Sentry Duty

Thinking about dissociation (is that redundant??). How much more common it is, how much more beneficial it is, contrary to mainstream thought. I consider daydreaming a mild form of dissociation. A rest, a break; from reality and that the harsher the reality the longer the break, the more "intense" the dissociation, a proportional relationship. So I was discussing the two most "severe" dissociative states in which I have been witnessed and that since I at least could recall the therapeutic interventions under which the dissociation occurred, it followed, to me at least, that perhaps these were the sort of therapies I would be better to undertake more frequently. Not so, apparently, as in either case, there was no new information gleaned, I have no recollection of the trigger(s) or of anything else which occurred during the dissociation (indeed each constituted a complete memory blank), therefore, what is the benefit? Damnit. It was put to me that unless, and apparently until, I am able to process the "least" (all things being relative) traumatic, the more traumatic will remain safely blocked. Here is the issue for me, in order to put the "least" to rest - so to speak - I must render, emotionally and otherwise, more sharply the details of each. These "leasts" are not my stories, these are what I have heard, have witnessed on another's behalf. So I must needs process in such a way as to strike a balance between the therapeutic benefit (to me) and the maintain confidentiality/micro-minimise any identifying information necessity (protecting the client). I do not believe these are my stories to tell, that I have no right to feel traumatised by them, yet, the undoubted intense impact is there. I have a right to my feelings and in the many hundreds of witnessing I have felt horror, despair, helplessness, anger, anguish, shock, disbelief, shaken, afraid, sadness. I have been left questioning anything I previously ever thought true, that is whatever foundation lay beneath me has been forcibly removed. I know now, to my inner core, that anything and everything awful and evil is possible. That the potential and reality of a person's worst imaginings can come true.

I can see the people hanging from telephone poles, from the trees, I can see the ravages of a gunshot to a face, I can see the rescue gone fatally wrong, I can see the wild dogs mining the mass graves for a meal, I can see the trucks driving through - and over - the crowds.

What I also - to my marrow - know now is the resilience, the honour, of the human spirit, that the capacity for kindness, love, compassion can remain, can outweigh the thought of revenge. That people can still find a way to remain human and humane despite the horror around them, threatening to pave them over. But this is not me, I am instead mired in the horror. In the sadness. I am standing sentry over these stories, they are not mine, yet I will guard them.