I really want this blog to allow what I carry around in me to come out . . . in whatever order it chooses. I feel a need, however, to explain something about the group process, so you’ll have a better idea where I came from in 1996, when I did my production. I had been in group for probably six months (after witnessing the end of the Six Week Anger Workshop and deciding to sign up for an Inner Child workshop that was supposed to also last six weeks—but morphed into six years) with seven people, each of whom left an indelible impression on my life and helped me find my lost self. One person’s story seemed more horrendous than the last, as we went around the circle each Thursday, exorcising the demons in our heads.
I secretly felt ashamed for even coming to this group with my insignificant issues. After all, I had never been sexually or physically abused; I wasn’t an addict; I had been given many privileges in life, and I had no idea what was even the matter with me, except that I considered myself a loser and couldn’t make my third marriage work. I was also severely co-dependent on someone who seemed to take delight in mentally torturing me. But I had no idea what co-dependency even was. I had been working on finding a way to function—in and out of M.D.’s, PhD’s, an L.C.S.W. and priest’s offices for over a year—and things only seemed more hopeless. Never did I consider turning off the continuous loop tape recorder in my head that told me “You should be grateful for what you have,” or “Why would he love you; you are pitiful,” or “You suck at life; the world would be better off without you.”
The people in my group had legitimate reasons to be fucked up: One woman had been repeatedly raped and beaten by her father for eight years of her life; another woman had been raped by her father and his brother for over seven years (until her younger sister excited them more); one man who stuttered helplessly had been shamed and verbally abused by his father (forever); three people struggled daily with drug and alcohol sobriety and talked much about picking up the scattered pieces of lives they had trashed; and the oldest member, a woman in her seventies—who had physically outlived those who had scarred her being—couldn’t seem to let go of a sick desire to replace them. As our lives unfolded, I knew that a part of me had shared parts of their stories. I felt a connection, but my mind would not allow me much latitude in thinking I might have found my hope, and it kept me on a guilt trip for wasting their time with my trivialities.
I didn’t have much interest in going to the past and liked it when people talked about struggles in the present; after all, I reasoned, we can’t do much about what happened way back when. Then, the therapist asked me to do her a favor. “Eve,” she said, “all of what we think are today’s problems are merely reenactments of issues from our childhood. I want you to make a conscious decision to trust me and be willing to do the things I ask you to do.” I decided I could do that (when you contemplate suicide as a way out of your pain and self-hatred, you’ll do just about anything). She asked me to consider that my husband represented someone from my past. Within a couple days—I had plenty of time to obsess on this—I could see that he had emotionally abandoned me like my dad had; he literally abandoned me on a regular basis the way my mother had (but unlike she, who died on me, at least I could rescue him after a week- long binge). Come to think of it, he was also unpleasable, like my father, and preoccupied, as well. Unfortunately, these realizations did not give me relief. In fact; they only made me feel more stupid because I hadn’t made the distinction between their actions and my worth or lack thereof. Those realizations wouldn’t happen for a while. And I certainly wasn’t at at point where I could put my self-flagellating whip down.
This tiny breakthrough, however, did help solidify my trust in my therapist. [As I write this, I realize my relationship with her might have been the first healthy trust I had ever experienced]. And, it made me more willing to immerse myself in Group and all the reading she suggested. As a literature major and someone lucky enough to have found books as escape at a young age, I had already sought answers from self-help gurus, and I knew that my therapist subscribed to the writing of John Bradshaw, another of my guides to wholeness over the years . After so much time running scared and pretending to be whole, I found a reason to hope. My philosophy had always been: Why be optimistic? You are just setting yourself up for greater disappointment. What I didn’t consider, even at that stage: Without hope, you are constantly miserable. And I was. But, now the armor had a chink. And soon thereafter, the slightest ray of light would peek through.
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