Ann and Terry
Getting up.
Argh Terry I had a bad dream and I feel bad - miserable. In it I was with another person and we were shopping somewhere, like in a big department store and I was looking at a little boy strapped in his pusher crying his eyes out and his mother just ignoring him. You know, we’ve seen it so much now, so many mothers pushing their little ones around but not with them, ignoring them, not wanting really to be their mothers as we’ve discussed. And in the dream suddenly it was as if I were the little boy and I felt how miserable he felt, so alone, so unloved, so unwanted. And I cried for him, I cried and cried, and I don’t think I’ve cried in a dream before.
And of course now being awake I can see that I feel like it’s me, I’m that little boy, and I was crying for myself. It’s so clear and yet in the dream I wasn’t him, I was just there watching and feeling so bad and sorry for him. But now I am him.
Why do you think you’re a boy and not a little girl? That part about dreams I’ve always wondered about, why aren’t they more straightforward, you know, if it is you and you’re looking at yourself, why isn’t it at least a little girl you’re looking at... and why isn’t it even yourself, why are they always so symbolic?
I don’t know, and I don’t care about any of that, it’s only my bad feelings I’m interested in. And I feel very miserable, very sad for myself, sad that I was treated like that - I know I was. I can’t remember specific times, but I just feel sure that I was. It’s a strong feeling deep inside me and I feel so alone, so afraid, so scared, so unhappy - so unloved. I feel so despairing, like all of me is in pain and I can’t do anything. I didn’t want to get up out of bed. Bad, so bad, so bad - I feel so bad.
I feel miserable, so sad that I couldn’t have been happy, that I couldn’t have had a good early life, that things weren’t as good with mum and dad as I believed they were. And all these bad feelings that keep coming up all helping me to see how it was with them, there seems no end to them. I feel so miserable, so sad, like I want to, or even are in some way, crying, and that I’ve never stopped crying. Crying for being strapped in that pusher, all tied up, not being able to move, unable to do anything for myself, unable to move around freely; tied up, so restricted, almost like I can’t breathe.
And what did mum care about me. I mean seriously, did she care, did she care that I couldn’t move, that I couldn’t do what I wanted to do. That I had to stay all bound up while she got on and did her life; and what for, all so she didn’t have to worry about me, all so she could control me, stopping me running around or something.
And you see all those little kids strapped in and hardly able to move.
But some of them seem to like it, even wanting to remain in their pushers.
Yes I know, but really Terry, is it natural? I don’t think so, so what does that show you, those children are probably so conditioned to it that they’d rather remain strapped in having all but accepted they have nothing of a life when they go out. I don’t know, of course I can’t really judge, but to me it just doesn’t seem right; and how I’m feeling now, I feel like I didn’t ever want to be strapped in, I wanted to be free, and I think we all do. But free in what, what sort of a life is it to be free in, and that too makes me feel bad; free to go walking around a shopping centre, and what good is in that, where’s the fun and real freedom. And when you compare how we were treated to what we were reading about the Australian Aboriginals, how free their little picaninnies are, all up and running at such an early age with no one in control of them and all feeling happy and secure in their large family groups.
And what about that English woman who lived on one of those early outback stations, how that little Aboriginal boy who wasn’t even four was able to tell her all about the tracks of all the animals and what all the people were doing. How they went to the where the men had saddled their horses for the day and the boy was able to read the ground saying that this man did this, this man’s horse played up, this man followed this man, and so on, when the woman said she couldn’t see anything on the ground. And he was so sure of himself, so self-determined, so in control of himself and his life and so unafraid, and he was not even four. I mean Terry, seriously we’re all retards compared to someone like him. And all because of our heavy conditioning, all that bloody control we’re subjected to. So much fucking control, all having to obey our parents, obey the rules of society, all having to be strapped in and confined to our pushers, never free to even step on the dirt and live truly and freely in nature. That little boy and his people are alive, we’re all dead in the lives we live. Like what you’ve been saying Terry, how dead a life is having to go to work every day just so you can earn money. Living an artificial life, meaningless, and all for what? So you can say I worked here doing this for so long and I was good at my job. I mean to say, big deal, so you’re good at doing something that’s completely meaningless, something that wouldn’t even exist if we were living true and natural lives.
Ah fuck Terry, I feel so bad, so miserable about myself and about it all. But as you said, I wonder why I was a boy in the dream. No, I don’t know about that.
Have you longed for the truth of it?
No, but I will...
I feel so bad, so trapped, so alone, they don’t really care about me, it’s all just a fantasy. You have children, it’s what you do. But really mum and dad didn’t want me, that much I know now; they didn’t give all of themselves to me, they just had to do all these things with me because they had me, and it’s what you do when you have children.
And again I feel so angry that for us girls it was so much more controlled, the boys had it so much easier. And you know, this thought came to me the other day, but I think really mum and dad liked the boys better than us girls. I think because we had to all be such young ladies we were more of a bother. And I think in some ways that really they’d have preferred to have just had boys.
Really?
Yes, and having said it, it’s coming up stronger in me now. Yes, I think that we girls were really just a waste of space, something that they had to put up with and not something they enjoyed. And I know they’ve always made a great effort to support us girls in all we’ve done, and on the surface of it you’d never think they didn’t want us or wanted the boys in preference to us, but there are subtle signs threaded all the way through, all of which are becoming increasingly obvious to me.
And that makes me feel bad, and... Oh Terry! I think that’s it! That’s why I was a boy in the dream, it was to help show me more that that is what mum and dad wanted, and that in some ways I too wanted to be a boy. I know when I was younger I really did want to be a boy, like the boys, as they didn’t have to all the things we girls were made to do; but I think now it goes even deeper than that, and in some ways I’ve never wanted to be a girl.
Gee, and you know, I think all my feminism has been a show, something to try and cover that up, sort of like not wanting to face and acknowledge it, that because underneath I detest being a girl and it’s the last thing I want to be; so I’ve gone the other way more so, more in an extreme sense trying to fight for my and women’s rights. All to try and pretend to myself that I am good being a girl and girls are worthwhile and wanted, and even so much so that we don’t need boys, we don’t need men, fuck men, we can do it all on our own, we can prove it, we’re just as capable, just as strong and all of that. But really it’s a cover, all because underneath, for me anyway, I don’t want to be a girl. Girls aren’t wanted as much as boys.
That’s a big one Ann!
Yes I know, and I feel that’s right. I feel that’s what my dream is helping me to see.
But still being that boy you’re still trapped in the pusher, you’re not free and able to go and be as you want to be.
Yes, that’s right, so there’s no way out is there. Even if I was a boy, I can’t imagine what it would have been like to be one of the boys, and so you’re right, and that makes me feel even worse, for now I can see there was no escape for me, not even into my dreams, not even in a fantasy.
No Terry, I am just controlled, well and truly, all bound up - tied up, strapped in, unable to move. And that’s how I feel and have felt a lot during my life. I’ve never spoken about it or articulated the feelings, but it is. I’ve always felt like I’m a caged bird, and I’ve always wished I could just be free, you know, fly, spread my wings and just be ‘free as a bird’. And I don’t want to remain cage-bound my whole life Terry, I want to set myself free.
Yeah that would be good. Do you think you can, that you’ll ever be able to?
I don’t know, but I sure hope so. I hope it’s what this healing is all about, all helping me to free myself. It’s what we read it will and can do, but... shit, I am heavily strapped in my pusher, really that’s how I feel about all of my life, that I’m heavily strapped in, and I’m not free to be my true self, whatever that would be like.
And all these bad feelings, I feel so sad and sorry for myself. There I am that little person looking so miserable, so alone, so isolated from everyone else, so out of life, not able to express him or herself how I please; being all bound up, strapped in like a good girl - yes a good girl who can’t fucking move!
And I just want to rip all those straps apart, tear them apart setting myself free.
Free of all your parents control.
Yes, they’ve strapped me into my life, they’ve made me be how I am - how I feel. Fuck them, it’s so bad, and they think they love me and did all good things for me. You heard mum the other night, when she was saying how she and dad worked so hard to provide us kids with all the good things that life had to offer, and that they felt they’d done a good job with us, as we’ve all turned out all right.
That none of you are murderers.
