Dark Night of the Soul

I've already written about my pain condition and revealed how I hide the excruciating level it hits from most everyone. In that post I spoke about the book "The Body Keeps the Score" by Bessel Van der Kolk, MD. I've had that book at least 4 years but I expect it's much longer. Each time I attempt a few pages the fear overtakes me and I put it down and read something else. It feels as if many answers lie in that book yet I'm terrified to face what I'll find. 

My body has raged against me in huge ways throughout my life. One was soul shattering and maybe one day I'll speak about it. Every day with my body feels like a fight.  Between the nonstop pain, the eating disorder and other ways it betrayed me, I don't trust my body to be there for me. I also fear what it will do next. I fear it the way someone who has been abused is terrified for the next violent moment to come.

My coach has asked me twice now to read the first chapter and I can't do it. The core fear is that I'll have a breakdown I can't recover from. I'm petrified that a repressed memory will come up, I won't be able to handle the graphic details of it, I breakdown and my life gets ruined. I'm gripping so tightly.

Yet time feels like it's flying by and that I need to go deep within to face what terrifies me the most. This feels like it calls for a faith that everything will be OK in the end. I can't hold that belief any longer because of how many times it let me down. I can't live with Pollyanna thinking because that sets me up for a fall. You can only be sick and tired for so long before something gives out. I'm giving out.

It's cold and dreary out today. These are the times my pain is excruciating and everything is a struggle. Tears are in my eyes that refuse to fall down my cheeks. The terror of what I might find as I open the Pandora's box that is my past makes me gasp for air. This winter seems like it will be a long one and I'm feeling I'll have to fully face my dark night of the soul finally.

I wonder if the fear isn't truly about what I might uncover but that when I find it I'll no longer be able to be me.