Rebirth Pangs

i posted this in another place the other day, but i really want it to be part of my on going process journal, because in retrospect for me it helps the pieces fit together better:

it's such a struggle to maintain a natural appreciation for things that interest me. abuse ruined the natural and healthy tendency to be inquisitive about the world. it was a time of wonder, when the food of daily bread was all inside me, in my head, heart and soul.

i remember when i was much younger, i used to love to go outdoors into the woods, and play among the wildflowers, climb trees, explore new boundaries of the areas where i lived. i was kept on a short leash those days, because my parents did not want us outside for too long or to go far away, but when i was allowed out, i would go and never think about the stress of 'home'.

same thing when i started learning to play the piano in the summer prior to entering 8th grade. i would sit and play for hours on end, and get lost in the experience of enjoying music. while all my pals were outside soaking up the sun, i was busy practicing the piano. they would come to the house to ask if i could go out and hang out, but, no, i couldn't tear myself away. music was my rock, and my magical kingdom, my oasis: my food.

after my older brother introduced me to the 'pleasures' of sex sometime in the next year, i lost interest in those things, and entered an era of 'fast food'.

from that time on, everything that i did became a path to self-gratification on some level. even though drug use was not a part of our sexual relationship, i was aware that he was doing drugs, and so i sought out drugs as a way of connecting to him, to deepen the intimacy and make me feel even closer to him.

my love for him became the most powerful drug, and i did not even know it until years later. in the meantime, everything that could give me good feelings got enfolded into this larger love, and they became a metaphor for it. the need for love became my food.

when others were being exposed to new ideas and concepts in high school which were piquing their interests and inspiring and inseminating them to evolve into their full and range of capacities, i was rather hoping to meet some pot smokers who would validate me and make me feel through my body that i was worthwhile.

after high school, i would not pursue a track for developing the raw materials of my own innate resources, but rather, i would hang out in bars looking for people to love, and ways to get my affirmation through the drug subculture.

my focus got really misdirected because of the abuse. soon everything became a game of me trying to get my love jones fix. nothing else matter, but to recapture that initial powerful release of endorphines in the first orgasm, and the sense of closeness, desirability and worth i knew in that first moment with my older brother. i was deluded into thinking that that form of daily bread would be enough.

everything else in my life that followed was an attempt to recapture and retain that moment.

while others were off exploring the world and pioneering the world of their own inner resources, building bridges to those around them, building networks with others to reinforce and germinate more possibilities for creating and realizing their inner visions, a veritable smorgasboard of new and fresh possibilities, i was satisfied with just doing the next thing to get the next high satisfied, the next quick fix. a pat on the back was the only reward that i needed to get me over.

so now, as i look back over my life, i feel as if i was only pretending to live all along. i was only imitating others who were truly living.

today, i want so much to be captivated by a desire to create things from my own natural resources, but i don't seem to have the strength nor can i muster up the interest to engage in anything that does not give me immediate gratification.

food and sex....anything to create a feeling sensation. those are the types of 'food' i seek.

it's really a struggle to break out of this learned cycle of hunger for sensation...living from moment to moment trying meet and to recapture the one that i remember so clearly on that day when my brother first introduced me to the most powerful reward a human body could ever know: pleasure.

i want to be free from the power it has over me. i want to be free to meet and drink of the deeper mysteries and become a scientist in the laboratory of my soul. instead i feel like a vagabond in my own life going from garbage can to garbage can scrounging for my next food fix.

i want to find other daily bread, and i am so tired of the struggle to find it.

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this post was a birth pang, and in response i wrote that i have more or less approached life like the mountain stream who wends a way around rocks it meets in its path on the way down the mountain, so in reality it is not so much a post about someone who is being held captive by a past that never should have been, as much as it is showing evidence of a spring of new hope for a future life yet to blossom.

uncovering what is behind all this has been a very slow process for me, and since i made the deeper realization of how i had been 'surviving' all these years parenthetically as a victim, i have moved moved on. as the old vestiges arise, they must be confronted, acknowledged, and expelled, as i have done in this post.

so i will probably be focused on expelling the victim from my life for a long time [or maybe, not so long .... even better].

i look forward to letting go completely this victim who had no idea before recently how much he held 'me' in his sway. and i fully believe that all these years of spent walking my recovery road, with all of its peaks and valleys, has indeed been leading me in the direction of freedom and liberation from the effects of the experiences of sexual victimization and assault. geez, that sounds so biblical......just like the israelites wandering in the desert for 40 years.....my 40 years is just about up.