Yes I know. It’s all so pathetic, and when she was saying that, and knowing now how I feel about it, they have no idea, and yet how can they, I didn’t have any idea either until we started doing all of this.
And it all sounds so lame, so pathetic now, the kids have ‘turned out all right’. Seriously, what does that mean. It’s like we’re some product and they’ve worked the machine well and done an okay job, and they are happy with it, with the end result; but are we kids, and do they ask us, and do they care.
And it makes me feel like, because they can say that, so they are good, and they won’t get into trouble; no one, like God or someone, is going to punish them because their kids turned out all right. So they can be let off, they won’t get into trouble, they don’t have to worry about anything, they can retire knowing they have ‘done a good job’ raising their children.
And ‘done a good job’, seriously, what does that also mean. That parenting is nothing more than a job, and you’re either good at your job or bad at it. And all those parents who are bad at it fuck their children up, but my parents get a big pat on their backs because they did a good job.
It’s all so pathetic Terry, and that’s how I feel today, fucking pathetic. I am nothing more than a good job, and good end product; I’m not a person called Ann who is a living and breathing and FEELING person. And all so long as they can sleep well at nights knowing they’ve done a good job, but it’s all their own fantasy, it’s nothing about what’s real. And I don’t feel like I’m a job-well-done, I feel fucked today, completely miserable and all strapped up in my fucking pusher while mum pushes me around doing her good job.
It’s all such a show, she’s just putting on the show of ‘doing a good job’ all to impress all the other people around-
It wasn’t much of a show the mother in your dream, and all those other mothers we’ve seen ignoring their kids like that.
I know, but still, she thinks she’s doing the right thing; and it’s what - so it would seem to someone like her who’s not aware of her own feelings let alone my feelings - everyone does. It’s what’s acceptable, it’s how you ‘be a good parent’, only as we’re starting to see more clearly now, it’s the connection you have with your child that matters, not the show of being how everyone else is, you all doing the same things, and because you do, then you’re all doing what’s right.
I hate how there’s nothing very personal about it. It’s always ‘that’s how it is’, ‘that’s how it was’, as she said, it’s how it was in her day, what they all did, what all the mothers did, so she feels she’s done a good job. Argh but it all sucks, it really does Terry, that much I at least understand now.
Bad, I feel bad, very bad, still so miserable. I feel very miserable Terry, very miserable about it all, miserable for myself, miserable for mum, she didn’t know, she was treated that way by her mother, miserable for us all.
Yeah.
And seeing that other woman yesterday with her little toddler boy, she was so relaxed about everything, talking to him like he actually was a real person, and the little boy wanting to push the pusher around himself and it wasn’t even his pusher, she not having one for him. And they seemed so happy together, and she saying he was her fourth boy, and she looked so good, so tall and slim, you’d not have thought she’d have had four children. And how she never reprimanded him, didn’t say no or growl at him, like so many other mothers are usually doing. She was easy going with him, not fussed at all, but was right there with him; and he seemed so happy, not like that poor sad little boy in my dream, and all those other poor sad looking children we’ve seen strapped in their pushers.
And how they were laughing and she was still doing her thing, and he was there happy to be with her and she with him. It was all so nice, you could feel the love, the bond, the happy connection, not how I feel it was with me and mum.
I feel so miserable Terry, so bad, so unloved, so unhappy, and so unwanted. I feel so alone, alone with this man and woman who are called my mother and father and yet are really strangers to me-
You might have felt better with a stranger had she been like that mother you were just talking about.
Yes, that right, you just don’t know do you. But it’s how it was for me, that much I know, or I’m getting to know, and none of it is making me feel good.
But it’s the truth Terry, I can’t get away from that, it’s the truth, that much I’m starting to wake up to. It’s not as if I’m looking deeper into all the aspects of my relationship with mum and dad and all I’m seeing is making me feel happier and happier to have had them as my parents. God it’s completely the other way around, with all I’m seeing eroding all the so-called happiness I felt - thought I felt.
Miserable, miserable, miserable, god Terry I still feel so miserable.
But you know, something I was reading that Rilke, you know the poet, is supposed to have said, something about loving your sorrows, and appreciating your bad feeling feelings, they sort of being like the winter of your life, and that they shouldn’t be dismissed, they should be cherished and loved for being a valuable part of yourself, that being what we read in those childhood repression books. And you know, I can understand that more, even though I feel so bad today. It is all important, isn’t it Terry. I mean, look at all we’re coming to see about ourselves, and even though it’s not good, as in it doesn’t make us feel good, still, it is all amazing. And to think that we can be subjected to such bad and unloving parenting and yet because it’s all we got, so all we knew, we believed it was good.
Because they said it was good - ‘they did a good job’ and all that crap. I’m sure if they’d not told us all those sorts of things making it out to be and pretending it was good, then we’d feel closer to what it was really like.
Yes, I’m sure you’re right Terry, but it is good, isn’t it, that we’re seeing all this truth about how it really was for us.
Yes, I agree, it is, but fuck it’s horrible when you feel horrible. Like how you’re feeling now. Who wants to feel like that. And sure it might be all valuable feeling so bad and experiencing the other side of life, the bad side, or negative, or whatever you want to call it - the winter; but I’d sure like some summer, or more summer, I feel like we’re going into a bloody ice-age and all that global warming is crap.
It is crap Terry, that’s what we’ve been reading, but I know what you mean, that for us personally, we’re going into our winters... or is it that rather we’ve always been in them only we’ve pretended we’ve been in a summer.
We’ve probably just been in the solarium. Ann, would you mind if I went out and fixed that loose fence paling, or would you rather I stayed so you can talk more about your feelings.
No, it’s all right Terry, and thank you for asking. I’m feeling a bit better having spoken about it all.
Twenty minutes later after some hammering sounds could be heard, the back door slams.
Fuck it, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK! Ow, ow-
What’s wrong Terry, what happened?
I hammered my fucking thumb. Ow, fuck it hurts, the fucking fence, I hate it, the fucking thing is falling apart, it’s never going to be right, we should get someone to build us a new one. It’s so old and the nails aren’t holding, and the wood is all springy and I couldn’t fuck’n hold it, and missed, and fuck it hurts. The fucking fence-
Feelings Terry, speak more about how you’re feeling, not about the fence. How does it make you feel hitting your thumb like that, how do you feel; do you feel stupid for doing it?
Yes I feel fucking stupid, that goes without saying-
Yes but you’ve got to say it, that’s what our expressing our feelings is all about, you’ve got to still say all you’re feeling, even if it’s obvious to you.
Yeah all right, fuck it hurts, it’s throbbing, the fucking thing, why did I have to hit my thumb, I was feeling okay this morning, but now, fuck, now I feel like my whole day is ruined, that it’s over, that... that... aw fuck, here I am again at the place where I don’t know, I don’t know how I feel.
I’m longing for the truth - I want to see the truth of why I did it to myself, why did I have to go and ruin my day by hitting my thumb?
Ow, the fucking thing hurts, it eases off a bit then comes on strong again - throbbing. I don’t know, but I do feel stupid, very stupid, what a stupid thing to do. Fuck now that sounds like dad, I feel like I’m him saying it to me, and he’s saying, now that was a stupid thing to do to yourself, wasn’t it Terry. And he doesn’t leave it alone. Of course it was a fucking stupid thing to do, but fuck we all make mistakes, it was an accident. He goes on as if I did it on purpose or something and he’s telling me off for having done it. That’s how it seems and how he makes me feel anyway.
Like his ridiculing me, as if he can now go and tell the whole world how stupid Terry is; his own fucking son is the biggest moron idiot that’s ever lived because he hammered his own fucking thumb. What a fucking idiot, what idiot - and only an idiot - would do something as dumb and stupid as that. What a fucking imbecile that young Terry is... and it’s as if he’s going into the house telling mum, that I’m an idiot - again, and look what Terry did to himself, what a klutz, what a fool, what an idiot!
Shit, when you long for the truth, sometimes it sure works doesn’t it; now I’ve got this feeling that he’s sort of having one-up on me, that in fact that’s how he was a lot, that any chance he got to have a laugh at me... yeah, sort of like he has to prove he’s the tough one, the great one, the best, and the best at doing everything, and any chance he gets to run me down he takes it. So anything stupid I did like hurting myself, that’s a great chance for him, he’s onto it, he’s going to make the fucking most out of it he can. And he doesn’t hold back, no fucking way, he’s not going to miss this opportunity, so he’s into me, ridiculing me, making me feel even more humiliated than I already do.
