Mental Spaghetti

by Charity

We've recently begun coming to terms with the fact that our internal "PA system" only works one-way.  People who are away from the front can hear everything that those of us at the front are saying and thinking, are aware of our feelings and actions, and know what's going on outside.  This is something that those who frequently front already knew.

But only now are we realizing how little communication we have with the others.  We've described three degrees of distance from the front.  Those who are in the nearest zone we can hear faintly if we work really hard at listening, or if they come forward.  Those in the other two zones we can't hear at all, although we can get a general read of their emotions some of the time.  We have to do a lot of guesswork--not just in identifying a specific person's feelings, but in identifying who's feeling a feeling when the person's identity isn't clear to us.

It's very frustrating.  The lack of clarity keeps us stalled and stuck in our healing process.  We can't sort each other out, let alone sort each person's "stuff."  We end up with what we call "mental spaghetti" that we can't untangle, and it's indescribably tiring.