Writing As A Form Of Therapy

[Silenus]

A calm mind makes the right decisions... from right decisions come right actions... calm your mind... make the right decisions that inform your actions... this is wisdom... this is insight... this is truly living in the moment...

The past gives us hurt and hate... the future gives us fear and fate...

Let these distracting illusions go... they are not for you... they are for the lesser evolved...

Be calm... there is no hurt... no hate... no fear... no fate...

There is only this calm moment of right decision... right action...

[Silenus]

Question everything... even question the process of questioning...

Assume nothing... let your projections and conditioning fall away, cleaved from your mind by the razo.r-sharp slicing of your questions...

All that humankind finds so necessary and unavoidable and inevitable... direct your questions at them... challenge them...

The concepts of separate nations, separate religions... the whole idea of money as a value system... war and poverty... greed beyond need... destruction...

Questions from an evolved mind have the power to set you free, to set the entire human race free...

Do not accept injustice, fear and hate as unavoidable... cut to the heart of it with your questions...

From questions come insight...

Here is an insight gained from questions...

There is no separation... all is one... there is no you and me... no us and them... what you do to another, you do to yourself... you are not separate from nature, from this Earth... what you do to the Earth, you do to yourself...

Question the cages that humankind has built for themselves over thousands of years... turn these questions as keys in a lock, and be free of these cages...

Question whilst questioning... why do you hold on so tightly to your answers... why do you question...

[BlueBay]

Hi @Silenus
How do i forgive the ones that truly hurt me?i can't move forward feel stuck.

[Silenus]

Good morning sweet @BlueBay

I will tell you how I have found forgiveness, but maybe your journey will need to take you on a different path...

We each find our way to truth differently... it is the most individual of journeys...

Finding out how to forgive the hurts that have been visited upon us can be the hardest thing in the world to do, or it can be the easiest...

These deep hurts... for as long as we keep that hurt in our heart, we will be stuck, unable to move forward... we continue to be a slave to our hurt

The hurt creates such untold emotional and psychological stress... it manifests as depression, mania, PTSD, and other symptoms of ill mental health...

So... what are we to do?

Let us come at the problem with our questions, and see where it takes us...

Do you know what forgiveness is?

It is letting go...

Pure and simple... forgiveness is letting go of the hurt... letting go of the hate...

Forgiveness is letting go of all of the built up memories of the original hurt, which we hold onto as tightly as if they were precious happy memories...

Why do we hold on so tightly to our memories of hurt? The hurt happened long ago... why relive it again and again, keeping the hurt ever fresh in our heads and our hearts?

We take a hurt, and then we replace it with endlessly repeating and perpetuating memories of that hurt... this is a problem... why do we do this?

If it is a form of self-defence mechanism, it is not particularly good at doing its job...

So, how do I forgive? How do I let go of the hurt?

1. I realise that everyone makes mistakes.
2. I realise that hurt people who are in pain will more often than not respond to that hurt by passing it on to someone else, either deliberately or without thought.
3. I realise that we often hurt the ones we love the most.
4. I realise that I can stop this endless process of passing hurt from one person to the next by looking at my own hurt and resolving it by letting go of it.
5. I realise that the original hurt is gone. Now I must deal with my memory of hurt.
6. I realise that even when a hurtful situation still exists, either I can do something about it or I cannot. If I can do something about it to resolve it, then I should take action. If I cannot do something about it to resolve it, then my action must be aimed at myself and my ongoing memory of hurt.
7. I realise that ignoring my hurt does not make it go away.
8. I realise that every single bit of hurt in my life has brought me to where I am now, and has helped to make me who I am now, just as much as all of my happy joyful loving experiences have. It does not seem right that I accept gratefully the happy lessons from life, and yet continue to fight against the hurtful lessons from life. They are two sides of the same coin. I cannot have a coin with just one side.
9. I realise that to express gratitude for my hurt is the greatest way to heal, to let go, to forgive.
10. I realise that my reality is mine to reshape. In my reshaped reality, I own my hurt, my pain. I accept it. It is a part of me. It loses its power to continue to hurt me.


Here is a practical example from my life...

I came to Australia from Denmark in 1980. I was 8 years old, and could not speak a word of English. School was brutal. I was a (insert random racist name). I got beat up and bullied from the age of 8 to the age of 18.

I was an only child. No friends. No other family in Australia except for my parents. My parents were too busy building a new life in a new country to notice what I was going through all alone.

This traumatic childhood of mine triggered into bipolar very early for me...

All of the pushings and punchings and heads down the loo... the constant hyper-vigilance... the fear... all those years...

All of that hurt...

So... how do I process that hurt? How do I forgive the bullies? How do I forgive my parents? How do I let go?