And how does that make you feel?
Fucking angry! The fucking arsehole, what right did he have to do that! Fuck him, I’m his fucking son; but I feel like we’re in competition together, when he should be on my side. And... oh fuck Ann, now I see even more, that it’s sort of like he’s vying for mum’s attention against me, like he’s fucking jealous of me or something. Could that be right, fuck I’ve never thought of anything like that, it would never have occurred to me.
Yes of course, I’ve read where lots of parents are jealous of the child, the women suddenly doesn’t give the man all the attention he’s used to having because she’s got a new baby, something other than him to fuss all over. So he feels rejected, he feels he no longer has all her love, so naturally he wants to hit back, and at the child, the thing taking his love away from him.
But that’s fucked, I mean he’s a grown man for God’s sake.
I know, but he’s also a sad and fucked up little boy who’s still desperate for his own mother’s love he feels deprived of having. So he marries a women who he unconsciously believes is a mother substitute, and possibly even a better and more loving mother than the one he had, and certainly one he can tell what to do and order around like your father often does to your mother.
Yeah, he does doesn’t he. The fucking shit; shit what a fuck, what a fucking arsehole, and yes, I think you’re right, it’s like the veil is lifting and I can see him in that light, like the little unloved child as you say. Yeah well fuck him, and then he shits all over me every chance he gets all so he can what... run me down in mums eyes, all so she’ll like me less and him more. But that doesn’t work because whenever I hurt myself she always made more of a fuss over me. And now I remember he did used to go on at her too, at fussing about me too much, and that she shouldn’t, that I was the idiot and if I was stupid enough to hammer my own fucking finger then I should be left alone and in my own pain. And yet I bet he’s hammered his finger, fuck everyone does it at times. And it’s not stupid, it’s just something that you do by accident, fuck it’s not as if you mean to do it.
Yeah, fuck him, the arsehole, and to think that I grew up in competition with my own father for my mother’s love and affection. I mean, that’s weird, that’s perverted - that is fucked!
I know, but I think that really is how it is for all of us in some way and to some degree. And all because we’re not full adults, we can’t be, we’re still all feeling-unloved little children who still want their parents love. So we choose partners who we unconsciously believe will fill in those love gaps, to be the loving parents or parent we felt we didn’t have.
So you’re what, really just a mother substitute for me or something like that?
Yes - aren’t I?
Oh fuck it, yes, I suppose you are. And then I’m a nicer more loving father substitute for you?
Yes, in many ways, you are.
Oh god it’s all so bad, if that’s all our relationships really are, fuck no wonder so many people have so many problems with them - no wonder I did!
I know, and it’s been the same for me. And that’s why our doing our feeling-healing like this is our only way out, it’s something different, something that hopefully will allow us to break all those hidden patterns as we see the truth of them.
Yeah, so as the truth comes to light, then we’re be free of them. Oh god, I know we already know that-
It doesn’t matter Terry, if that’s what you want to say, then keep saying it, it doesn’t matter that you might have said it a million times before. It’s all in there and connected to deeper repressed stuff, that much we’ve experienced for ourselves, so we’ve got to use every opportunity, which really is every feeling we have, good or bad, to talk more about ourselves. We’re telling our story to each other, and it’s all got to be told, it’s all got to come out, every little bit, and I don’t know how it works, but one thing you can’t deny, when you commit yourself to the process as we have, more keeps coming to light.
Yes, shit I feel like I’ve had yet another huge insight, a real revelation into my relationship with my parents. It’s turned my relationship with them on its heads - yet again. God, how many times has that happened to me now. And now all I can see is dad being like an older brother to me, not my father, and like we’re fighting - yeah, sibling rivalry - for mums attention. But fuck, he’s supposed to be my fucking father, not my fucking brother. Oh shit, it’s all so bad, what fucking hope did I have. To have had to grow up being subjected to the likes of that all the fucking time, having to battle my own father, and he being stronger and more powerful and able to shit so easily on me. I want to punch him in the fucking face and tell him to fucking grow up. To behave like a man, like my father, and not like some bully who can’t get his own way. And he did ridicule me, so often I felt so badly humiliated by him... scared of him, I do... fuck, and now I feel worse!
I hate him and I feeling so afraid of him; I don’t want to do anything or he will laugh at me, always taking the fucking mickey out of me. Fuck, I can’t bear the thought of it, the picture, but it’s so fucking true, I can feel it all through me - it is exactly how it was. And I never understood back then.
How could you, you were only a child, and you’re not aware of all that complex psychology going on. But you still felt all those bad feelings. And because you didn’t know what they were or what to do with them, so you’ve buried them, blocked them out. And now they’re coming back up, and all because you’re wanting them to.
Yeah I do, and I can see that, they are - that’s for fucking sure! So I’d better go out there and do some cutting or something all so I can cut my finger and then have dad go on at me even more.
Yes Terry, here, I’ll get you a knife and you can have a go at it, that should help get you more in touch with those hidden feelings!
I’d want to cut him with it, that’s what I feel like doing. Fuck him, I still can’t get over it, that my own fucking father was wanting to shit all over me to make mum like him more.
And you’re not meant to get over it Terry, you’re only meant to keep speaking about all the bad feelings it makes you feel - telling me how bad that all makes you feel. And longing for the truth of it.
Terry had to drive over to Jim’s to drop something off in his letter box. Ann stayed at home. Terry is in the car talking out loud to himself - actually, yelling out loud.
YOU FUCKING ARSEHOLE WHY DON’T YOU WATCH WHERE YOU’RE GOING. Fuck him, people like that shouldn’t be allowed on the road. Ah shit I feel angry, so fucking angry: I FEEL FUCKING ANGRY, ANGRY, ANGRY, ANGRY - DO YOU HEAR ME WHOEVER IT IS THAT MIGHT HEAR - I, TERRY ARNOLD FEEL FUCKING ANGRY!
Fuck, fuck, fuck, I feel like I want to smash that driver, run up his arse, just go for it, smash into him and smash his car to bits; him chopping me off like that, fuck, didn’t he even see me! He’s probably on drugs or pissed or something, the fucking cunt, all I want to do is fucking smash him. Talk about road rage. Fuck, do your childhood repression healing, get in touch with your hidden anger and rage, then go for a nice peaceful drive... fuck it, but fuck it Terry, feelings boy, what are you feeling, stay with your feelings! Okay, so what would Ann say...
And so how does feeling so angry wanting to smash and kill this block in the car make me feel?
GOOD! FUCKING GOOD!
Okay, now seriously...
Oh shit, it’s more anger at dad. It’s dad I want to smash! Yes, fuck me, I can see it, I want to go and yell at this man for being stupid, being a bloody idiot, just as dad did to me. And yes, to even humiliate him as much as I can, to make him feel soooo big, to reduce him to a nothing, to shit all over him.
Aw shit, that’s not fucking good, FUCK IT! I’m just like dad is! I’m the fucking same as dad! Ah shit, that’s it, I am, oh fuck, I am the same as him. But how can I be any other way! Argh, I want to scream! I only want to smash this driver because I want to do to him what dad to me, I want to make him feel as bad as dad made me feel. Ah fuck it, fuck, fuck, fuck - I do!
I just want to pass it down the line. Ah no! That’s what I’d do to my son if I had one. Fuck it, I bet I would. Shit! I would, I can imagine it, and I’d do it without knowing I was doing it. And fuck, it’s what dad’s dad did to him. I don’t remember grandpa well enough, but he must have, and dad is following on the great family tradition.
Ah it’s all such a fuck, this whole fucking thing. I can’t stand it. Fuck I can’t wait to get home and tell Ann. Shit is just keeps coming; but yes, I can feel it, I only want to smash that person because I want to be the powerful one, and shit all over him, make him feel the powerless weakling, the stupid idiot one, just as dad made me feel, and all because he could, because he was The Dad.
Fuck it, so many bad parents not loving their children; I wasn’t loved, you can’t say you love anyone when you treat them like that, and your child - me - I sure don’t feel loved now by dad.
