Foundations

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. Henry David Thoreau

I started counseling over 8 years ago.  When we first started I talked about wanting to communicate better.  Homework assignments went from bad to disastrous.  KavinCoach figured out very fast that there was more to the situation then just lack of communication.  I had no memories from my childhood to work with.  I hadn't known about my childhood since high school.  I was very impressed with anybody that could remember things.  I joked that I had a memory like a sieve.  KavinCoach used a series of books to gauge my reaction.  He started with the book, "I Child Called It."  My only reaction, "What do you want me to learn from it?"  Each book there after was worse and worse accounts of abuse, until the 4th book was Viktor Frankl's book "Man's Search for Meaning."  His account of his experience in a Nazi concentration camp.   After this book I commented, "What do you want me to learn from this isn't the right answer."  KavinCoach assured me that there wasn't a right or wrong answer but my lack of reaction told a far different story than I needed to learn to communicate.  He talked about the fact that I showed signs of being a very messed up human being.  Finally he had me watch Sybil, her movie I recognized a fellow sufferer, and I understood I was a multiple.  KavinCoach explained that before I could learn how to communicate I would first need to rip out my entire twisted and damaged foundation and start over.  Imagine rebuilding a foundation of a house while still living in the house.  My world was rocked.  The work began.  Long hours of study, self reflection, self analyzing, learning about living instead of just surviving.  I called myself an ultimate survivor with a tag team of 5 personalities that worked together.  The dust has finally settled.  I have a new integrated foundation.  I am one personality learning that I can communicate very well when I know who's doing the talking and the same person is listening and responding.  A switch of personalities could actually happen mid sentence.  Triggers for switches could be a sight, sound, smell, or comment.  Staying the same person all day is really nice.  Today I knew what I had done last night to feel so bad.  I gave myself a break and slept through most of the day after staying up most of the night before.  I earned feeling this bad.  It is OK.  I like the idea that my castle was already there, I just added a foundation.  Foundations is the very essence of who we are.  It is sad that so many people have life experiences at such a young age that this foundation gets damaged before living has really started.  I am thankful that at any age I can choose to put in some self improvements.