I continue to wrestle with multiple situations in which I feel attacked in my very essence. I'm not sure how long it will be possible to survive under my current circumstances of extraordinary emotional and other isolation.
One of the things that causes me the most pain is a situation in which I feel deeply that I acted properly but that I was treated very shabbily in return. As yet I have been unable to find a single other human being who is willing to share my outlook in the slightest. I feel that everyone readily sympathizes with those who have hurt me so profoundly, and that everyone is simultaneously ready to disapprove of me. I feel invalidated in my very being.
I feel almost that I am fighting for my very psychic survival. I do not see how I can be wrong on this and still have any right to exist. If I am wrong on it, I certainly have no interest in existing.
I'm reminded of a Hasidic tale that I read many years ago. I just managed to find it once more, and post it here as an emblem of my distress.
A woman once came to Rabbi Hirsh, her eyes streaming with tears, and complained that she had been the victim of a miscarriage of justice in the rabbinical court. The zaddik summoned the judges and said: "Show me the source from which you derived your verdict, for it seems to me that there has been some error." Together they looked up the passage in the Breastplate of Judgment on which the verdict had been based, and discovered that there had indeed been a misinterpretation.
One of the judges asked the rabbi how he had known beforehand that there had been an error. He answered: "It is written: 'The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul.' Had the verdict been in accordance with the true law, the woman could never have wept as she did."
Eri, what a terrible thing to have happen to you! My heart goes out to you for the pain you have obviously suffered. Our experiences have in common that someone else asserted that we are bad people. I would hope that you were able to find support from others who could help you realize that you are not - and especially not in the way that this man suggested. It appears that you did have trouble finding the support and that has to have made everything so much harder. It is so obvious to me, an outsider, that this man was expressing only his own rage. Everything he said proceeded from what was inside him, triggered by an accidental episode in which you were an almost incidental part. I'm so sorry that this happened, and I hope not only that you continue to heal from it but that you are gaining speed. (As I write that, I realize that you could have been so lastingly injured only because this man hit an old long-ago injured place in you, and brought all that old pain to the fore again. I hope I am not being too intrusive in making that remark.) Things which are beautiful are not always sufficient for our healing but they can certainly help remind us why we should undertake it. :-)
Posted by: Keara | March 21, 2010 at 02:58 PM
Be strong friend. Know that in your isolation you are joined by many others. Look for beauty and give thanks for it, that restores the soul!
Posted by: Katherine | April 16, 2010 at 02:39 PM
Katherine, I hope your soul is feeling restored today. :-)
Posted by: Keara | April 29, 2010 at 09:50 AM