And fucking mum, she never told him off, she never stood up to him to show him what he was doing. She must have been able to see it... ah FUCK!, what if she even liked it that way. Ah Christ, it just gets worse and worse. Who the fuck keeps making me think these things, where do they keep coming from?
But what if it’s true, what if mum did like it, what if she loved all the attention, even pretending to fuss more over me all to get dad more riled up. And they probably had great sex afterwards! NOOOOOOO, I can’t bear it!
Fuck it’s tearing my relationship with them apart. There’s going to be nothing left - nothing. I can’t bear it, what’s it all about, what really is it all fucking about. What is the point of having a relationship with these two people who are supposedly my loving parents and yet I can’t have a good relationship with them; where it’s all fucked, and it always has been only I’ve not wanted to face it, not wanted to admit it. Shit it’s not fucking good. I don’t know anymore. I feel like I’m having a mental breakdown, and where is it all going to end. And then to go over there and see them, it’s all so bizarre to continue it all on, all the charade. Shit, maybe I should bite the bullet and say, no more, and not keep seeing them, not keep living the lie... but fuck it, I can’t, not yet anyway, I just can’t.
Ah fuck it’s too much, I’ll have to talk about it all with Ann. Thank god for her, shit I couldn’t do this on my own. It’s too heavy, to much serious shit. Shit, shit, shit, and so fuck that driver of the car; fuck me, he’s the least of my worries. Fuck I guess I should even be thanking him, not smashing him, for giving me these experiences of making me angry so I can get in touch with yet more of my repressed stuff.
It’s all so fucking mad, thanking him instead of smashing him, hating mum and dad instead of loving them, everything is around the wrong way. Nothing is as it seems, and I don’t know what to make of it all. What is one meant to do - keep it personal Terry as Ann would say, okay then, WHAT AM I MEANT TO DO?
Ah fuck, I just don’t know. What a fucking ride, it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced before - this healing caper. Fuck what we read was right, that it would take you beyond anything and everything you’ve ever experienced, well you’re not wrong about that! And that it would turn everything, every part of your life, every part of yourself on its head, and other than being with Ann, that’s true too!
And it only keeps getting better with Ann. Yet again not in any way I would have thought a relationship would or should go. It’s all new with her, I’ve never experienced anything like this before with the other women, and it’s not sexual and all about love and being soulmates and all so romantic and all that shit. It’s about simply being good friends for each other, there truly for one another and wanting to help each other by listening to each other’s yuk. All so we can help each other heal ourselves of our unloved states, of our negative self- and feeling-denying minds.
And really what more could you do for another person. What is real love about if it doesn’t involve that. And yet can I say I love Ann more... no, I don’t think so, and even less, less compared to what I thought I felt about her when we first met. And yet back then, fuck I was so deluded, all so caught in trying to find the perfect partner and having thought I found it in Ann. And possibly I have, but nothing like how I thought it would or should be, shit that was all just fantasy. Our getting together and only wanting to be loving in each others arms all day long, and then get married and have a family... and... and what, just carry on the big lie like mum and dad did.
Ah fuck, it doesn’t matter what way you go, it all comes back to the same thing, back to the same point. And you can’t escape it, you can’t run away, not like how I used too, which I’m getting a better understanding about every day.
So Terry ‘ol son, what is your future going to be, eh? And what’s that you say, you don’t have a fucking clue anymore. Yeah well maybe that’s as it’s meant to be, but it makes me feel so insecure, because what if it all goes to shit and I can’t work and my feelings take me down into being unable to do anything. Ah I don’t know, it’s all too fucking much to think about - more bad stuff to speak with Ann about. And as she says, we can’t know, so it is one day - one feeling - at a time whether we like it or not. And as she also says, but then who’s to say that’s not how it’s meant to be anyway. And that how we live trying to insure ourselves against some bad thing happening is all wrong. And that if we do just live true to our feelings, then God or whomever it is who’s set it all in motion will look after us... but then again, what does that mean - that He will look after me. God, will you look after me?
Oh, what’s that you’re saying God... You already are looking after me by putting me through all this shit. Oh well if that’s the case, then thank You very much, and oh I am so happy, thrilled to bits to be able to live in such a fucked-up state. And hey, remind me to recommend it to every new soul that’s wanting to come into the world... hey you there, soul, you new-soul-to-be, do you know that you’re incarnating into evil, that you’re going to feel unloved by the very people who should love you the most; and then, just when you think you’re having a grand old time, you’ll become and be just as evil as they are. And if you’re blissfully ignorant, hey, you might even like or love your life, doing all your shit parenting to your own children and pets, fucking them up no end whilst you all pretend you’re having such a wonderful time. Hey, it’s great stuff, and then you might even happen upon doing your healing like I have, and then you might find yourself like I am, raving away about all this shit to no one whilst you’re in your car going nowhere, just doing more of your meaningless life.
And hey, it’s great fun, yeah, a real fucking hoot! So come on in, and get all fucked up and then pretend you’re fine and you’re having a fucking ball, and then do your healing and realise you’ve been legging yourself over all this time, and feel all those bad feelings you’ve been trying to hide from yourself. Oh yeah, I highly recommend it. Me - Terry Arnold, fuck I hate the Arnold part more so every day, I wonder if Ann wouldn’t mind changing her name and we could get married and fuck everyone off.
Yeah maybe we should do that, just go away, go and live somewhere else, in another country or something, just get right away so at least then we’d have a good excuse not to keep seeing the family. But na, that too is probably just running away even more, better to stay and keep seeing what bad feelings come up, as Ann would no doubt say.
And fuck, how come she is so bloody good at all this healing shit, how come she seems to know what it’s all about so easily. God, she speaks sometimes about it as if she’s always known it, like she’s the ruddy expert. And it seems right what she says, and the further we go the more she is proved right. So fuck that, that is an amazing thing, so maybe it’s a woman thing... or maybe I’m just a dolt. A fucking dolt man, yeah, and fuck that too, Ann would probably fucking agree. And what a mad relationship it’s becoming. She is living with me a stupid idiot dolt man who is fucked and can hardly express his feelings and doesn’t seen to know where he’s going with it all, and yet all she keeps bloody saying is she likes me more and more. The more fucked I am admitting to myself that I am fucked, the more she seems to like me. So fuck that, how does that make sense. But none of this stuff does make sense with our minds, that’s for sure, even though here I am working it all out, or at least trying to, with my mind. But still it’s really only through and with our feelings that it seems to make sense, and who’s ever been able to make any sense out of feelings - not me!
So fuck, I don’t know. But am I supposed to know? Ha! Another bloody insight: maybe I’m not supposed to know. Maybe that’s it! I’m not meant to know, when all along, all these years I’ve believed I am somehow meant to know. But maybe it’s unknowable, and that it just comes to us as we move along growing in truth. The truth sure comes that much I know, but maybe also the whole knowing about it will as well. When I look back at myself I can sense how far I’ve come. I am not the Terry I used to be. And yet on the surface I’m still doing the same things I used to be, still in the same job, seeing the same clients, still with Ann, and yet on the inside I’m a different person every day I see these other people. I wonder if they can sense any change in me, because no one has said anything.
So maybe it is all just an inner thing, but na, surely it’s got to show on the outside sometime. So then maybe it will, it’s only a matter of time. And then what happens, what if these people don’t like the new Terry, what then do I do. And what if I no longer like them... Ah fuck it’s too much again, so I’ll let that one go too. Or, yeah, more to talk over with Annie. Fuck I’ve only been away a short time and look at how much I want to talk to her about again, it just keeps coming. I hope she’s feeling better. Maybe I should by her some flowers... but na, that’s only bullshit, what good will they do for her. I’ll tell her that I thought about it and then what I just thought, and I’m sure she’ll say that’s all too affected all that crap and she’d much rather we just talk about it all. And you can’t argue with that, talking sure is cheaper, we hardly go out anymore, we’ve got more money, our expenses are coming down, and all because we’re preferring to talk about everything with each other. Just sitting there talking, talking and talking, fuck I don’t think I’ve talked so much about anything before. And just when I think that surely is it, there can’t possibly be anything more to talk about, then I go for a half-hour drive and fuck me, I’ve got so much more to I want to talk about!
