Accepting the Unacceptable?

by Charity

A few days ago, I wrote:

We tell [our T] we just want to come to terms with our past and accept it so that we can heal. She says that we don't have to accept the unacceptable, but we do need to stay grounded so that our past doesn't prevent us from functioning in the present. I have mixed feelings about this.

I still have mixed feelings.  I think that this is a matter of semantics, of nuances, of my not making perfectly clear what I meant when I made my original statement in session.  Language is by nature imperfect and imprecise, and it's like trying to keep a butterfly inside an open container.  No matter how hard you try, you'll almost never be able to do it. (Thank you to Allegra for the metaphor.)

So I said something to our T that I didn't make clear enough when I said it.  I'm not a person who likes to be concerned about exactness.  I prefer to live in the essence of something rather than in the details.  So I get frustrated by having to be precise, but for different reasons from those that frustrate precise people.  Precise people want and need to master details; I get frustrated by having to think about the details in the first place.

One of the reasons I brought up the principle of acceptance to our T is that I believe in the principles of recovery.  I used to lead twelve-step meetings.  I say this not for accolades, but to show the extent of my belief.  I believe that we need to take responsibility for our own healing.

And I know that denial gets in the way of healing.  I mastered denial a long, long time ago.  I couldn't live in the realities of the outside world, so I created my own.  (I don't mean our system world; I mean my own very elaborate personal fantasy world.  But this is a subject for another time.)  In avoiding the realities of the outside world, our life experience, and my thoughts and feelings, I tried to protect myself. 

But this kind of self-protection lasts for only so long before it becomes counterproductive and even harmful.  And in a multiple system,  it not only harms me, it harms the others with me.  It harms the individuals in our system, and it harms the system as a whole.  It harms our life.  With all the extreme stress currently in our outside life, it's become critical that we resolve these core issues.  And this means that I have to do my work.

I'll continue talking about this later.  I need to take a break and rest.