My hands firmly gripping the rails...
by EM
My hands firmly gripping the rails as I repeatedly, violently, hit the back of my head against the ceiling at the top of the open stairs, in full view of my parents who were having dinner in the living room. I was 12 years old. As I hit my head harder and harder and as they kept ignoring me, I remember wondering if this would inflict any kind of long term damage to my brain. To this day, I still don't remember what I was sent to my room for.
I stopped hitting my head. My heart was beating fast. I didn't feel any physical pain. Just a throbbing.
I stopped because if I went too far they might send me to the head doctor again - I didn't know what it was called back then or how it was supposed to help me. I only knew it was "for my own good".
Or perhaps something worse would happen. This is what really made me stop. Perhaps I would actually hurt my brain in a permanent way.
Going to the head doctor wasn't so bad. The doctor would ask me about school and my friends and my family in that perhaps unknowingly, slightly condescending way. I knew my parents were watching from behind the one way mirror and judging everything I was saying and perhaps some of my answers were meant to spite them. Not out of hate, but perhaps in the hopes that something I'd say would wake them up from their self-built prison of delusions that they had done everything right and that there was something wrong with me.
I'd never heard them talk at dinner. There was never any chatter or laughter. Only a sense of duty. Or worse, obligation. As I hit the back of my head repeatedly on the ceiling as they were having another dinner without conversation, I came to the realization that I was doing more harm to myself than to them. That I'd never get the attention or care that I wanted and that they were simply not able to provide for me, much less for each other.
I stopped hurting myself then because it wasn't going to change anything. It wasn't my responsibility to save their marriage. They would not change and they were not worth getting hurt over it. I would just bide my time. Until I was old enough to leave this putrid nest. Until I could find my own sense of worth. My own voice.
It wasn't adulthood quite yet. I didn't know what I wanted quite yet but at least I had learned what I didn't want anymore.
I am one of the few who got this part easy...
by V
I am one of the few who got this part easy. Though authoritarian, my father nurtured my tendencies towards nature. He guided me and helped me find my own rituals in a very discreet and subtle manner, as soon as he noticed I was a moonchild.
I have tried to write.
I have tried to explain.
I have to rephrase.
But I can't.
I shredded so many pages, trying.
In all truth, there is nothing much to it. These are all part of a daily routine, just as one would brush their teeth or wash their face, before getting dressed. I prefer avoiding overly complicating this process by analyzing it too much.
I cleanse my soul as I clean my body, every single day, through water and visualization. I let go of the energy overflow back to Earth, as I do of dirt down the drain when I shower.
I ground myself through observation, connection and meditation. What little or lot of nature that surrounds me at a moment of need will be the focus I need to regain strength and composure.
I shield myself through silence and concentration, focussing on the bubble I need around me to feel safe and lonely. I am not a warrior. I am me. I live in my own time and space.
Nature is my mother and I trust She can provide for me in time of need. She is the one and only constant in my life, as always been there for me, and will always be there for me. She is my sacred space, my one and only. She inspires me in my evolution.
As a child, I have always been attracted to her. I find both nourishment for my soul and strength for my body in her.
I lost myself in the woods more times than I can count. I never actually had imaginary friends, though I befriended apple trees and cats. I could talk with them for hours and hours, sharing and feeling. Up to this day, I feel the powers of Nature everywhere I go.
Though my progression has been nurtured, some events have made it harder (the departure of my brother, and my acceptation of perpetual loneliness), while others made it simpler (the death of my grandmother, and then of my father). These events made me work alone, though they did not change my mental routine.
I am simply following the wheel of time.