Ah, fucking home at last, shit what a ride!
Back at home
Terry, I still feel so miserable.
Do you?
Yes, really terrible. I don’t think I’ve felt this bad before. I feel like I’m sinking into the sea of my misery and it’s very deep and I had no idea that I such depth of misery feeling is in me. I feel so bad, so wretched, so bad... how was it?
Good, I had a very insightful time. I felt very angry again because of some bloke cutting me off, and I tried to express my anger out loud as if you were in the car - so I yelled and talked away to myself like I’m mad, but it was good, I had lots of insights as I said, but there’s plenty of time to tell you about it all, I think it’s probably better if you can talk more about how you’re feeling. Can you?
I’ll try. I feel so bad, so down, like I’ve sunken down inside myself and I fear I’ll never get up, I’ll never recover. I feel worried that I’ll remain in this state forever, feeling so down, depressed, so miserable. Usually I’m what you might call a cheery even gay sort of person, but right now I feel like it’s all gone. I don’t know where it’s all gone to, but it’s as if I never had it. I feel like I’m the most dull and boring person in the world. That I have nothing of any value to talk about. All the writers I read all have so much to say about themselves and life, so much they’ve come to see and understand about everything, but what do I have - nothing. What sort of life have I had - a nothing life. I’ve not travelled, I’ve not had a family, I’ve not even got married. I’ve not done anything of what most people do, and I’ve only had a few jobs, but really I’ve not done much at all.
So I feel like I’m nothing, like I’ve got nothing to offer anyone - the world. I’m just a waste of space, a nothing sort of person, a no one, just no one Terry, that’s how I feel.
And you worry about that, like it’s wrong to be that way, like you should be how other people are?
Yes, yes I do. I do worry about it. All my life I’ve wanted to be someone, but now I’m getting older and I’m having to face the truth that I’m a nothing no one, and that no one will like me because of that. I have nothing to give, nothing to offer anyone, and I’ve only got you. Sure I’ve got my family and a few friends, but what are they to me and they are fading away every day as I work more on myself. So really all I’ve got is you Terry, but what are you, you’re a no one like me, we’re just two nobodies, too useless nobodies and that makes me feel very bad. But you don’t feel like that, do you Terry, like you’re a useless nobody?
No, not at the moment. I’ve had my moments, but at the moment I feel rather good with all I went through on the drive. I feel more mad, but at the moment I feel okay about that too. I feel like I don’t have a fucking clue about any of this, any of my life, anything about where it’s heading, and that it’s falling down around my ears, but still not bad. I’m sure I will, but not right at this point in time - no.
I wish I didn’t feel bad. I wish I didn’t feel so miserable. I wish I were happy and felt really good and really loved. I’ve had a shit rotten life really Terry, that’s something I’m having to face more of. I thought it was good, okay, even better than some others. But now I don’t think so, now I think I’ve had a nothing life, a no account life and I’m a no account person because of it.
And look at my parents Terry, what do they have to show for all their years. Okay so they’ve got their own nice house and they are quite well off and won’t have to worry about money or anything like that. And they can settle back into enjoying being grandparents with the boys and my sisters all having children. But I don’t have any, and I can’t see us having any. Really Terry, would we want to subject our children to our shit. I don’t know. It all seems so pointless, everything I think about, less and less do I want to have what other people have anyway. Would I want to have the lives of my brothers and sisters, no, no I don’t think I would. I used to, but not any longer, all of that seems to be fading away. Because I only have to think about their lives, all they do, and what’s it all for, and are they really happy and do they feel really and truly loved. And I hate so much of how they treat their children and I can see it’s just how mum and dad treated us; and so no, I don’t envy them anymore and nor do I feel like I’m a failure because I’m not ‘getting on with my life’ like they are.
So I don’t know, I just feel so bad.
At least you’re working on those bad feelings Ann, striving to bring them up so you can see the truth of them, your brothers and sisters aren’t, and one day they will.
Yes I know, but I don’t care about any of that either. I feel so down, so depressed, so full of misery and like I’ll drown in it all.
Does that scare you, it does me?
Yes I feel scared about it, but I know there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t stop it and I don’t want to. You know how I feel about such things now, so I want to let myself, if I can, drown in my misery, just give in and subject myself to it, to allow it to overwhelm me even if I feel depressed for the rest of my life. I don’t want to feel so bad, and I hate feel this way, but it’s all obviously in me or else I wouldn’t be feeling like this; and I know we can’t make these feelings up, so I just want to submit to them and see where they take me. Only I wish it was a nice journey of self-discovery and not the hell-ride into darkness it’s turning out to be.
Yeah, I agree with you there.
And we might both end up feeling so miserable Terry that we can’t go on. Or you might find that I’m too much of a down and depressed miserable person, not the happy life-of-the-party girl I was when you first met me. But that me was all false, this is more like the true me, the me that I was trying to cover up.
I like you as you are Ann, and I don’t mind if you want to be depressed all the time. I don’t mind now, I might if you go on and on with it, but that’s up to you, and as you said, it’s not as if you can do anything about it anyway. And as neither of us want to go to the doctor if we can help it, so until it becomes too unbearable and you might be driven to get that sort of help, I’ll here and wanting you to keep being as you are.
No way do I want to go to the doctor Terry, not if I can help it. More and more I’m feeling I’d rather die first than do that. But as you say, how do I know, it might get so bad that I have to do something like that. I don’t know, it’s all so terribly difficult and always having to work on ourselves like this, always having to look to try and express and uncover the truth of yet more bad feelings. And so many bad feelings - so much misery. I can’t believe I felt so miserable during my early life particularly when I thought I was quite happy and mum, and dad always said I was a happy child.
But I feel so miserable and I only have to remember all that which we talked about this morning and I feel so sad again for myself. So I don’t know, all I can do is keep talking about it all to you. That’s all I can do, keep expressing all I feel.
Yeah I know. That much I’ve come to myself as well. It is all we can do, there is nothing else. How about I make us some lunch.
Yes please, I don’t think I can do anything how I’m feeling.
Does your misery feelings make you feel like you want to do anything?
What like, what do you mean?
Well like... kill yourself for example, like if it all gets too bad. Do you ever think about that, about what if it did get too bad and you couldn’t cope with it?
I have thought about it, but I don’t think I could go through with it. However I don’t know how bad I might feel. Have you thought about killing yourself?
Occasionally I have. But like you, I doubt I’d be able to do it. I still can’t relate to those people who do, they must feel so unbearably bad.
Yes, I don’t know, but I would imagine they would. But still they must have some power within themselves to be able to do it, it’s not as if it’s an easy thing to do. How I’m feeling now I don’t feel like I have any power, I can’t do anything, I’m a useless nothing of a person, so not even one who would be capable of killing themselves.
I’ve not thought of that, that you’d have to have some amount of power to knock yourself off. But you’d surely also feel so powerless as well, that being why you feel so bad, like as you’re saying that you’re a nothing and no good person - it seems a bit of a contradiction.
I don’t know Terry and really it’s pointless talking about it, because it does us no good to speculate. That’s you going off again trying to be the other person, trying to imagine how it is for them when there is no way you can possibly know. Maybe if you could somehow meet them, like in the afterlife and they could tell you how they felt and so why they did it, but until then, there’s no point talking about it.
True, I can see what you’re saying, but still I think it’s reasonable to put yourself, or try to at least, in another person to see what they are feeling.
But you can’t know what they are feeling Terry, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. You can’t possibly know what another person is feeling. And you might think it does something for you, but it doesn’t really as all it’s doing is taking your mind off yourself, off what you’re feeling by trying to work out what another person might be going through. It’s just more fantasy stuff Terry, that which we’re trying to avoid.
Yeah all right, I can see what you mean. And yes, you’re right, it is my going off and leaving myself and my feelings, and no, I don’t want to do that.
But still you should talk more about it, about why you do want to do it, because you do do it. And you can’t just stop yourself doing it, and you shouldn’t anyway. But you should want to long to see the truth of why you do, what happened to you to make you want to do it, how your parents treated you so as to help you form that behaviour.
