- hello again
- so i thought i could manage without you but it turns out... i still need you
- wow, i'm... both offended and slightly touched
- did you miss me?
- would it make you feel better if i said yes?
- yes
- then yes
- you know i used to think that either everyone was as disastrously, catastrophically fucked up as me or no one was, but now I've realised that the reality is that some people are and some just aren't
- what makes you say that?
- because not everyone goes through the things that made me the way that I am. Like, statistically there has to be a group or percentage of people who go through their formative, identity forming years without being psychologically mauled, mutilated, disfigured or molested, right? And also it's a spectrum of fucked-up-edness. It's not a binary thing. Everyone's fucked up to a different extent, to differing degrees and in a slightly different way.
- i suppose
- and then it occurred to me that of the people who are fucked up, maybe some of them get better. some of them learn about the nature of their thing and the causes and consequences of being so uniquely fucked up. and maybe they also learn to manage their fucked up-ness better than others, and manage to live some semblance of a healthy and productive life, one that appears and feels identical to those fortunate un-fucked up people. and then i started thinking - what separates the ones who get better from the ones who don't? What's the critical factor that decides whether or not someone subjected to abuse is able to get over their trauma?
- and what did you decide?
- that it's completely by chance. that unless you have the inclination, the insight, the resources, the time and energy, the right circle of friends or acquaintances, access to information... that without a combination of these things it's pretty much impossible for someone damaged like me to learn to live an undamaged life. and don't you think that's incredibly unfair?
- I think there are things in life we can cont-
- You know, there's a lake in central Russia that the Soviet Union used as a dumping site for radioactive waste from when they were constructing their own atomic bomb. It's been called the most polluted spot on earth and you can allegedly receive a lethal dose of radiation just by being there for 30 minutes. In 1994 they discovered that the polluted water had migrated into a nearby river and contaminated it. 65% of the local residents developed radiation sickness but doctors had to call it 'the special disease' so as not to compromise the secrecy of the atomic bomb project.
- I did not know that
- It's estimated that over 45 years half a million people in the region have been irradiated as a result of the Soviet Union secretly dumping radioactive waste into the surrounding lakes and rivers.
- Is this something you'd like to discuss in the session?
- Not really. But it makes me think about this dream i've been having lately... can i tell you about it?
- please
- so in my dream, there's a desert, and in the desert there's a well. The well's all dried up, and the sand keeps getting into the well. It piles up and piles up... the wind keeps sweeping the sand into the well. Eventually someone puts a cover on it and the sand keeps rising, piling on top of the cover until the well's almost submerged... swallowed up by the sand - until no one can tell there used to be a well there... but then someone digs out the well -- someone removes all the sand covering it, and the cover as well... and the sand, it gets dug out. slowly, gradually, the sand in the well gets less and less.... until none is left, and then the miraculous thing... it starts filling up with water again. By itself. It fills up and up and up to the brim. And slowly but surely, people start coming to the well again... camels and horses and children begin visiting it. Strangers on long journeys gather round the well to rest. Young women make little expeditions to bring water back to their homes and families... and sometimes the well just sits there alone in the desert. Full of water, reflecting the sky...
- what do you think it means?
- well, at first i thought that the well symbolised unrealised potential - a vessel waiting to be filled etc. etc. but then the more i thought about it i thought maybe -- maybe the well represents my heart... that the well represents me. But now it occurs to me that maybe i am the sediment. And maybe i am also the sand.
- Is this something you'd like to discuss in the session?
- Not really. But it makes me think about this dream i've been having lately... can i tell you about it?
- please
- so in my dream, there's a desert, and in the desert there's a well. The well's all dried up, and the sand keeps getting into the well. It piles up and piles up... the wind keeps sweeping the sand into the well. Eventually someone puts a cover on it and the sand keeps rising, piling on top of the cover until the well's almost submerged... swallowed up by the sand - until no one can tell there used to be a well there... but then someone digs out the well -- someone removes all the sand covering it, and the cover as well... and the sand, it gets dug out. slowly, gradually, the sand in the well gets less and less.... until none is left, and then the miraculous thing... it starts filling up with water again. By itself. It fills up and up and up to the brim. And slowly but surely, people start coming to the well again... camels and horses and children begin visiting it. Strangers on long journeys gather round the well to rest. Young women make little expeditions to bring water back to their homes and families... and sometimes the well just sits there alone in the desert. Full of water, reflecting the sky...
- what do you think it means?
- well, at first i thought that the well symbolised unrealised potential - a vessel waiting to be filled etc. etc. but then the more i thought about it i thought maybe -- maybe the well represents my heart... that the well represents me. But now it occurs to me that maybe i am the sediment. And maybe i am also the sand.
