The adult me felt revulsion—deep inner revulsion.
“I will kill you.” Sasifraz hated those feelings.
“Easy, it’s ok.”
Deep down inside, there was something wrong—a memory screaming to surface, screaming not to surface. The whole experience made me angry—violently angry.
I cut my arm twice in desperation. Oh my, it did not help.
“What next, Sasifraz? Be patient,” I told myself. “For God’s sake, be patient.” (DOES GOD’S SAKE REALLY MATTER? Not to me.)
“You are going to have to come up with something better than that, J.”
“I’m working on it…Wisdom Part, you have got to help me. I need you now more than ever….Sasifraz, take a break.”
* * * * * * *
My arm was becoming a masterpiece of villainy.
When trying to remember, I felt like I was thrown upon the shore of a distant place by a big wave. As I clawed to get up the beach, the backwash pulled me out. I had this vision of being hauled backwards bodily digging my fingers in the sand. I was drug out only to be picked up by another wave and thrown on the beach again. Hence the term, The Pounding.
I didn’t know how to get out of this cycle. Remembering only brought a resurgence of wave action until I could claim the memory as my own and was released.
* * * * * * *
Sitting in BJ’s office, I felt all of the above and also a numbing and distancing. BJ held me and tried to help me focus in on my feelings. (COUNSELORS HAVE A TENDENCY TO DO THAT. That’s when their counselees threaten to fire them.)
“Joceile, can you feel me here holding you?”
I nodded, shook my head, nodded again. “Yup.”
“I want you to feel me holding you. What does it feel like?”
I wracked my brain for some kind of descriptive words about holding. “It feels warm.” I looked at BJ’s sweater, “and kind of blue.”
“You’re not alone now, Joceile. You’re not a little kid anymore.”
I tried to savor that feeling and was bombarded by a resurgence of pictures. “He came home drunk…He told my mother to leave…and take my brother with her.”
BJ rocked me gently. “She left.” My body got tighter. “She couldn’t have. How could she have?”
I shook my head holding myself tightly in a ball. Sasifraz supplied, “It’s impossible, and you know it. You made it up.”
“No mom would ever leave her kid.” I added and started shaking.
I began fading. BJ called to me. “Joceile, look at me. I want you to look at my eyes.” With an effort, I looked. “Can you feel your body?”
I thought about that a moment. “A little bit.”
“I want you to feel your adult body now. All of it. How tall are you?”
“Five foot five.”
“I want you to feel your adult body now. All of it. How tall are you?”
“Five foot five.”
“I want you to feel your adult body not your little kid body.”
“Ok, how about five seven?”
“I think you’re taller than that.”
“Five nine?”
“I want you to feel all the height that you have.”
“Ok,” I stretched out my body feeling, “five ten and a half and that’s all.”
“Good.”
* * * * * * *
There was no way to reconcile those feelings I thought. Perhaps, they’d dim over time. When I left BJ’s office, I felt both like a survivor and something dashed against the rocks and left to die.
(THE OCEAN TAKES ITS TOLL I GUESS. Yeah, and the shore takes it’s pounding. But, they both still exist.)