Emanon’s Journey

Even as a little child, I was never able to successfully pull off the “blame game.” Oh … not that I didn’t try … at least where other people were concerned.

I remember one Saturday afternoon … during our once monthly visit to the dreaded confessional. I always went to same priest - I don’t know why. Perhaps it was his nose - I remember being fascinated by it. It reminded me of a big red strawberry. Had I been a smart little girl, I would have ignored the nose, and gone to different priests, so that none would have been wise enough to catch me at my little ploy. I couldn’t imagine actually going into there and saying something I’d really done wrong! I had a very carefully thought out list of sins, little innocent sins, which I faithfully paraded before Fr. Strawberry once a month. They never varied … he never flinched.

Then one fateful summer afternoon - Fr. Strawberry either caught on, or had simply become very tired of my rote laundry list, and he questioned me on one of my so-carefully chosen “sins.”

“Why do you always tease your brothers?”

Now, this wasn’t what I expected … and really, I was always in trouble with them, but it was never from deliberate teasing. After all, they were 6 and 8 years older than I am … and I didn’t have a death wish.

A bit tentatively … “Um … because they like it?”

“They do?”

A little more certainly … “Yes. I’m sure they like it.”

“Well then. It’s not a sin. So - stop confessing it!”

So much for that.

However, even when I padded my list of sins with red herrings for the benefit of a priest who intimidated me, I always acknowledged them in heart. I was never able to deliberately kid myself.

I remember just after my seventh birthday, Christmas Eve, crying myself to sleep because I couldn’t make myself believe that Santa was coming anymore. I didn’t want to be a “big girl” … I wanted to still be able to lay awake as long as I could, trying to catch even the tiniest glimpse of a sleigh and reindeer through my window before drifting off to those wonderful Christmas childhood dreams. What a blow it had been to realize that there was no Santa in the skies!

My complete inability to lie to myself once I’d had a realization followed me through life - sometimes a boon, sometimes a bane. That’s why it’s so hard for me to understand how I could have gone this last quarter century, not seeing, not realizing … moving through a haze of amorphous shadows … finally finding myself so lost, that I no longer had any idea of who I was - who I am.

What I didn’t see or understand in my intellect, I must have seen and understood on some level. When the realizations began to come, they were too close to the surface - came too readily.

There have been times in the last two decades when I’ve felt that I was in a dangerous frame of mind. Already, my struggle against an unseen battle had begun, but always, I blamed myself. I must be too emotional. I must be unstable. I should be able to do this!

I have 4 kids, a husband who doesn’t cheat, drink or gamble … I live in the country … I have my own ministry … I’m respected in my community … what’s wrong with me!?

It never occurred to me that my inner agony could have an external source. I was no longer examining a laundry-list of polished-up sins … I was examining my deepest self for the origin of my despair. Certainly I found faults … things that I needed to work on. But in themselves, I knew they weren’t enough to cause the intensity of emotions I was experiencing.

And what was worse … I had already embarked on what would become, in these last two years since the start of my illness, the worst battle I’ve ever fought against myself: the battle to speak up and try to tell someone where I was, what was happening …

Only those who were very close to me got an occasional glimpse … a few drinks would also sometimes give me the courage to say a bit … but the silence that would trap me almost completely was already taking over like a silently advancing paralysis.

Those familiar with Asperger families would probably understand … although I’m only beginning to myself. Somehow, when the realizations all hit me last week, it was almost preternaturally clear … but now that they’ve begun to slow down, they’re a bit vaguer; the keen razor edge of a sharp fresh wound has dulled some. I want to write as much as I can now, before the habits and discouragements of the last half of my life reassert themselves over my will to make things change for the better.

I will begin tomorrow’s post by relating a bit of how I’ve journeyed to where I am … and a bit of where I am as I write. With each word I set down … with each idea I commit to this blog … I’m gaining the strength needed to continue doing so. It’s not exactly like a snowball yet - but each day, the honesty is easier. I know that I’ll be able to save this post, and not set it as “private.”

What will I do when dear friends find this blog and begin to ask: “Why didn’t you say anything?” … Honestly, I don’t know. I think it was all part of the silence I couldn’t break out of. When people got too close, I chilled the relationship. The closeness smothered and terrified me … I could share only so much.

Even in writing - I could share only so much. The more real a person became to me - the less I could share. The intimacy I needed the most, was the very thing I wouldn’t allow to grow. Again - I blamed my perverseness on some inner darkness which I couldn’t quite find … it was just there out of nowhere - ready to snap into place whenever someone came too close.

There were a few exceptions to that … none of which proved to be very healthy … but that’s for another post.

And for now blogland - good night.