From my journal for January 1, 1997
I can’t trust my perceptions right now because I’m sick and everything looks bleak to me. I’m reading my way through Elizabeth Goudge — I find even her books difficult which is an indicator of the miserable state I’m in, that I can find no comfort anywhere. I found myself being jealous of characters that have faith in God, characters that have the fortitude to get through bad times — and I realize that I’m feeling a lot of bitterness and self-pity. “They have faith and fortitude because they weren’t abused by their parents.” I’d really like to let go of that — I don’t want to blame mom & dad for my lack of courage, for my failures and despair, for my inability to perceive God. Actually, I see that when I do that, I make it hopeless — they did that to me and now I can’t … — but I can practice compassion, I can try to live with dignity and fortitude, I can try to set my emotions aside and focus my attention on god, I can try to live in the present moment. They did damage me, yes, and that makes it hard to do theses things, but it doesn’t make it impossible. I think of my angry rejoinder about the Journey-women, it wasn’t the abuse that made us compassionate, it was what we chose to do with the abuse.
My “angry rejoinder” was after a performance of Journey Into Courage, when we took questions from the audience. Someone said we had learned compassion from the abuse, and I said that was not true, that abuse generally makes someone abusive. I said we had chosen to be compassionate.
Here I can see my own good struggle, knowing I was wounded, but fighting to heal as much as possible. At that time, I didn’t know I was also up against having been traumatized before the age of three which is when the brain finishes maturing. If you are traumatized before then, it means your brain matures under the influence of trauma.