while imperfect love felt like abuse, and sometimes it still does…
But it wasn’t too long ago that I heard someone say, ‘if you want to be heard, first you must practice listening,’ and then, ‘if you find yourself asking for something in relationships, first, you must be willing to truly see if you are giving what you ask for.’ So, in conversation with my father, with my sister, with my brother, I started to notice all the ways my pain and desire were keeping me from seeing them. I started to take inventory of the things they did do in their own language—things they wouldn’t otherwise have to do, but made the choice to do, because they cared. I started to become painfully aware that I was marking others to criteria I hadn’t first applied to myself. Hm… the ways in which I want to be loved, do I love others in that way? Can I do to others what I expect of them? Do I myself make mistakes? Am I myself human, doing my best to try? And if I want others to see the best in me, and accept me for my very human flaws, do I choose to see the best in others—even the ones where their best is not obvious—and understand too, that they have very human flaws. How do I react when a mistake is made?
That doesn’t mean that all mistakes should be taken in stride, or that we should tolerate all the pain in the world in an attempt to understand. But there is a difference between rationalizing another’s imperfect behavior as a reason to run, and using it as an opportunity for understanding.
But for some of us, protecting ourselves becomes a way of life, and it keeps us at a distance from the things we so deeply want. It’s more of a practice than a law, just like most things—if I want understanding, am I giving it? If I want love, am I giving it? If I so desperately want relationships, am I being in relationship back?
