When I was sexually abused by my stepfather, finally confessed (guilt-ridden, ashamed, scared) to my mother, and she preferred his lies to my truth, I learned some lessons, and I learned them deeply:

— I don’t matter.  People can do what they want with me, and nobody cares.

— My body doesn’t really belong to me.

— No one can be trusted, not men, not the person whom I most loved, my mother.  (She stayed married, and the abuse continued until he died a few years later.)

— When you’re in trouble, you’re on your own.

And so I went into my adulthood (so-called), a solitary, brave performer, a watcher of other people and of life.  It wasn’t for me to belong; I was an outsider, marked and dirty forever.

You can see that the trauma itself — his co-option of my body and its sensibilities — was horrible, but it was temporary, and not lethal.  What I took with me were the lessons.

“Why not move on?” you ask.  “The events are over, and they can’t be changed, so why grip them so fiercely?”  Because those lessons are unacceptable.  I have to disprove them.  I learned them in my body, way below the level of thinking.  Of course I “know” that his spirit was deformed — it wasn’t my idea! — but now I’m contaminated.  I have to try to eject this poison, as I would any poison in my body.  It’s actually healthy to keep worrying over it, fighting, trying to eject it, to reclaim myself.  The events can’t be changed, but the lessons in my body can be revised.

In order to succeed, I must shift the focus from “what he did” to “what I believe.”  I must identify with my true spirit and, so to speak, return his lies, his poison, to him.  I must realize that I got the facts right (it did happen, repeatedly) but drew the wrong conclusions (it was entirely about him, not about me).

That’s a great idea, positive, terrific.  The price is high, however.  When I return his deformity to him, I am vulnerable to my own truth.  Will I be able to withstand the reality of my experience, how it all felt to me?  As long as I blame and fixate on him, I’m not up close to my reality.  Continuing to obsess is actually protective.

But continuing to obsess means I don’t have my life, and that’s not okay.

So I approach my emotional reality . . . slowly . . . one truth at a time.  And each one becomes a building block to support me for the next.

I watched a program on PBS documenting the work of female doctors (MD’s) on a few Native American reservations.  They did whatever they could with limited resources, and they coordinated with native healers.  One of the women referred to the presence of someone’s spirit in his health.

So for the last few days I’ve been asking myself, and some of my clients, what the spirit seems to be saying.   This is more than Louise Hayes’ idea that any symptom has a direct content.  This is the kind of metaphor we meet in dreams.

I’ve been suffering from vertigo, and a very thick feeling in my head.  What if that’s my spirit trying to get my attention, because I haven’t been listening?  I’ll give the idea a try.

Umm, my life is cluttered with duties, people, and activities I don’t really care about.  I’m “clogged.”  I need to simplify, shed what isn’t important to me.

I’ve “filled my head” with concerns that never stop — repetitive thoughts, worries about whether I look good enough, whether I’ll get everything done, whether I’ll matter enough in the world.  I’m too easily distracted.  I hide out in food, reading mysteries, watching television shows (good ones, but . . .), etc.  In these activities, I can avoid my own spirit and its demands — which, I have to say, are severe.  (My mother referred to me as “the Jewish nun.”)  I’m tired of human suffering, mine and others’; can’t I just zone out some more?

I’ve noticed that spirits are not very forgiving.  If someone dodges it, the spirit will call out, then scream, then hit hard with pain or illness.  It definitely has a Mind of its own, and it isn’t going away.  Ah, well, I tried to evade, but I’m really tired of “being thick-headed,” so I give.  I’ll work on the book(s), on music, and on my physical health.  And if I don’t get it right, I can count on my spirit to let me know, one way or another.