On day 187, I return to Spirit And Consequences and make the promise to write every other day from now on. If I write more, that is fine. But I will express myself even when exhausted. And I smile because how I doubt this promise will be kept. My inability to maintain discipline and keep my promises to myself are the indirect results of my primal wounds that haunt me each and every day
There is a question circling my soul over the past few days, a sense of wondering whether the freedom I feel occasionally and speak of often is real or just words. Yes, even if I take the time and the effort to transform theory into actual practice, even if I try to ingrain a shift in perspective by making it a habit, do I truly receive freedom from the ghosts of my primal wounds that have haunted me for so long?
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| An Essential Question - Is There One Primal Wound Or Many? |
According to the lingo of pop psychology and popular novels, there is only one primal wound for each of us. I am sure they believe the primal wound is centered around the parents, fueled by the almost century-old atmosphere generated by Freud and his followers. I understand how the idea of a single primal wound can be used to express certain perspectives and ideas like, for example, in the excellent volume of the same name that illuminates the struggles of adopted children and their primal wound of abandonment. But I would disagree with the belief that there is a single primal wound. In my life, I have experienced many.
Whether a result of childhood experiences with my father or at school, at summer camp or on the streets of Manhattan, those primal wounds all came during the many phases of growing up. Even as a teenager, when psychiatrists would claim the rubric of my personality was fully designed and installed, primal wounds arose and continue to haunt me to this day. It is ironic how the painful memories are so much harder to let go of when compared to the cherished ones. Happy memories seem to pass into the framework of our lives, hopefully to be replaced by more happy memories. But the primal wounds that infect our actions and warp our behaviors are ghosts that continue to haunt us until they are confronted, and there is a reckoning, a understanding, and, ultimately, an acceptance.
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| Are You Haunted By The Ghostly Shadows Of Past Wounds And Trauma? |
Why have I been haunted recently by the ghostly shadows of my past wounds? Honestly, I would rather not say. I have been addressing a deep pain that came from my childhood, focused not on my family, but on my experiences at school. Of course, I also am infected by family wounds, but those seem easier to address. I still speak and interact with my family, not in person, but over the phone on an almost weekly basis. I visit my parents and sisters about twice a year, and they have been supportive of me during the rough times I have been responsible for putting myself through as an adult.
As a result, such family wounds, even scars, can be worked on in an active manner. The experiences are not shadows because there are reflections of them in reality. Some of the wounds never heal, but I am more aware of how they affect me. In contrast, the wounds of school and childhood experiences are gone with the wind. They cannot be encountered again except in the shadows of memory.
Without question, I would agree that family wounds are the deepest and the most primal. But they are often repeated, then accentuated and transformed outside of the context of the family, and such new wounds, although similar, can become primal as well. The definition of primal is essential, fundamental, relating to an early stage of evolutionary development. Such wounds are not just reduced to the first, but also related to heightening the first. If they deeply affect a person's evolutionary development as a human being, as a responsible adult, I believe they are primal.
Beyond an argument over the number and placement of primal wounds, the question for me is whether the suffering I experienced during my HCV treatment side effects will provide me with the freedom not to be haunted and infected by those the shadowy ghosts of those primal wounds? I do not have any interest of spending any more time living with ghosts and having my actions warped by the shadows of those primal wounds. Do we not deserve more than a taste of freedom? Can John Lavitt free himself from the slavery he has imposed upon himself by allowing the infection of his primal wounds to continue and warp the vessel of his life?
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| The Bondage Of Self And Freedom From Our Primal Wounds |
The first part of the Third Step Prayer in Alcoholics Anonymous goes like this:
God, I offer myself to Thee -
to build with me
and to do with me as Thou wilt.
Relieve me of the bondage of self,
that I may better do Thy will.
I have always loved and identified profoundly with relieve me of the bondage of self. How exhausting is the bondage of self, how banal and repetitive and obvious. After so many years, I am so tired of being my own worst enemy because my perception and my resulting actions have been warped by the primal wounds. I wish you the very best in your own ongoing battle and I ask myself: Can I find freedom from those shadowy ghosts? We shall see...