Yeah, but I don’t know. Unless I have a bad feeling up in me pressing for me to speak about it, I find it very difficult to just do it. But I’ll try and see what comes. Okay, so what was it... oh yeah, that I have to work out, or find the truth of why I go off in my mind putting myself in other people trying to work out how they might be feeling. And, so why...
And fuck me Ann if I don’t already know, the answer has just dropped into my mind, that’s what it felt like, like someone was even telling it to me.
And it’s because, again, mum and dad made us all do that, we all had to ‘put ourselves in the other persons shoes’ and feel what they were feeling. Shit, so I can see that’s what I’ve done - what I do. But as you said, I can’t do it, it’s impossible because I’m not that person. And fuck me, all these years I’ve believed I was able to do it, and-
That’s right, and you’ve just made it all up for yourself. You’ve told yourself what they are feeling and you’ve believed you’ve been right and that you know.
Yes, you’re right, I have. I can see that. I have made it all up, it’s all been as you say one big fantasy. And shit really I’ve not had any idea. And I do that with you. I believe I know what you’re feeling or how you will feel if such and such happens, but it’s not true, is it?
No, and that’s how I knew what you were going to say, because you do do it to me. I’ve not pulled you up on it much, but I’m pleased you’re coming to see it for yourself.
So what else have you not pulled me up on Ann?
Lots of things Terry, but I’ve decided that it’s better if you come to see how you are for yourself in your own time and all through your own feelings, instead of me just telling you what I think. And it’s not right for me to keep telling you anyway, unless I have to say something because something you are doing makes me feel bad. Which I do, I can’t not talk about such things when you make me feel bad. And you must have things about me you can see that I’m doing that are not right, and so would say so if they made you feel bad.
I’d say so if I felt bad, but I can’t see anything at the moment that you’re doing that I would say is not right. Shit how would I fucking know what is right! Less and less am I having any idea about any of this, about anything about myself and my life. It feels like it’s all falling down around me, but still, as I said, strangely, or so far so good, I’m not feeling bad about any of it at the moment. Tomorrow... yes, tomorrow is another day, and no doubt I’ll feel shit about it all then.
Probably Terry. That is something isn’t it, there’s no getting away from it.
Yeah I know, it all catches up with you.
After dinner
How are you feeling now Ann, still as miserable?
No, it’s eased off a bit now. But still I feel all those same things I was speaking about at lunch time. I still feel like I’m of no account, a nobody and that no one will like me because of that. And now I feel very lonely. Yes Terry, that feeling has started to come up in me again. I feel very lonely again, and as you know now, I don’t mean lonely now for with you, but it’s all feelings of how I felt back then with them - with mum and dad.
I feel so lonely, so lonely. I am with these people but I feel so lonely, and that’s such a horrible feeling. I can remember that’s how I used to feel, but I didn’t fully understand or realise what it was all about, what it all meant back then. But now I do, or at least I’m beginning to.
I feel so depressed and miserable I think because I feel so lonely, and I feel like I’ve never actually recovered from the shock and trauma of feeling so alone. I felt so bad as I’ve told you when I was sent to my room having to cry myself to sleep, but that’s only one part of it, for now I feel like it applies to all my early life. And it’s such an odd thing to reconcile, because I can remember us all laughing and having a good time together. During Christmas or our birthday parties and lots of other times with mum and dad, and us all rolling around in fits of laugher, and feeling happy and so good to be feeling so good... but now, now I just feel the complete opposite, and so alone. I feel like they are all strangers to me, as if I’ve never really shared any good times with them, as if I’ve never really been happy. Oh it’s all so weird all these contradicting feelings.
Yeah I know. I wonder if it’s just because when our bad feelings come up in us, because they are all we feel at that time, then that’s how we feel it’s always been, when it wasn’t actually as bad as that. Or, are these feelings all very real and true, and all those so-called good feelings weren’t as good as we thought they were.
I don’t know, but in these feelings now it’s as if there’s no room for any other feelings, and certainly no good ones. So that’s all I’m focused on. And they are so overwhelming, and you might be right Terry, it might be that it’s just because they are so strong and up within me at the moment that they block out all my good memories and good feelings like I said I remember feeling, but I don’t know. And maybe it was all crap too, all untrue, all a fantasy and lie. Maybe how I’m feeling now is the truth, and all the rest is a delusion. Maybe I never truly did feel good and all the good feelings I felt were just within the bad, sort of like a subset of them or something like that. Or possibly they were just all part of my falseness, all superficial and not really real at all. I don’t know if we can create unreal feelings, feelings I think are always real - they are as they are, but it’s more how we interpret them where we might go wrong. Or it might be how they come about, that our false mind like we read about somehow creates them, so we believe we’re feeling good when in fact we’re not, it all showing how far we’ve turned ourselves away from our true feeling self.
Yes I feel a bit better. I’m looking forward to going to bed, but not if I’m going to have more bad dreams. I hate feeling how bad I felt today Terry. God I hate it. It’s so bad, and there’s no feeling of ever feeling good again. I feel like I’m at the end, so despairing and that in some ways I shouldn’t keep going on.
Like you should die or something?
I don’t know. Because if there is an afterlife, then I’m going on still. And what I was feeling earlier was like I should just cease to be. Like my feelings are so unbearably bad that I should just crease to be, like they should extinguish me or something like that. Like I, all the other parts of me should or will cease to exist and I’ll only be my bad feelings. And that terrifies me Terry, like I’ll be trapped in them forevermore, that there will be no escape, no ever getting free of them. That I’ll be bound up in a bad-feeling pusher forevermore, unable to move and do anything for myself. And that me, the person will have disappeared in some way, no longer being real or there, and all that will be left of me will be my misery and despair and all my yuk bad feelings.
So like you’re nothing else but bad feelings.
Yes, like that. And like they will have finally, once and for all, taken me over, consumed me or something like that; and I will not be as I am, I will be only my bad feelings. Yes, like they are sort of like the evil monster that has devoured me and I will have become as it is, just all my bad feelings, one big seething mass of bad feelings. And no one will like or want me, on one will want to come anywhere near me. And I’ll be all poxy looking - one big huge pox, all pus-ridden, all full of puke, like a cancerous disease that is misery and despair and feeling so alone and unloved. And I’ll be just a seething mass of bad feelings, just a blob of them, so vile, so putrid that no one will even want to look at them - at me. And neither will I. I don’t want to look at my own putridness, my own bad feelings, the whole lot them in all their ugliness. And I can’t see them in a good light, that they are something even beautiful and amazing. Oh god no, I see a putrid rancid spreading fungus, foul-smelling and disgusting. And it’s all me, I can feel it, as I am my feelings.
So you’re describing yourself - what you are as in what your feelings are?
Yes Terry, that’s right, that’s what I’m doing, and I’m not a pretty sight.
Oh I don’t know about that, you look kind of cute in that nighty.
You know what I mean Terry, that you are going to bed with a slimy putrid smelling yuk that I am. That I’m not actually how you think I am.
You mean you’re not some sexy broad that I want to kiss and cuddle to death.
No, that I’m really an evil monster in disguise, and if you don’t watch it, I’ll consume you as well. And that’s what some people say or think, that it’s wrong to indulge in your bad feelings because they’ll consume you, they being the very evil you fear, so you want to do all you can to keep as far as possible away from them. As if bad feelings are evil, they are an evil monster, and yet it’s themselves they are talking about, their own bad feelings. As we ARE our feelings.
Yeah well if you’re evil, then I don’t mind at all Lying With The Devil.
I don’t know why Terry, you should, and you should be repulsed by me. You should want to kick me out, to get as far away from me as you can. Not want to be with me, and even share the same bed with me.
Yeah well you can think that, but I don’t want to kick you out because then I’d be all alone, and those bad feelings I don’t want. So I’ll just have put up with all your bad smells and slimy putridness. And it’s not so bad anyway, really it’s not.
You must be deranged in your head Terry, that’s all I can say. Why you or anyone would want to be with me, that’s how I feel. I can’t see it, I can’t see what you see in me. And if you were to throw me out with the garbage it would be right and I expect you to.
And what would you do?
I don’t know. I can’t think about that. Lie in the gutter somewhere with all the other filth I should think. Lie there until I perish, that’s what I feel like I would do. There were I belong, cast aside, unwanted filth, waste rubbish unwanted by the world, unwanted by anyone, unwanted by mum and dad, unwanted by even you Terry. That’s how I feel.
