I slept better last night, even if not the whole night. The book Hell lent me has brought some peace.
I think I now understand what is going on. When I first met Jos., I used to thrill to his touch. He would gently touch my back, time and time again. Each time, each touch was wonderful. It seemed every
one of my sensors rejoiced at the touch. The touch brought joy to my soul. And how Jos. could hug! Never, ever, was he the first one to pull away. It was always me. When we first met, I think he could have kept me in his arms forever. Then came the drinking.
As he increased the drinking the thrill of his touch, the joy, started to fade. Then when he would touch me anywhere, my cheek, my arm, my back as he liked to do so much, the touch became painful. I wanted back the Jos. I had fallen in love with, not this drunk. But he was gone, and in leaving he left me with a terrible ache, right down into my soul.
I think what I did then, a little at a time, not really being aware of what was going on, is shut down my touch sensors. I shut them down one by one. Jos.’s touch became undesirable. But he could still reach me, weaken me at times, by just rubbing my back. Then came that night in January when he pushed me backwards over the counter and I thought my back would snap. Never had he ever been violent, but then I was becoming violent with my words. That night, the last words I uttered were, “All I want to do is throw you to the floor, then step on you and stamp on you until there is only dust left, and then I want to stamp some more until there is nothing left!”
When I went to the hospital with the suitcases, I think then I shut down the last of my touch sensors. He had nearly broken my back. I could not, would not, allow this to happen again. Sometimes, after he had moved back to Drummondville, when I was with him, he would touch my back, but the feelings were totally, completely gone. I could stand next to him and be dead as stone. Never would I allow the thrill of his touch to move me again. Never.
When Hell started his gentle therapeutic touch, totally opposite to what I had expected of a chiropractor, the touch awakened the sensors again. The pain was almost unbearable. It was shattering.
I thought I was made of glass, for no matter how gentle, no matter where on my back, the touch would shatter me into a thousand pieces.
Last Wednesday, I tried to shut them down again, but to no avail.
I could cry out in pain all I wanted to. I could refuse the healing. I could shut everything down and disconnect completely and totally.
I could…but the Self wants to be alive again and it is stronger than my desire to be dead.
The concept of honouring a feeling is totally new to me. But the Self is screaming for me to honour its feelings.
What was that dream I read about in some forgotten book? The dreamer (a woman) was walking on a long, deserted beach with a companion. Half hidden in the sand were masses that might be described as rocks not totally hardened yet. Her companion explained to her that these ‘rocks’ were souls who had chosen to ignore Life, to ignore the God force in them. They were in what we might call ‘Hell.’ They could get out of it at any time. In order to do so, they had to wish to know themselves again. God could not do this for them. They had to do it. (I have probably distorted some of the information, as I read this a long, long time ago, but I think the Truth of it is right.) I think I was becoming rocklike — the waking up again is incredibly painful; something the dream or the book I was reading at the time did not mention.
It seems to me that my dream, ‘Dead, Deader, and Stainless Steel,’
was all about this but it took me three weeks to figure it out.
Nov. 14, 1998 (Dream)
Petifille (Little Girl)
I was in a store (a convenience store?). A man walked in. He was scruffy looking. I thought a drunk, a homeless man living on the street. He seemed haggard, confused and desperate. I recognized him as someone I used to work with when I worked at Bell Canada. He moved toward the back of the store where the owner (a woman) was standing behind the counter. I thought he was about to hold up the place out of sheer frustration. I rushed to him and struggled with him, because I thought he was about to pull out a gun. I thought he was either going to use it against himself or to shoot the owner of the store.
I said to him, “I know you, we used to work together.” He stopped and looked intensely into my eyes. Then he staggered and said, “Yes, when I came in, there was joy when you recognized me, when you remembered me.”
I had my back to the owner so I turned my head toward her and yelled, “Do something! Call an ambulance! Can’t you see this man is sick?”
I looked at a photo I.D. he must have given me, as I could not recall his name. It was a black-and-white picture of a tall slim man with his four sons. It looked as if he and his sons were Indian (from India). There was a name on the back of the picture. The name was Petifille.
The last thing I remember of the dream is standing where the man had been, turning to the right and looking past the store, where I saw him sitting at a long table dining with several men. He sat in the middle.