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| Purging fire |
from the suicide attempt survivor's journal:
It's Wednesday again, so it's therapy session time. Actually, it was time for that and I start to see these sessions as some sort of a new torment I need to undergo to achieve something I am not really sure it can be achieved. Plus, they are mandatory. My therapist calls it catharsis, the celebrated process of purging and obtaining relief from strong and repressed emotions. Sometimes I feel that I am not going to make through all this shit, I mean, digging deep into my past to find out whatever took me to take the step towards the point of no return, re-living all those horrendous memories I have tried so much to bury and separate myself from.
During this session, we explored my resentment and resistance to any kind of authority, especially to any imposed type. My parents were quite nifty in bringing me up; they cultivated my curiosity by encouraging me to ask questions and not to be necessarily satisfied with the answers I got. I used to be the type of child/teenager who could go on forever inquiring about pretty much anything, then annoying the soul out of my counterparts by proceeding to need further explanations as to why those answers would be correct and not some other variants. This would serve me later, when
I started to study rhetoric and logic, but I digress.
I started to study rhetoric and logic, but I digress.
In perfect opposition with my parents was this grandfather (my mother's kin), the family patriarch, or at least, that was what he thought of himself. He (and grandmother) were not close with my parents, but my mum fulfilled her duties by taking me to visit every now and then and on those occasions all hell broke lose. When I was a child, I could never understand the critical manner he (my grandfather) spoke to my parents. Being a WW2 veteran must have fucked up his mind, so he became this strict, authoritative individual who considered that everyone should abide by his ruling. He had plans for every family member, guidelines for family life, guidelines for social relations, guidelines for dealing with problems, guidelines and regulations for everything. Everything must have been done according to his view on that certain matter, because he said so and because he knew better. There was no arguing with his arbitrary way of seeing things and he never really took time to see someone for who they were. I could not understand any of that until I grew older. Actually, his make-belief power derived from the fact that he would leave all his assets to his relatives (he made that really clear, not once I heard him saying that he put all his efforts into securing their future), after he passed away; in so many words, he was blackmailing his daughter and relatives with the prospect of future financial well being - it was only me who found his tirades infuriating: "I worked all my life to leave you this and that and you won't even take good care of things when I am alive". It took my mother some time to realize that in order to get away from his grasp.
According to my grandfather, everyone was a weak, disrespectful human being in need of his guidance and mindfulness. This attitude quickly separate my dad from his in-laws. He wasn't the combative type, not at a first glance, but he was resilient enough and knew how to handle this type of intrusive personalities. My mum was caught in the middle apparently, but I suppose she really made her choice when she married my father and chose to suffer the wrath of the patriarch only during the rare family reunions.
On the other hand, I was the only one who confronted the old bastard. Teenage came with new set of questions for me and I saw the ex-sergeant as a challenge every time I went to see him. I despised him and his rigid thinking so much, yet I had to try and antagonize him again and again. When I used to be a child, he didn't really punish me when I disobeyed him, he must have thought that I need a proper education, so he kept trying to inoculate his bullshit that my parents had to un-teach me afterwards. As I said before, when in my teens, I started antagonizing him, so, just like anyone with no real argument, he reverted to corporal punishments which angered me so much that I kept going on with my banter, taking it further and further, until some point where I struck him. That was the supreme argument in our eternal fights and he started to respect me. It came as a surprise: he proved to be walled in for any argument expressed in words, violence was the language he understood. At that moment I realized that everyone has a trigger, a weak point, a breaking point; all it took was patience and smart probing. I am not really sure who was testing whose limits, but I believe I won in the end: he died from an aneurysm which I hope I have contributed to in some way.
I believe it was during those years when my authority issues started to take form and then got stuck with me for the rest of my life. Ever since, I am incapable of trusting someone who tries to show off some sort of authority and I really hate those who believe are granted the premises to guide others in any way without a proper, real foundation.
My therapist said she was happy with my progress, I asked her why I should give a shit about her opinion, when I was still confused about myself and couldn't see anything clearly, let alone progress or regress. She said that I started to recognize her to be a helping agent in my recovery process - dodgy cunt, she played the velvet glove card and I was unsure how to react. Good thing I didn't submit to my primary reaction of violent response, after all, it's a cat and mouse game which has been determined to last for about twenty sessions. It was either this, or psychiatric treatment and I don't want to be prescribed drugs, this meaning that I need to prove that I am recovered by the end of the cycle. I am determined to do that and make her cry.
"And the rain will kill us all,
We throw ourselves against the wall"
Slipknot - Psychosocial
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