It isn't...

It isn’t just the violence.  Or the shame.  It isn’t just the violence or the shame. Nor is it the whole of it. The magnitude of the experience, of its impact. For in this, the adage that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts holds not true.

It is the smell.  It is the sight.  It is the taste.  It is the touch.  They are like pieces of the puzzle, the puzzle that is the shattered self left behind. Pieces lurking deep within.  Pieces strewn about life outside the forgotten memories. Pieces oft hidden until.  Until a smell, a sight, a taste, a touch.

Until a smell, a sight, a taste, a touch freezes you in fear, drowns you in shame, flings you into a maelstrom of pain and confusion and terror and denial, be it for a split second or for a moment that seemingly never ends.  Even when you thought all the puzzle pieces were back together.  Even when you were sure you were whole.  You can no longer cling to the other adage: That was then…this is now.

A child cannot really understand, cannot really put the pieces back together by herself.  And the adult she becomes is still really a child if no one safe has ever guided her in picking them up, turning them right and left, up and down, studying closely the shape of them to understand how they fit into the whole. 

It isn’t just the violence and the shame.  Even with all your efforts to avoid them, they oft come around again.  And even if they do not, even if you beat the odds, the scattered pieces still remain. You avoid a smell your whole life without even realizing you are doing it, without understanding the why of the fear triggered by that particular aroma.  You hate a taste your whole life without rhyme or reason, without understanding what you hate is the loathing triggered by the taste rather than its presence on your tongue. The inexplicable.  

A window can make you tremble. A texture can make you angry. A jiggling surface can paralyze you.  A salty dish can churn your stomach.  Things that do not makes sense.  Things you ignore, set aside, deny.

However, a single piece, seemingly insignificant, can make the puzzle you worked to put back together fall apart, as if someone, some thing, came along and lifted it off the table. 

Yet it is the violence.  And the shame.  It is the violence and the shame and the whole of it.  Because the whole of it oft means that one or more of your senses fool you…or you fool it.  So much so that you never realize that the picture on the front of the box that you are using to fit together the pieces of your shattered self is not really you.  The picture is not who you are. The picture is who he wanted you to think you are, how she wished for you to see yourself.  To make it easier for him, easier for her, easier for the others.

It is the picture on the box.  It is the pieces of the puzzle.  It is the whole and the parts.  It is the bait and switch of the moment or the moments, of the day or the years, so that you will believe, so that you believe that this is who you are, that this is normal, that this is okay, that this is love, is safety, is the way life should be.

It is incredibly difficult to encounter the puzzle pieces.  It is nearly unbearable to start to gather them to together and try to piece them back in place. But when you realize that you did not even see that the picture on the front of the box is a lie, is not really the way that life should be, your world shatters once more and  nearly unbearable becomes seemingly impossible.  Worse still is that an ineffable state steals over you as you realize...in some ways...the lie is easier, more comfortable, even safe.  Sometimes, it is easier to simply walk away, to forget you discovered that the sky is blue, the grass is green. You would rather the sky remain orange, the grass purple…because you need them to be so.  You need them to be so because, at times, the truth can be too much to bear. 

It isn’t just the violence…or the shame.