Shit Ann, if that is how you really feel, shit, I had no idea.
I’m not joking, it’s how I’ve been feeling all day, it’s only taken this long for me to be able to bring it all up. But I have felt like this on and off through my life. I’ve not really been able to speak about it, but I can see those same feelings have been there all along. I’ve had them from my early childhood, that much I know, so it must be how mum and dad made me feel.
Yes, I guess so. But fuck, you can’t tell what might be going on in someone. And with so many depths to us all, and all so hidden.
I know - I told you, can’t know what another person is feeling, you can only know yourself, if you want to as we’re doing. But it’s all real, our feelings don’t lie, and as you know you can’t make them go away when you allow them to be up within you. So they are real and all we can do is just go with them, saying whatever it is they make us want to say, all so we can see what they are wanting to show and tell us about ourselves and our lives and our relationships with everyone. Terry, would you mind if we went to bed early tonight?
Shit no, not at all, it sounds like a good idea. I’ll be able to get in with you in all your sliminess.
You’ll be sorry, you wait. When you come to your senses and see me in my true light, see me for how I really am, you’ll be sorry and you’ll be out of here running for your life.
Yeah well if it comes to that I’ll worry about it then. And in the mean time, I don’t care what you say about yourself, you can run yourself down into your slime pit, but I don’t see you in that light. It might be true and I might be as you say still seriously deluded and looking through rose-coloured glasses at you, but until they get taken off, I’ll not be running anywhere but to the bed.
Really Terry, you really mean all of that what you just said?
Of course, I wouldn’t have said it otherwise.
And all I’ve been saying about myself hasn’t put you off me one bit?
No, not in the slightest. And in fact I find it kind of a turn on, but don’t ask me to talk about those feelings, I’ve had a big day - we both have.
No I won’t, that’s all right, I understand your depraved and perverted in many ways, but that’s okay with me. You can be that whilst I can be a slime bucket.
It’s a deal.
And you probably only feel turned on by it because I’m in such a weakened state, so powerless, and now is your big chance to gain some power by having power over me. So you turn it all into a sexual fantasy.
God Ann, where do you get it all from?
I don’t know, it just comes to me. It’s probably from all I’ve read. You’d probably get it all too Terry if you read more, if you’d have read all the books I have about peoples lives and how they’ve felt about things. There is a lot in what I feel about myself that I can see from my reading of books that other people felt about themselves. I don’t think any of us are really too different Terry, it’s just that some peoples lives have taken them possibly deeper into their feelings, I don’t know; or it might be just that that’s how it is, we all have different experiences yet about or involving the same feelings. And my interpretation of what I feel is my way, and yours is your way... but I don’t know.
No, me either, and it’s too much for my brain anyway. What say we call it quits and we can talk more about it in bed.
Okay.
A couple of hours later, lying in the dark together
How are you feeling now Ann?
No so bad. It’s nice just lying here with you Terry, even though you stink.
Do you want me to have a shower, it must have been all my handy-man work around the house today.
All your hammering your own thumb you mean. No, it’s okay, so long as I don’t put my head under the sheets.
It was an incredible day, though, wasn’t it!
It sure was!
And thank you again Terry for not rejecting me, for not throwing me out because you finally saw that really I am a drain on you, that you do all the work and I do nothing, because I am a nothing person, and just an evil slime nothing at that.
You can’t say you do nothing Ann, if it wasn’t for you I sure wouldn’t be here now having worked this much on myself and come this far.
And you would probably have met some nice attractive woman and be happily married with a couple of kids by now.
No Annie, that’s not for me, not anymore. It was, yes, I do admit that, that’s what I wanted, but now, it’s not to be, it’s not my life, because if it were, I would be with that other person as I’d be another person, but here I am with you. And we’re in this together, and so far as I can see, for as long as it takes.
But what if I go mad or something horrible like that. What if I go all gaga and start frothing at the mouth and pooing in my pants. What if I turn into the slime that I am?
We can deal with that if and when it happens. And I don’t think it will get to that anyway.
How do you know Terry, you can’t say that, you don’t know how it will get. We’ve got no idea what might be inside us and how we really feel about ourselves. We might end up two old farts dribbling and drooling all over each other.
Yeah well, I can’t think about that. God I don’t know where you come up with it all.
I’m just being realistic Terry, you’ve got to face these things, you know, bring them up and out into the open and see what they consist of. They are all just feelings, they keep coming up into my mind, so I keep speaking them. I can’t help it, it’s just how I am. And I don’t know if that’s how other people would be like if they do their healing, but it’s how I am like and I can’t be any other way.
No.
But you don’t have to like me Terry, you know you’re not under any obligation, you’re not under contract. You can hate me, and be repulsed by me; you can reject me and throw me out on the heap to rot.
Jesus Annie, is there no end to it!
No, there isn’t - are you ready to throw me out now?
No, I’m not angry yet with you, but I am amazed at how you keep coming up with it all.
Well I think I’ve had enough for one day now Terry. I think I need to go to sleep. Do you mind that we don’t have sex or do anything like that?
No, I’m too tired anyway, and it’s not as if all you’ve been saying is conducive to it.
I thought you said it turned you on.
You went way past that.
So now you’re turned off by me!
No, just neutral, you’ve given me a lot to think about. I don’t know what I think about it all. I think I need to sleep on it.
Thanks for putting up with me anyway Terry. I do like it when I can say all my worst stuff and you don’t abandon me. When you don’t throw me out.
You certainly are always pushing it to new extremes, new depths - new limits. And I feel all I can do is simply go along with you, doing the best I can to express what I feel. But it’s a lot take in, and it’s all still so new all of this for me. I’ve never heard anyone speak about themselves like you have been doing. I don’t know what to think, I don’t know whether I am shitting myself because you are scaring the hell out of me and I should do as you say and boot you out and run like hell. But then I don’t feel bad, it’s not as if you’re doing anything bad to me. But then I also have little panic attacks about what if you do go mad, or I do, or something happens and one of us does change too much. And then what would I do, where would I go. I can’t see I’d meet anyone else who wanted to do their healing, and even if they did, would it end up the same way, with our hating each other or rejecting each other because we can’t stand how we’ve changed.
Nothing any different to how any relationship ends.
Yeah I guess not. But this is all so new to me, and really I don’t know what to think. Fuck, how many times have I said that now! And I don’t know what to feel. There are too many feelings, shit they are coming up all the time, and about every thing we talk about. I hardly have time to think about one thing you say and then you’re saying something else that’s taking me into new areas, it’s all too much.
You’re doing okay, you’ve not freaked out or got angry with me or tried to stop me.
I’m only just hanging on. I think I must be near the edge, you’ve pushed me to almost over it.
All right, then so I’d better shut up and we can go to sleep.
If I can and don’t stay awake thinking about it all.
If you need to speak, wake me up.
All right, but is it going to be like this twenty-four hours a day, I’ll not be able to cope.
Then it’s lucky you’ve got Sunday tomorrow.
Yes, probably another full-on day like it was today.
Oh well if it is, there’s nothing we can do about it other than keep speaking about all we feel and longing for the truth of such feelings. It’s all in God’s hands, He’s doing it all to us, or making us do it all.
Oh god would you shut up, I’ve had enough for one day, don’t you get tired of it, and you were the one feeling as miserable as shit all day long.
All right, I won’t say anything more. Goodnight Terry.
Ah thank god, peace at last!
Terry...
Nooooooooooooooooooo!
Getting up.
Argh Terry I had a bad dream and I feel bad - miserable. In it I was with another person and we were shopping somewhere, like in a big department store and I was looking at a little boy strapped in his pusher crying his eyes out and his mother just ignoring him. You know, we’ve seen it so much now, so many mothers pushing their little ones around but not with them, ignoring them, not wanting really to be their mothers as we’ve discussed. And in the dream suddenly it was as if I were the little boy and I felt how miserable he felt, so alone, so unloved, so unwanted. And I cried for him, I cried and cried, and I don’t think I’ve cried in a dream before.
