I just finished recording the audiobook yesterday. Today we’ll wrap with a Q&A postscript, and I’ll probably sing a few stanzas of Church “holy songs” for the last chapter.
Let me tell you now, singing those is weird. And triggering. And hard.
And also affirming somehow.
It’s, again and again and always and always, a reclaiming. A day of celebration.
It was hard and triggering and surreal reading the book out loud.
The stories from before the Church, which were enough in and off themselves to have affected me. Hard. The stories in the Church. My depiction of my self-lambasting and self-revulsion and self-loathing. And self-policing and self-punishing. And all the terror and anxiety and lack of self and lack of trust of self that was in me.
Hard and triggering and surreal.
I definitely coped this week by disassociating a bit, with my therapist’s permission and agreement that that was the safest and most self-caring way to get through the recording.
It also made me realize, even more, how much I must have disassociated my whole life. I honestly never realized I did until something I did to claim all of me, not so many years ago, put me back in my body in ways I don’t think I’d fully experienced before then.
As I often say, alll you know is all you know, and you don’t know what you don’t know. I never really knew I disassociated so much…
Watching my friend’s face register her horror and pain as I read. Hearing her comments when we paused. Taking in her validation that it was a lot. It was too much. It was hard. At times, it was unbelievably hard.
Noticing how much I have been in my perfectionism and fear of messing up and getting things wrong. I’m rarely, if ever, really there anymore, but reading about and remembering where that all stemmed from, how it was carved into my brain and heart and psyche, ignited those carvings. Full force at times.
All that said, I am glad that I read it and glad that the audiobook will be out there. No matter how hard it was, and how much I had to disassociate to get through, if telling my story to one more person helps them find their way, and their way out of whatever they’re stuck in, then it is, as always, all worth it.
Hence, the day of celebration. (Which is also the ending of one of the “holy songs” that I sang. Which is also a reclamation.)
I celebrate that I read it and that we got through it. I celebrate that I’m here. I celebrate that I found my way out of my cult. I celebrate that I found my way out of anorexia and cocaine abuse and harsh relationships, and all the other self-destruction on my path. I celebrate that I found – and will always continue finding – my way out of the faulty beliefs and self-hatred that was put into me.
I celebrate the life of love and joy and celebration that I’ve created. Yes, I still think I may have just been lucky to have escaped near obliteration so many times. But I also know that I’ve worked way hard on my healing and wholing and health.
The day of celebration is at hand.
I’d love to hear your thoughts, and please share this post with others if it resonates with you!
