Post by Chimera on Jun 25, 2012 1:20:32 GMT
I mentioned in the thread in the Mental Health Forum about Apo's creation of this new forum that there is a problem to be solved: which is how people are to find their way around the forum, and collate their different individual experiences of "the same" problems, in the - necessary, and much appreciated! - absence of an imposed psychiatric framework.
For the moment, this forum entitled "General Mental Health Support" seems to be the only appropriate place in which to post this thread, although "support" is not really what I am after, or not really all I am after.
Perhaps we can collectively evolve a flexible set of forums within which to express and begin to organise our individual experiences.
The mission statement of the forum mentions the importance of mystery. There are mysteries of many kinds, but the one I want to write about is a dark and terrifying mystery, to which I am almost literally wedded, in spite of having literally divorced myself from the abusive religious maniac, A___, who is its central focus.
I mentioned in another thread that I was thinking of applying to the Tavistock Clinic (or whatever it has rebranded itself as now, in the grip of worldwide corporate mania) for half a dozen hour-long sessions in which to discuss the problem I have in communicating with my daughter, E___, who is now aged 20, and is the offspring of the abusive religious maniac in question.
But I am coming to doubt the usefulness of doing that, almost as soon as having thought of it (thanks to Apo's post about the Tavistock).
The problem is too vast, too strange, and too individual to explain fully here, or indeed anywhere else. I can only talk around it, try to start some sort of communication. I am, in a very important sense, alone with this problem, but perhaps I need not be totally alone with it. Still, I think it is perhaps not definable as a "mental health" problem, in however broad a sense of the phrase; nor, I suspect, is it amenable to psychotherapy or counselling, of any form at all.
I do not expect anyone to understand this. I do not understand it myself. It is a great and dark mystery. But perhaps I begin to try to give some idea of the kind of dark mystery it is. I really do mean, "begin", and "perhaps"! Don't worry if this makes no sense to you.
I think I'll start by quoting part of an e-mail I wrote, on Wednesday 13th, to a counsellor, P___, whom I have been seeing for assessment, and for occasional support. (I had just been having a long imaginary conversation with him, in my mind, while I was having a bath!) Then I'll add a paragraph I have just written in my diary. (I've done a little editing of both texts, mostly for the sake of anonymity.)
Dear P___,
[...] In this latest imaginary conversation, I explained - very lucidly, I thought! - how this terrifying darkness is not something I expect to be directly resolved by counselling or psychotherapy. I still have my simple faith in therapy, but it now has a boundary, beyond which lies this darkness.
I discussed with you the limited relevance of the concept of psychosis; and again the question of what you might or might not be thinking; and the absurdity of any idea that therapy could possibly require one person to believe automatically or uncritically what another person says. (That can, I see, be taken in two ways! I meant the idea that, in some sense or other, "judgement" is suspended in therapy. It doesn't matter, though, what exactly I meant; it's only incidental.)
I said if there was any way of dealing with the darkness directly, it could only be by some religious, spiritual, occult, or esoteric path: none of which I can see, because I am spiritually shallow, and not cut out for that kind of thing. (I've been an atheist for most of my life, and I still retain much of the same "rationalistic" cast of mind.)
I said that there are fragments of it that I talk about in plain English - such as the fact that it is very evidently associated with my disastrous marriage to a religious maniac.
But I said that nothing at all that I say about it is with a view to being resolved in any direct way by counselling.
On further reflection - this was quite a long bath! - I admitted that another possible way of dealing directly with the darkness might be some kind of reconciliation with my daughter. (It is surely significant that we talked about E___ in our last conversation, on Monday; and this e-mail is a kind of complicated, delayed response to that talk.)
Then the penny dropped (as in the title of this e-mail).
It became obvious that the reason why the darkness descended on me in 1993, or more exactly at the time of my daughter's first birthday, in December 1992 - but reaching its absolute nadir the next year (in ways that I cannot possibly describe, or expect to be resolved in any way, and I can only, at best, say a few fragmentary things about) - was that it was at about the time of my own first birthday that my mother had a life-threatening illness, and was hospitalised for several months, and I was looked after by other relatives. I'm sure you have encountered this kind of "anniversary" pattern before, and can fill in the blanks for yourself; so I don't need to go on about it, and make this e-mail even longer! I only need to add, for emphasis, that what I think about the darkness, the paranormal, and in particular my absolutely fixed "idea of reference" concerning the horror film The Creeping Flesh (1973) - which I am convinced has a message intended for me, and for me alone, about me, A___ (my ex-wife), and E___ - none of what I think or feel about all of this is obvious; nor is it materially altered by being "interpreted" as an effect of an event in early childhood. Nevertheless, it is undoubtedly illuminated by it. It remains to be seen whether that illumination lightens the darkness at all. (I have to say, I doubt whether it will; it is not that kind of light, valuable though it is.)
That's the end of the e-mail to P___. Here is the paragraph from my diary:
I obviously could not and cannot continue in the marriage to A___. But I (far less obviously, but really) cannot separate myself from the mysterious darkness to which I wedded myself. It seems, as I have mysteriously observed before, to be a fate which was foreshadowed long before E___ was even conceived. Her existence, even in this twisted and abusive form, seems to be necessary, as part of some unimaginably vast scheme, and all of my bitter past experiences which led up to her present existence are accordingly also necessary. No form of psychotherapy or counselling can even begin to grapple with such a dark mystery.
