I wish to apologize for Friday night. I was spinning faster than a top. I had worked myself into a frenzy, I wanted to quit and get off the emotional merry-go-round I was on.
It was all about a question of trust. I am sharing things with you as I would with a priest. I have grown up to believe a priest would never betray what was said in the confessional, and I sort of think of my relationship with you not just as patient/healer, but also that of priest/con-fessor. What is said in the confessional can never be revealed outside the booth. This is how I trusted you, though I still had reservations.
When I walked to where the Centre has relocated, I became convinced that I was in the wrong place. Before, when I wanted to run,
I wanted to run from myself. But in this new place, I wanted to run from the place.
I am sure you are in the right place, but that place does not seem to be comfortable for me. I miss the openness of the other place. I miss the tree of life. I miss the spiritual fountain. I miss the bathroom just a few steps away. I miss the plush animals, especially the big teddy bear. What I miss most is the accessibility of the door that was right there if I wanted to act on my impulse to run.
This new place has a difficult passage to the stairs, the bathroom is downstairs and, once upstairs, there is no way out. The way out is like running a labyrinth. I feel trapped under that low ceiling and by the darkness of the place. That is why I could not go through the adjustment on Wednesday. I thought this was not the right place. I thought that, in spite of the dreams, I was making a big mistake. I was afraid I would get hurt in this place. How many times has it happened that patients who have finally gotten comfortable with their physician find that he or she is moving away and they never see them again? I thought all day Thursday that this would happen to me. And worse, something that happened downstairs on my way out on Wednesday made me feel betrayed. You were not involved, but because it involved a practitioner in this supposedly healing sanctuary, I assumed you did the same thing, too. I could picture you telling your wife or someone else about this basket case you had to deal with in your practice.
I could picture the both of you laughing at me and I became more frightened than a rabbit.
I was wrong. Thank God you introduced me to your life companion. It made a difference of such a proportion, you have no idea. When she mentioned the opening of your healing centre, I was reminded of my dreams and of their support.
Again I would like to apologize for being rude and refusing any help you were offering at the time. I have tried to pick up Homecoming at several book stores, but though they have other books by John Bradshaw, this one does not seem to be available. I think it is probably because they are pushing the audio tapes. That is what I bought: the audio tapes. I thought it might be a bit safer, as I cannot jump ahead and read other chapters. I will have to follow the order and rhythm of the book.
What happened on Friday is acting as a catalyst, I think. I left, Friday night, resolved to see this through. For the first time, I feel I can truly trust you and I can let myself go. I find it difficult to believe that your life partner had to scream into a pillow, but I believe that if she said she did, she did. Somehow knowing this makes it easier for me.
I do hope you will have that group session you were talking about.
I would like to go to the other location for my first appointment in the New Year and see how that would be. If it proves to be too far to drive to after work for a six o’clock-or-so appointment, I may look into changing my work hours.
If you have the time, please call me some evening, at around 9:30
p.m. I would like to speak about what is happening with Homecoming.
I will start the book tape tonight. Also please let me know when my next appointment can be, at the new location. I assume it will be Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Dec. 12, 1998 (Computer Journal)
Little Girl Lost (cont’d.)
Micha: You’re back. I did not expect to see you again.
Me: Neither did I, for that matter. But all day today I was thinking of you, though I don’t quite know why. I spoke with Mom today.
Do you know that, now, she is a totally different person. Now she says she loves me. I did not expect it would ever come about that she would really care for me.
Micha: Why didn’t she care for me then? What did I do wrong?
I miss her. She hardly ever comes to visit and when she does she’s drunk and she makes me feel ashamed of her. The sisters are treating me as if I have some sort of disease. They act as if it is my fault Mom drinks. She doesn’t even let me go home on weekends. I have to stay here all the time.
Me: I don’t remember how I spent my weekends. I guess I mostly stayed indoors. Help me; help me to remember. Everyone went home on Friday afternoon. What happened afterwards? There had to have been supper and the evening. How was it spent? Did I eat alone at the refectory? Did I eat with the sisters? Why can’t I remember things once I am at St. Bruno? I can remember where we
lived. I can remember our phone number at the time. I remember the neighbourhood very well. But I don’t seem to remember much from the convent. Any of them for that matter. For there wasn’t only St. Bruno. Mom moved me from convent to convent. I still don’t know why.
Micha: I am not alone on weekends. My cousins, Angela and Rita, also remain at the convent and some other girls do too. Mom sent me here because my cousins are here as well.
Me: I never got very close to them somehow. We were not in the same class, but I remember Rita more; she was the youngest.
Mom gave her my First Communion dress. She got pretty much the clothes or toys I no longer used. I was sad when she got my beautiful white dress and the veil. I never seemed to be able to keep anything for long. There is nothing from the past. Today I mentioned to Mom how I enjoyed those wonderful books I had when I was a little girl. The Spirou books that came every month where I read all those wonderful stories. There were the books with the adventures of Bécassine. I loved these books, but I had them at home, not in the convent. She wondered what happened to them.
