My Hidden Self
By Jesse Donahue © 2020
I hide so deeply, beyond my ability to see and to understand
I forced myself to write this. I felt it to be an insight that should be noted before it returns to a state of amnesia. A shrunken statue of a once vibrant self seems to lie frozen, mummified, wounded within me, and I have no way of definitively reaching it. It recoils in fear, creating a suffocating anxiety when I am watched or in the presence of another person. I cannot control this. My lungs constrict, my mind races, and becomes cloudy. I feel too vulnerable and must escape. As I gasp for breath to fill my lungs, hypervigilance consumes me, knowing others hear my struggle to breathe. I try to hide the dysfunction I manifest from others’ eyes, knowing they will react to me with reciprocal anxiety. It can be contagious. How do I talk about it with the others in my life in the moment? I hide so deeply, beyond my ability to see and to understand. I feel powerless over the now apparent automatic anxiety reaction.
As I sit and write my novel, envisioning my characters on the page being respected, revered, glorified, and honored, that hidden childhood statue within me weeps beyond my awareness, understanding, and control. All I see is the constant stream of tears consuming me, simply at witnessing the positive regard shown to my book’s heroes. The storybook figures are unconsciously the grandiose desire of that little child within me, desperately needing to be affirmed as lovable and acceptable. Yes, I am hiding! That statue is locked away deep, manifesting in the unexplained flowing of tears, fighting mightily to remain subconscious. I know deep anxiety, depression, and the completely awkward, socially odd crying as I hyper-empathize with others’ tears and emotional pain.
I live in my head, acutely witnessing my numb feelings. That numbness has pushed my wounded inner child so deeply into that place where trauma cannot be found, its secret hiding place. It is too painful to see and witness. I gasp for breath and weep, dissociated from a reason why. I don’t know how to fix this problem. I cannot feel or see that frozen statue of self. I just know it exists. This came to me at one point, reading my novel while drowning in tears at the hero’s and heroine’s deep respect and esteem from others. It is amazing how our subconscious mind works, symbolically creating storybook figures that tell and know of my needs. Those needs of which, generally, I am unaware.
I need to find the core, the inner shrunken statue’s place in my interior reality (an expedition now lived and undertaken in therapy). Though I don’t fully know how, it has been a tremendous struggle to soothe the toxic energy, even with years of therapy. I have tried self-love development and am coming along on that path, but I struggle to love something that hides from my eyes and awareness to the point that so often, I do not recall that it exists. In an emotional flashback, you do not always see the events that amnesia hides from awareness. I think this statue of myself is hidden in that way or in that special place that cannot be seen or easily touched. I don’t know, but that is how it all seems. I feel blocked and stuck because of this, and I sincerely question my ability to conquer this problem, as so many of my journal writings speak. Writings do not mean a thing until I can heal myself or significantly lessen my suffering, proving to myself that therapy does indeed work. Am I different from other sufferers of CPTSD or trauma disorders in this regard? I often wonder. I know that little boy was damaged so badly. Trauma can be a dictator, forcing one’s authentic free-floating being into a petrified wooden statue of blinding and binding inhibitions.
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*Copyright notice. All writings are copyrighted and registered with the Library of Congress.
Therapy has helped improve self-understanding and writing skills through journaling and essays. Although this writing journey began in later years, it has led to 70+ essays oriented around issues with CPTSD… a trauma disorder.
My writings, which include therapy notes, poems, novels (unpublished), and essays, are all a part of my ongoing personal therapy. Initially, the essays, intended for my therapist’s eyes only, began with exposing my thoughts, fears, and feelings (or the lack of) onto paper… a journal of therapy notes. Then, with fear overcome and via a personal decision, I shared them with the readers. *My thanks to the editor of the CPTSD Foundation. My intent is to encourage readers to recognize traits in themselves and find (if desired) a therapist when they are willing and ready for that step. For some of us, it can be a long and challenging process, over extensive periods, to awaken to the unconscious issues that cause us to act out in life. Our behavior may seem like dancing to a buried, invisible cause we cannot directly see or confront. It is my sincere hope that my insights will assist the reader in the process toward reaching a deeper self-understanding.
Bringing the unconscious out into the light of self-awareness, understanding, and acceptance fosters self-love and the process of change.
Jesse B. Donahue
*Type a keyword into the foundations search engine. (Jesse, Heart, Personal, Twelve, Bugaboo, etc.) Or, Type Jesse Donahue at The CPTSD Foundation on a Google search.
Published with the CPTSD foundation. Top 10 essays in order of views:
- The Heart of the Matter
- Personal Honor, Integrity, Dignity, Honesty
- Twelve Days Without Coffee
- The Hidden Bugaboo
- Learned Helplessness
- Cast Out of Eden by Toxic Shame
- Codependency – Overriding the Monster of Self-Hate
- The Emptiness of Yesterday
- Surfing the Light Through the Darkness
- The Man Who Lives Under the Bridge
Other published writings at the foundation (in no particular order):
What an Outside Appearance May Not Show. Designer Identity.
The Crumbs and The Banquet. Inspirational Tugging – Teachers.
Obedience to the Light – Bombs or Love. We are but Storytellers.
Stepping Into the Shoes of Who You Are. Living in the Dis-World.
A Writer’s Brain – The Gift. The Highway of Worries.
The beganning. SPECTRUM.