For the moment, this forum entitled "General Mental Health Support" seems to be the only appropriate place in which to post this thread, although "support" is not really what I am after, or not really all I am after.
Perhaps we can collectively evolve a flexible set of forums within which to express and begin to organise our individual experiences.
The mission statement of the forum mentions the importance of mystery. There are mysteries of many kinds, but the one I want to write about is a dark and terrifying mystery, to which I am almost literally wedded, in spite of having literally divorced myself from the abusive religious maniac, A___, who is its central focus.
I mentioned in another thread that I was thinking of applying to the Tavistock Clinic (or whatever it has rebranded itself as now, in the grip of worldwide corporate mania) for half a dozen hour-long sessions in which to discuss the problem I have in communicating with my daughter, E___, who is now aged 20, and is the offspring of the abusive religious maniac in question.
But I am coming to doubt the usefulness of doing that, almost as soon as having thought of it (thanks to Apo's post about the Tavistock).
The problem is too vast, too strange, and too individual to explain fully here, or indeed anywhere else. I can only talk around it, try to start some sort of communication. I am, in a very important sense, alone with this problem, but perhaps I need not be totally alone with it. Still, I think it is perhaps not definable as a "mental health" problem, in however broad a sense of the phrase; nor, I suspect, is it amenable to psychotherapy or counselling, of any form at all.
I do not expect anyone to understand this. I do not understand it myself. It is a great and dark mystery. But perhaps I begin to try to give some idea of the kind of dark mystery it is. I really do mean, "begin", and "perhaps"! Don't worry if this makes no sense to you.
I think I'll start by quoting part of an e-mail I wrote, on Wednesday 13th, to a counsellor, P___, whom I have been seeing for assessment, and for occasional support. (I had just been having a long imaginary conversation with him, in my mind, while I was having a bath!) Then I'll add a paragraph I have just written in my diary. (I've done a little editing of both texts, mostly for the sake of anonymity.)
Dear P___,
[...] In this latest imaginary conversation, I explained - very lucidly, I thought! - how this terrifying darkness is not something I expect to be directly resolved by counselling or psychotherapy. I still have my simple faith in therapy, but it now has a boundary, beyond which lies this darkness.
I discussed with you the limited relevance of the concept of psychosis; and again the question of what you might or might not be thinking; and the absurdity of any idea that therapy could possibly require one person to believe automatically or uncritically what another person says. (That can, I see, be taken in two ways! I meant the idea that, in some sense or other, "judgement" is suspended in therapy. It doesn't matter, though, what exactly I meant; it's only incidental.)
I said if there was any way of dealing with the darkness directly, it could only be by some religious, spiritual, occult, or esoteric path: none of which I can see, because I am spiritually shallow, and not cut out for that kind of thing. (I've been an atheist for most of my life, and I still retain much of the same "rationalistic" cast of mind.)
I said that there are fragments of it that I talk about in plain English - such as the fact that it is very evidently associated with my disastrous marriage to a religious maniac.
But I said that nothing at all that I say about it is with a view to being resolved in any direct way by counselling.
On further reflection - this was quite a long bath! - I admitted that another possible way of dealing directly with the darkness might be some kind of reconciliation with my daughter. (It is surely significant that we talked about E___ in our last conversation, on Monday; and this e-mail is a kind of complicated, delayed response to that talk.)
Then the penny dropped (as in the title of this e-mail).
It became obvious that the reason why the darkness descended on me in 1993, or more exactly at the time of my daughter's first birthday, in December 1992 - but reaching its absolute nadir the next year (in ways that I cannot possibly describe, or expect to be resolved in any way, and I can only, at best, say a few fragmentary things about) - was that it was at about the time of my own first birthday that my mother had a life-threatening illness, and was hospitalised for several months, and I was looked after by other relatives. I'm sure you have encountered this kind of "anniversary" pattern before, and can fill in the blanks for yourself; so I don't need to go on about it, and make this e-mail even longer! I only need to add, for emphasis, that what I think about the darkness, the paranormal, and in particular my absolutely fixed "idea of reference" concerning the horror film The Creeping Flesh (1973) - which I am convinced has a message intended for me, and for me alone, about me, A___ (my ex-wife), and E___ - none of what I think or feel about all of this is obvious; nor is it materially altered by being "interpreted" as an effect of an event in early childhood. Nevertheless, it is undoubtedly illuminated by it. It remains to be seen whether that illumination lightens the darkness at all. (I have to say, I doubt whether it will; it is not that kind of light, valuable though it is.)
That's the end of the e-mail to P___. Here is the paragraph from my diary:
I obviously could not and cannot continue in the marriage to A___. But I (far less obviously, but really) cannot separate myself from the mysterious darkness to which I wedded myself. It seems, as I have mysteriously observed before, to be a fate which was foreshadowed long before E___ was even conceived. Her existence, even in this twisted and abusive form, seems to be necessary, as part of some unimaginably vast scheme, and all of my bitter past experiences which led up to her present existence are accordingly also necessary. No form of psychotherapy or counselling can even begin to grapple with such a dark mystery.