“Holding on to Pain”

(Written in March 2010)
Prompted by Bobbi, I’ve been reading Eckhart Tolle, The New Earth.  I’m at a section where he’s saying that people hold on to their pain, and I think that’s garbage.  Some people do, I’m sure, it’s a way to manipulate and get what you want.  I think about Mother and how she would look on sourly as we children were having fun washing the Christmas morning dishes, and how she resisted accepting that other wives might accompany their husbands when they were in the hospital. But I certainly don’t hold on to pain and it makes me furious when somebody suggests that I do.  Do people “hold on to” a leg that’s broken?  I’ve been living all my life with a brain and nervous system damaged by trauma which is essentially frozen in the body.  My pain holds on to me, I don’t hold on to it, I’ve been trying to get rid of it (which doesn’t work) for years until I found Somatic Experiencing and the possibility of “re-negotiating” trauma so it can be integrated and heal.  My identity certainly doesn’t include depressed person, I feel like I’m only really myself when I’m not depressed or terrified.  The story I tell of PTSD is not to support an identity as trauma survivor, it’s mostly to help me forgive myself when I’m having a hard time.  Not only do I not hold on to my pain, I’ve been doing my damnedest to heal, and I’m really grateful that I was born in a time when Somatic Experiencing was available.