The Truth. Neil Strauss
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Название: The Truth
Автор: Neil Strauss
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Биографии и Мемуары
isbn: 9781782110965
isbn:
“My biggest wish is that you find your inner peace and happiness,” she says as she pulls away.
“Thank you for believing in me,” I tell her—my girlfriend, my lover, my jailer.
After she leaves, I sit on a bench outside the patient lounge and tears come to my eyes. She seems to love me unconditionally, but I fear that I love her conditionally. I look at her sometimes and worry that she’s going to get wide hips like her mother, or I wonder if I’ll still be able to make love to her when she’s fat and wrinkly. Other times, I pick apart her existing features, looking for flaws and imperfections. The sad thing is, I certainly have a lot more imperfections she could pick apart: I’m short, bald, bony, and big-nosed, with huge greasy pores. I’m lucky to have her. And I wonder: Am I even capable of love? Have I ever truly loved anyone?
I can’t tell whether my tears are for the beauty of her love or the sadness of my incapacity to feel worthy of it.
As a journalist, I’ve met a lot of so-called experts. Most are just people with a little experience and a lot of confidence who’ve given themselves a title with which they can fool the suggestible and dim-witted. But every now and then, I come across someone who has the experience, knowledge, and calling to be not just a teacher dispensing information but a guide leading others to themselves. And Lorraine seems to be one of them.
“Self-deprecation is still self-worship,” she is telling Calvin. “It’s the flip side of the same coin. It’s still about self.”
It’s our second week here and the staff has divided us into smaller groups to experience a Gestalt-like therapy they call chair work. Adam, Calvin, Troy and I—the troublemakers—have, to our relief, been placed under Lorraine’s care in a nearby building. And she’s in the midst of prepping us to undergo this intense form of trauma healing.
“I suck at self-deprecation,” I whisper to Calvin.
Lorraine overhears and says sternly, “Remember that humor is a wall. It’s a form of denial, just the same as repression, rationalization, globalization, and minimization.”
Yes, I think she is one of those experts. It’s clear she’s dealt with enough stupid smart people that she can read me like a book.
That afternoon, Lorraine rips open everyone’s minds. As she lectures on the human psyche, sex addicts’ faces illuminate intermittently, like fireworks, as they realize the origins of their behaviors, their feelings, and the beliefs that have kept them estranged from others and ultimately themselves.
Unlike traditional talk therapy, in which a therapist sits with a client in an office for an hour every week for years or even decades, addiction treatment has to change people quickly. Lives are at stake. That next drink could lead to a burst vein; that next injection could be a hot one. What matters is what works today, not what’s been studied and accepted by the mainstream psychiatric community. And so some say the techniques here, many of them adapted from the decades-old work of a former nurse, Pia Mellody, who as of this moment doesn’t even have her own Wikipedia entry, are problematic; others say they are the pinnacle of personal transformation—if you’re lucky enough to get the right counselor.
And we were lucky enough to get Lorraine, the only person I’ve encountered here so far who doesn’t seem burned out or embittered by the Sisyphean task of healing damaged minds she can’t touch or see.
As Lorraine explains the model they use here, she asks us to take a deep breath, listen carefully, and drift back to the way we saw our parents—and the world—at age eight or twelve and not as we understand them now. And this is what we hear. Maybe, if you choose to do the same, you’ll recognize someone you know …
EVERYTHING THAT’S WRONG WITH YOUR BEHAVIOR AND WHY IN 1,800 WORDS OR LESS
In the beginning …
You were born.
And like all infants, you were completely vulnerable and dependent, with a new developing brain and no understanding of the world.
In a perfect world …
Your parents would be perfect. They would be dedicated full-time to taking care of your physical and psychological needs, always making the right decisions, setting the healthiest boundaries, and protecting you from all harm, while preparing you to eventually take care of your needs without them.
But in the real world …
No one is perfect. Neither your parents, nor the other people who play a role in your upbringing. Therefore, along the way, some of your developmental needs don’t get met.
And the problem is …
When one of your needs doesn’t get met, however big or small, it can leave a wound.
These wounds are known as childhood trauma. Each instance or pattern of trauma can create specific core personal issues and relationship challenges—and if these are left untreated, you’re likely to pass your wounds on to the next generation. Since this trauma occurs early in life, it can affect social, emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and moral development.
It’s not always overt or intentional …
Most commonly, people think of trauma as coming from hateful perpetrators who are knowingly and willfully abusive. But even parents who think of themselves as loving or well-meaning make mistakes, cross boundaries, or simply do their best with the limited internal resources they have. And this covert, often unrecognized abuse can, through its constant repetition, leave wounds just as deep as those created by a single malicious act.
It can be an emotional scar …
In your earliest years, you’re the center of the universe. Everything revolves around you. So wounds can come from caregivers who are either out of control or completely detached from their emotions around you. When Mom is always full of anxiety as she’s breast-feeding, Dad comes home in a rage every time he has a rough day at work, or Stepdad is depressed by his money problems during the rare moments he spends with you, you soak up these emotions like a sponge, often erroneously taking the blame or responsibility for them. Even if a parent falls ill and passes away, it can seem like abandonment or something you made happen if you’re too young to understand death.
It can be physical …
Most people understand that it’s not okay to physically harm or even spank a child. But here’s an example that’s not as obvious: Any invasive medical procedure—even something as commonplace as a circumcision or getting stiches—may register the exact same as physical abuse if you experience it in your first few years of life. You may even start to distrust your caregivers for bringing you to an unfamiliar place and not keeping you safe.
Often it’s intellectual …
After the first few years of life, you start to separate from your parents. In this period, it’s СКАЧАТЬ