7 The Lovely Crisis: Endless Opportunities to Not Be Self-Destructive or Pain by Proxy

The paradox of engaging in self-destructive behavior in order to create compassion and empathy for others - Using others as a proxy for the pain I have denied. I undoubtedly have buried and masked painful experiences or feelings that I have in myself and then have identified that same pain in others. I have then sought to give complete compassion and efforts toward healing those wounded parts of others. I found in these people a part of myself that was left unattended, ignored, abused, neglected, afraid, or generally not treated with love. I gave to them what I could not to myself. This was another way was building my pain threshold. Touching the flame countless times.......Was I seeking to finally have a "normal " reaction? The denial of emotional pain and consequently becoming a psychotherapist was a version of repeatedly touching the flame. What I had buried had become so convoluted and foreign. I began working with children and adolescents to identify and understand the traumas of little and big "burns". All the while I kept avoiding my own. Every time I would apply and healing salve was another reminder of what I would not recognize in myself - Another finger touching the flame. Each time I would deny part of my own burden and soothe another persons burden was another voluntary touch of the flame. 

Occasionally I would throw myself upon a grenade intended for another in order to both desensitize myself to trauma and to ultimately in the deepest part of me, pray that I would reach my pain threshold soon. Pray that I had not scorched my nerve endings to the point that they were dead and unable to ever feel again - numbed to oblivion. The alive I feel today is not fueled by adrenaline but calm and peaceful. I am no longer a warrior at rest - a knight sitting on a tree stump, bruised and sweating, with metal visor raised to get a few more gulps of air before I go into battle again. I feel alive and grateful to not be near the battlefield anymore. But I know I could still swing an axe and drop any motherfucker that wants to pull me back out there......