Simple... a journey of decades, but ultimately so breathtakingly simple that it could have been done in mere moments...

I express a deep and humble gratitude for all that hurt...

I join the dots...

Dot... I needed to escape the bullies.

Dot... the library was safe and quiet.

Dot... I needed to improve my English language skills, so I started to read.

Dot... through reading, I was free to be whoever or whatever I wanted to be, away from the hard reality outside the library walls.

Dot... I came to love English.

Dot... I became a writer.

Dot... writing is my true calling.

Dot... if the bullies had not driven me to seek refuge in the library, I may never have found what my true calling was.

I joined the dots, and the dots took me to freedom, to forgiveness, to gratitude, to letting go of the hurt...

I was a voracious reader as a child. It started as a way to escape the tiresome attentions of the bullies by swapping the vulnerably open savannah of the playground for the safer dense jungle of the library. It ended with a love for the English language that will be with me to my dying days, even though Danish is my mother tongue…

I forgive... there is now only a distant dim memory of my hurt... it is there to remind me that my hurt can take me to some wonderful places if I let it...

[BlueBay]

Thank you @Silenus for replying back.  I have to go out for a while to visit MIL in nursing home but when I come back I will write back to you.  You explained it so easy for me to understand, thank you. xxoo

[Silenus]

Hugs and happy vibes beaming to you @BlueBay 🙂

[BlueBay]

Hey @Silenus

I will try to write something but it is painful, hurtful and lots of sadness.

Silenus wrote: These deep hurts... for as long as we keep that hurt in our heart, we will be stuck, unable to move forward... we continue to be a slave to our hurt

@Silenus see this is where I am stuck because I continue to relive the hurt that my mum did to me; I relive the hurt and the words she said to me on that horrible day I saw her 6 yrs ago and told her of my childhood sexual abuse. I relive her yelling at me; her pointing her finger at me and saying how dare you wait over 30 yrs to tell me.

Silenus wrote: Do you know what forgiveness is?

I always thought that forgiveness was forgiving the person for what they said or did.  Am I holding on to this hurt and pain for self destruction, like I am wanting to hurt myself, like self sabotage???

1. I do agree with you that everyone makes mistakes, even our parents
2. I sort of understand that my parents are probably hurting too because they couldn't help me when I was abused or even now 
3. yes, you're right the original hurt happened years and years ago; and I am reliving this past hurt still to this day
4. I get what you're saying about owning the hurt, the pain and to accept it.  See this is so hard, i don't know why I just can't do it

Let's see if I can write a dot to dot .....

Dot .... i was sexually abused at the age of 9-12 yrs old by 3 different guys at different times

Dot .... i kept it to myself, i was scared to tell anyone, i was too young to know any different

Dot .... i remembered my abuse 40 years later, to feel the pain, the hurt, the abandonment was huge

Dot ....  i told my parents and my mum yelled abuse at me, so for the first time in my life i stood up to her and i walked out of their house (and then sobbed uncontrollably for hours)

Dot .... i am starting to learn how to make my own decisions and not be ruled by my mum, not second guessing my decisions, or needing advice;  i am slowly learning to trust myself

Dot ... I am living a life of peace without my mum nagging me all the time; controlling me all the time and putting me down all the time; the only setback to that is - I miss my dad so so much (because of her)

Dot ... i am grateful that i have a loving husband and 3 amazing adult children who I know love me for who I am today child abuse or not; I am still their mum  (gosh now i am crying)

@Silenus the only difference at the moment between you and me is that I can't join the dots - i am grieving for the loss of my childhood; grieving for the loss of my innocence and grieving for not being able to see my dad.

Will my dots ever be joined??? I don't know and it hurts so much.  I really do want to release all the hurt and pain, forgive but it's just I still don't know how 😞

The tears are flowing freely, i don't know what else to do.

[Silenus]

I feel your pain and your sadness @BlueBay

The answer is that you will find your path through it all...

I muddled around a lot in my journey to where I am right now...

Ignorantly, I hurt a lot of people and they hurt me along the way...

My worst reaction to all the crap that life was throwing at me? Procrastination... hahaha... that one's a doozie for me...

Your journey is so very painful just now @BlueBay

I humbly believe the pain is worth it, once we come out the other side of it...

When I was stuck in the pain, heck, my personality was one tiny stumble away from fragmenting totally... I felt so lost, not just because of the world around me, but because I was so totally lost to myself...

I couldn't see any end to it all...

Slowly, over the course of 5 or so years (first on the BlueBoard forum and then here on Sane), I have struggled with my demons, my diagnoses, the reality of my crazy bipolar life...

Bit by bit, I've pulled myself apart, studied it, and put it back together again... some of my more graphic poetry along the way (most definitely not suitable for publication here or anywhere) is a chilling reminder of how painful and tortuous a journey it was for me...

