An Unbearable Truth
To be a whole functioning personality, you must engage in what could be a long process of discovering your truth, and it might be that you may not want to know. Still, a truth that may be painful, but, in the long run, it will open doors of freedom not imagined at the genesis of your adventure, your life.
We can choose the norm, the easy route of creating abstract realities to live by, known as intellectual wisdom, a left hemisphere function, and remain in a world of illusion and self-deception. Yet the path of “diving into the well of grief” (Whyte) must happen. We must unbury the memories, the pain, and anger, as unpleasant as it will be, and work through it, a right hemisphere function.
The “your past determines your present action and behavior” (Miller). We can continue to repress our childhood memories, ignoring that they exist, and be driven by repressed memories and feelings that determine nearly everything we do or fail to do.
The repression of what I now refer to as “brutal abuse” during childhood years will drive people to destructive lives.
“They will eventually pursue unconscious thirsts for revenge; they may engage in acts of violence, burning homes and businesses and physically attacking other persons, using this destruction to hide the truth from themselves and avoid feeling the despair of the tormented child they once were.”~Miller
(Repressed pain and trauma memories are a big problem. One of the first memories as I engaged in the 12-step program many years ago was the revelation that alcoholics used the drink to medicate painful repressed childhood memories.)
We are currently looking at big numbers of our population being classified as narcissists at 40%. And the divorce rate is hovering at 50%. This represents the repressed memories manifesting in violent behavior, marriage problems, and narcissist abuse in the family. It's not difficult to recruit an army for a BLM event. And Antifa as well can put together a mob to stage or a counterpart to a Right to Life event. As a side note, in recent days, we have received more information about the extent and scope of international child trafficking, let alone the sheer amount of young women and boys trafficked to the latest Super Bowl. Our society needs help.
The “Unbearable Truth” is simply this. Repressed memories and their associated trauma will destroy your life and those closest to you. It will ruin your ability to love, be vulnerable and establish meaningful relationships. You will find that the anxiety and deep feelings of guilt and shame will plague you every day of your life. Your identity and conscious view of yourself will be riddled with anxiety, fear, pain, despair, and depravity. I now understand the different individuals in my life and what they were truly about now that I know their stories. This is why so many of us would prefer not tell our real story, the pain is too great.
Miller tells us: “When we speak of the person (self-identity) they are at any given time, we mean emotions, sensations, and expressions.”
When we experience trauma of any kind and repress the memories because we are not allowed to express them, we damage our future and our life. Our true self is never known. Our life is stolen from us. The Thief has stolen and destroyed us; everything about the created self is gone, maybe forever.
The fact is that you may never know your true self, "that which God knew before you were formed in your mother's womb” (Jer. 1:5). Time to do the work, to discover your true self that may be hidden under the cloud of repressed memories.
An “Unbearable Truth.”
Alice Miller, Drama of the Gifted Child, The Search for the True Self (Perennial), 1981
David Whyte, Well of Grief, River Flow, New and Selected Poems (Many Rivers Press), 2017
