Client Hurt - Session 4

(Beep.)

No one likes being completely alone.

(Music fades in)

Especially you. It’s one of your greatest fears, isn’t it? You sat with that observation for a moment. Yes, it’s something you fear, but is it your greatest fear? Ranking them was never something you tried to do. It had never come up, but I seem to be asking that of you now. 

I, as the person who posed the claim, will have to wait, you think. You don’t hope I’ll be patient; instead, you demand it of me. You want to take this journey, but you can only do it at your own pace, you insist, as if I didn’t already agree. It wouldn’t be fair of me to ask you to rush, you add, to ask more of you than you can offer. Even asking you to go at full capacity still feels wrong, you think. You insist. So you demand patience. You believe I owe it to you.

And then you back down. You worry you’re being too aggressive with me. You worry that your tone will put me off. And you don’t want that. You don’t want conflict. You don’t want to push me away, despite how I have annoyed you at times. Despite the way you worry about the things I may say. 

And then comes clarity. Being alone is not your greatest fear, but it is a part of it. It’s the act of leaving, you think, but not the act of seeing someone leave. It’s the necessity of it, of what it all means. About being destined to be alone. For everyone’s benefit.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

You wanted her to leave him. Your mother, I mean, but you knew that. You only doubted I was talking about her because you had the same thought about your stepmother. You often had that thought about any person who, as you put it, had the great misfortune of coming into your father’s orbit. He was a destructive force. He chose to be that and the most efficient version of it that he could be. You grew up in the consequences. You grew up amongst the wreckage. 

You’ve never heard anyone put it that way before, have you? You’ve never given that thought much power or space at the forefront of your mind. You didn’t think you could handle it. And the fact that it didn’t break you when I said it, the fact that the universe didn’t fall apart at the words, has surprised you. Not that you ever assumed that would happen. There was just a sort of dread that came with the possibility that seemed to signal something horrible would come if you ventured down that road.

And now your relationship is in shambles, so you think you were right. Except it fell apart not because you approached that idea but because you spurned it. You spurned the idea of disclosure. And your partner didn’t know that they were walking into what you feared was a field of mines and other traps. What else could they have heard when you started yelling? What else could they have thought in the space you left for them?

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

You don’t remember why you left that shared home, why you left the life you and your partner were so carefully building without a word or second thought, and it just happened a couple weeks ago. At first, you think it’s a repressed memory. That would make sense. The mind represses memories that it can’t handle, things that will break it and its keeper. The mind does what it has to in order to survive. It can’t be faulted for that. But if that’s what happened, then why didn’t it repress the arguments that defined your younger years, the way your father’s voice shook the family home, and his attempts to tear you away from your mother. 

You can remember his figurative grip. You remember the way his touch was barbed and how that seemed to be the point. Because yes, he wanted custody of you. He wanted it to hurt your mother, but hurting you wasn’t something to be avoided in his mind. It was almost a perk. Not because you reminded him of her but because it would hurt her too. 

But he was too good at hurting you, wasn’t he? He could outright destroy you without a second thought. And there was no second thought from him. He didn’t care enough for that.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

No one came to rescue you. No one cared, you thought. I don’t think you’re wrong, entirely. No one with the power to save you cared. And you’re thankful for the correction. Because you never doubted that your mother cared for you. You never doubted she was trying to save you. And so when you escaped him, you went running to her. And she took you in with open arms. 

That embrace was life saving, you thought. It revived you. But all you could think about was never being in that position again. The fear came with you back from the grave.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

You never once thought your partner was like your father. You never doubted the love, integrity, grace, generosity, gentleness, and overall goodness of the soul before you that poured out with every “I love you,” but the fear lingered. Because you were his daughter. And you caught a glimpse of his face every time you looked in the mirror. You wondered how your partner didn’t see it. But then you reminded yourself, that your partner never saw that monster. And never directly will. Because he’s gone. Dead and gone. Or physically gone. There’s a touch of him that remains in you, you fear.

And you wanted to protect your partner, right? That’s what you thought love was. That was the sort of love your partner showed you and the sort of love you never received as a child. But there was no monster in the house with your partner. There was a storm, but it was one your father had started before the accident took his life, not one . You didn’t think to look for that. You couldn’t bear to look for that. The signs for it were too deep in the mess you couldn’t bring yourself to unpack. 

I understand you were trying to survive. You wanted to make sure your partner survived. But in the course of those efforts, the tether that bound the two of you together has been strained. It’s gone taut. It’s beginning to fray. But it hasn’t snapped yet. It may or it may not. That’s not up to me. It’s not up to your father, either. It’s only up to the two of you. To you both. Speak the truth to find it.

(Music fades out. Beep.)

The Oracle of Dusk is a production of Miscellany Media Studios with music licensed from the Sounds like an Earful music supply. It was written, edited, produced, and performed by MJ Bailey. And if you like the show, tell friends about it or the quasi-friends that are still on your social media feeds because social norms evolved before words did, am I right?