My relative place of peace now... that required a lot of bravery, guts, dedication, perseverance, and an unflinching dedication to the ongoing evolution of my self...

It was Hell on Earth...

My personal hell, inhabited by all my demons, taking turns or acting in concert...

It was not pretty to watch...

There are dark things... abuse suffered as a child... that stays with you... abuse puts dark things inside you...

I hope that does not trigger you... I was sexually interfered with as a child... it left deep scars that took me years to even see I had... it took many more years to find out how to move past it in a real and practical way that I could apply in my life...

Life is a journey @BlueBay ... much of it isn't pretty or particularly much fun... but it is what it is...

The light shines upon the darkness, and warmth can be taken from this... I dwell in darkness, but I prefer the light...

Sending so very many gentle hugs your way @BlueBay

[BlueBay]

Thank you so much @Silenus.  You have been a great friend to me 🙂

It is painful, I still feel the hurt.  I see this vision of me in hospital (going in this Tuesday) sitting on the floor in floods of tears, releasing all my hurt, my pain, my fears, my everything.  I don't know who I am anymore, I know I am trying to be the best that I can.  No hang on, I am a fantastic mum, a mum who always puts her kids first no matter what.  I love my children so so much; they are my everything.  We have raised three amazing children into young adults, who are now trying to find their own way and will soon I think fly the coup.  It will be sad, but it is reality, they need to move on, just like me.

Do you really think that pain and hurt is worth it? What do I gain from it?  I always dwell in darkness and sometimes I see a tiny glimpse of light and other times its all dark.  I need to try to hang on to that tiny glimpse and imagine what my life would be like.  

I know that one day when I become a grandma I will be a really good grandma.  I won't treat my grandchildren the way my mum treated mine. I will spend as much time as I can with them. 

But at the moment @Silenus my pain is still too raw; even though it's been 6 years of when all this came out. You're right life is a journey but one that I never thought I would be in so much darkness for such a long time. 

Pls tell me that this darkness will lift. I really love chatting with you @Silenus 

Hugs to you xxooo

[Silenus]

Hugs @BlueBay ... thank you for your friendship... it means a lot to me... 🙂

In answer to your wondering about whether the darkness will ever lift, please allow me to return to the matter of pain for a moment... most especially psychological and emotional pain... I would wish to clarify something...

Whilst I was a slave to my pain, whilst I was fully immersed in its brutal rawness and staggering power, I saw no end to the darkness and the suffering...

Through whatever lucky chance of quirk or determination of hard work, I managed to grit my teeth and steer my way through the worst of it all... it was a white-knuckle ride all the way...

Truth be told, I had resigned myself to this pain and suffering for the rest of my life... I was determined and ready to just shuffle through and keep going, no matter what... despite all the pain...

Now... here is what I believe is one of the most important things about mental health...

Only a calm, aware and healthy mind can make calm, aware and healthy decisions...

An unaware mind that is not sufficiently awake to itself will continue to make the same ignorant mistakes and repeat the same destructive patterns until such a time as awareness of the problems is reached...

So... self awareness is so very very important for our mental health... first we must be aware of a problem... only then can we start to work out how to fix it or at least learn to live with it in a healthier fashion...

But more than self awareness is needed...

A mind suffering from extreme pain, racing thoughts, depression, anxiety, over-thinking and a host of other mental health issues is not a calm mind... it is a mind steeped in extremes of distress...

Such a troubled mind, even when it is aware, is by no means calm... without that calmness, that peace and quiet inside the confines of our skull, we cannot hope to achieve greatly improved levels of mental health...

The noise and pain and turmoil and extreme emotionality of it all will drown out any calm voices of reason that we utter...

A wolf with their leg in a trap does not think with calmness nor reason... all the animalistic raw emotion and ferocity overpower the natural calmness...

Sorry... not a great metaphor, but I hope you get the point...

So... we need self awareness and we need calmness to be able to reason, decide, and then act in the best interests of our mental health...

I have strived greatly to bring this calmness to the inside of my head... it has transformed me from a chaotic reactionary to a somewhat calmer person...

I still feel the full power of my bipolar mood swings and emotions... I still have immense psychological and emotional pain... I am still the wolf with its leg caught in the cruel trap...

But the awareness and the calmness I have now have greatly improved my resilience and my capacity to deal with it all...

This wolf has come to realise that the trap I am caught in is life, and I would not wish to be free of it...

So... does the darkness lift? I very strongly believe so...

First comes the self awareness... this actually brings more pain, not less...

Remaining calm in the face of that pain... that is the way to improved mental health... that is the light of reason that banishes the darkness...

Sending gentle hugs to all those who need it...