I mentioned they probably were lost because we moved so many times. Or maybe, since Aunt Louise was so poor, her girls got most of them after I was done with them. Rita, if I remember, got a lot of my stuff.
Micha: I do chores on weekends; nothing much, some dusting, some laundry folding. I like it when we have to polish the floors.
The sisters wax them with this hard paste and we put on woollen socks and slide all over the floors to polish them. That’s fun.
Because they also do some catering, we have treats during the weekends; crusts from sandwiches, cold cuts, different food than during the week. Sometimes we go into the village for walks.
Me: I remember those walks. It looked kind of like a scene from the cartoons of Madeline, with two nuns at the back and us walking two by two. It was a very small place. We could walk the entire length of the village in an hour or less. I remember the small river and the paper mill. The church, of course, was next door to the convent. Sometimes we had the stuff that’s leftover from the Holy Host after it’s been baked. We ate that as candy.
Micha: Sometimes there are movies. I saw Aurore.
Me: Yes, I remember. I had nightmares for months after that. I used to think Mom would leave me at the convent for certain, and the sisters would treat me exactly the same way. I would be alone with no one to take care of me or to save me from them.
Micha: Do you remember the raps on the knuckles with the edge of a wooden ruler during class? Just the other day a sister was chasing me around the back of the convent where they put the laundry out to dry. She wanted to spank me with that big stick she always uses, just because I’d stopped cleaning the floor of the gym with the green stuff and gone outside to play with a ball I’d found. She never caught me. She gave up because she was so out of breath. I ran to the front and got back in and went and finished the floor. Then the bell rang for supper and I went to the refectory. She was red as a beet at supper, but she never did spank me that day. She always watches me like a hawk now, but I don’t care.
Me: Well, I remember being sort of more wishy-washy. I remember the episode out back and the sister chasing me, but I also remember wanting to please them immensely. I’m sorry. I started to behave in a way that would keep me out of trouble as much as possible. I was afraid I would have to stay there forever. Mom never let me know she’d come back to get me and, each time, I thought I would never be taken back home.
I felt I was serving a life sentence and I still feel that way. I became increasingly morose. I started to have nightmares. Gone were all the wonderful dreams of flying through the air, of those fabulous buildings filled with light and all sparkling. Gone were the beautiful people.
All I could dream of was that I was Aurore and that the nuns were keeping me prisoner. I thought Cinderella had had a better life than I did. I started to read and read and tried to escape that way. Even when I was home for vacation, I would spend my days at the library, or at home reading. One summer I read the entire story of King Arthur.
There were three big books. I read them all. I loved the story. Most of all, I loved that I could leave this life I had already started to hate and become some heroine in another place in time and space. I withdrew.
I stopped living inside my body, so to speak. I stood on the outside
looking in. I started to hate myself — you — and I started to wish I was not here, wherever here was.
Dec. 16, 1998 (NSA journal entry after adjustment) Today I felt like I was on pins and needles. La dance de St. Guy.
I think it’s called St.Vitus’ dance in English.
Dec. 18, 1998 (NSA journal entry after adjustment) Today I felt very sad.
Dec. 18, 1998 (Computer Journal)
Little Girl Lost (cont’d.)
Me: I have done the tapes with John Bradshaw and he takes you back to when you are very little. I remembered some nice things. I remembered that Dad had a hammock strung up on the back gallery and that we used to take naps there together. I remembered the Navy blanket.
Micha: Yes I loved the Navy blanket. It was all so soft and woolly.
Simon got it. He chewed it to bits. He was as bad as Linus with his blanket.
Me: John Bradshaw takes you back very far. I can remember things when I was three or four. Micha, it will have to be a little while I think before I come and see you again. Some of the memories…well, I will have to explore that a little bit more because I’m not sure what’s going on. I will come back though. We will talk again. John Bradshaw said something on the last tape that may help us both. At least I hope so.
In the meantime keep warm, will you? The forest is nice but May is still a cold month. Here at the computer I have stopped biting down hard and my jaw doesn’t hurt as much, but now I am mostly cold. I don’t have a Navy blanket but I find I have to wrap myself up in a soft blanket in the evenings. My right arm is stiff and aching and the joints in my hand are hurting.
Dec. 21, 1998 (NSA journal entry after adjustment) Today I feel pretty good. I feel very relaxed. It feels like the calm before the storm. My back feels happy.
Dec. 23, 1998 (NSA journal entry after adjustment) Today I feel…I did lots and lots of breathing.
Nothing new under the sun
Jan. 8, 1999 (NSA journal entry after adjustment) Today I felt pain on the left side of my hip. Pressure on my middle back the size of a silver dollar. Now it feels cold.
Jan. 10, 1999 (Dream)