And of course now being awake I can see that I feel like it’s me, I’m that little boy, and I was crying for myself. It’s so clear and yet in the dream I wasn’t him, I was just there watching and feeling so bad and sorry for him. But now I am him.
Why do you think you’re a boy and not a little girl? That part about dreams I’ve always wondered about, why aren’t they more straightforward, you know, if it is you and you’re looking at yourself, why isn’t it at least a little girl you’re looking at... and why isn’t it even yourself, why are they always so symbolic?
I don’t know, and I don’t care about any of that, it’s only my bad feelings I’m interested in. And I feel very miserable, very sad for myself, sad that I was treated like that - I know I was. I can’t remember specific times, but I just feel sure that I was. It’s a strong feeling deep inside me and I feel so alone, so afraid, so scared, so unhappy - so unloved. I feel so despairing, like all of me is in pain and I can’t do anything. I didn’t want to get up out of bed. Bad, so bad, so bad - I feel so bad.
I feel miserable, so sad that I couldn’t have been happy, that I couldn’t have had a good early life, that things weren’t as good with mum and dad as I believed they were. And all these bad feelings that keep coming up all helping me to see how it was with them, there seems no end to them. I feel so miserable, so sad, like I want to, or even are in some way, crying, and that I’ve never stopped crying. Crying for being strapped in that pusher, all tied up, not being able to move, unable to do anything for myself, unable to move around freely; tied up, so restricted, almost like I can’t breathe.
And what did mum care about me. I mean seriously, did she care, did she care that I couldn’t move, that I couldn’t do what I wanted to do. That I had to stay all bound up while she got on and did her life; and what for, all so she didn’t have to worry about me, all so she could control me, stopping me running around or something.
And you see all those little kids strapped in and hardly able to move.
But some of them seem to like it, even wanting to remain in their pushers.
Yes I know, but really Terry, is it natural? I don’t think so, so what does that show you, those children are probably so conditioned to it that they’d rather remain strapped in having all but accepted they have nothing of a life when they go out. I don’t know, of course I can’t really judge, but to me it just doesn’t seem right; and how I’m feeling now, I feel like I didn’t ever want to be strapped in, I wanted to be free, and I think we all do. But free in what, what sort of a life is it to be free in, and that too makes me feel bad; free to go walking around a shopping centre, and what good is in that, where’s the fun and real freedom. And when you compare how we were treated to what we were reading about the Australian Aboriginals, how free their little picaninnies are, all up and running at such an early age with no one in control of them and all feeling happy and secure in their large family groups.
And what about that English woman who lived on one of those early outback stations, how that little Aboriginal boy who wasn’t even four was able to tell her all about the tracks of all the animals and what all the people were doing. How they went to the where the men had saddled their horses for the day and the boy was able to read the ground saying that this man did this, this man’s horse played up, this man followed this man, and so on, when the woman said she couldn’t see anything on the ground. And he was so sure of himself, so self-determined, so in control of himself and his life and so unafraid, and he was not even four. I mean Terry, seriously we’re all retards compared to someone like him. And all because of our heavy conditioning, all that bloody control we’re subjected to. So much fucking control, all having to obey our parents, obey the rules of society, all having to be strapped in and confined to our pushers, never free to even step on the dirt and live truly and freely in nature. That little boy and his people are alive, we’re all dead in the lives we live. Like what you’ve been saying Terry, how dead a life is having to go to work every day just so you can earn money. Living an artificial life, meaningless, and all for what? So you can say I worked here doing this for so long and I was good at my job. I mean to say, big deal, so you’re good at doing something that’s completely meaningless, something that wouldn’t even exist if we were living true and natural lives.
Ah fuck Terry, I feel so bad, so miserable about myself and about it all. But as you said, I wonder why I was a boy in the dream. No, I don’t know about that.
Have you longed for the truth of it?
No, but I will...
I feel so bad, so trapped, so alone, they don’t really care about me, it’s all just a fantasy. You have children, it’s what you do. But really mum and dad didn’t want me, that much I know now; they didn’t give all of themselves to me, they just had to do all these things with me because they had me, and it’s what you do when you have children.
And again I feel so angry that for us girls it was so much more controlled, the boys had it so much easier. And you know, this thought came to me the other day, but I think really mum and dad liked the boys better than us girls. I think because we had to all be such young ladies we were more of a bother. And I think in some ways that really they’d have preferred to have just had boys.
Really?
Yes, and having said it, it’s coming up stronger in me now. Yes, I think that we girls were really just a waste of space, something that they had to put up with and not something they enjoyed. And I know they’ve always made a great effort to support us girls in all we’ve done, and on the surface of it you’d never think they didn’t want us or wanted the boys in preference to us, but there are subtle signs threaded all the way through, all of which are becoming increasingly obvious to me.
And that makes me feel bad, and... Oh Terry! I think that’s it! That’s why I was a boy in the dream, it was to help show me more that that is what mum and dad wanted, and that in some ways I too wanted to be a boy. I know when I was younger I really did want to be a boy, like the boys, as they didn’t have to all the things we girls were made to do; but I think now it goes even deeper than that, and in some ways I’ve never wanted to be a girl.
Gee, and you know, I think all my feminism has been a show, something to try and cover that up, sort of like not wanting to face and acknowledge it, that because underneath I detest being a girl and it’s the last thing I want to be; so I’ve gone the other way more so, more in an extreme sense trying to fight for my and women’s rights. All to try and pretend to myself that I am good being a girl and girls are worthwhile and wanted, and even so much so that we don’t need boys, we don’t need men, fuck men, we can do it all on our own, we can prove it, we’re just as capable, just as strong and all of that. But really it’s a cover, all because underneath, for me anyway, I don’t want to be a girl. Girls aren’t wanted as much as boys.
That’s a big one Ann!
Yes I know, and I feel that’s right. I feel that’s what my dream is helping me to see.
But still being that boy you’re still trapped in the pusher, you’re not free and able to go and be as you want to be.
Yes, that’s right, so there’s no way out is there. Even if I was a boy, I can’t imagine what it would have been like to be one of the boys, and so you’re right, and that makes me feel even worse, for now I can see there was no escape for me, not even into my dreams, not even in a fantasy.
No Terry, I am just controlled, well and truly, all bound up - tied up, strapped in, unable to move. And that’s how I feel and have felt a lot during my life. I’ve never spoken about it or articulated the feelings, but it is. I’ve always felt like I’m a caged bird, and I’ve always wished I could just be free, you know, fly, spread my wings and just be ‘free as a bird’. And I don’t want to remain cage-bound my whole life Terry, I want to set myself free.
Yeah that would be good. Do you think you can, that you’ll ever be able to?
I don’t know, but I sure hope so. I hope it’s what this healing is all about, all helping me to free myself. It’s what we read it will and can do, but... shit, I am heavily strapped in my pusher, really that’s how I feel about all of my life, that I’m heavily strapped in, and I’m not free to be my true self, whatever that would be like.
And all these bad feelings, I feel so sad and sorry for myself. There I am that little person looking so miserable, so alone, so isolated from everyone else, so out of life, not able to express him or herself how I please; being all bound up, strapped in like a good girl - yes a good girl who can’t fucking move!
And I just want to rip all those straps apart, tear them apart setting myself free.
Free of all your parents control.
Yes, they’ve strapped me into my life, they’ve made me be how I am - how I feel. Fuck them, it’s so bad, and they think they love me and did all good things for me. You heard mum the other night, when she was saying how she and dad worked so hard to provide us kids with all the good things that life had to offer, and that they felt they’d done a good job with us, as we’ve all turned out all right.
That none of you are murderers.
Yes I know. It’s all so pathetic, and when she was saying that, and knowing now how I feel about it, they have no idea, and yet how can they, I didn’t have any idea either until we started doing all of this.
And it all sounds so lame, so pathetic now, the kids have ‘turned out all right’. Seriously, what does that mean. It’s like we’re some product and they’ve worked the machine well and done an okay job, and they are happy with it, with the end result; but are we kids, and do they ask us, and do they care.
And it makes me feel like, because they can say that, so they are good, and they won’t get into trouble; no one, like God or someone, is going to punish them because their kids turned out all right. So they can be let off, they won’t get into trouble, they don’t have to worry about anything, they can retire knowing they have ‘done a good job’ raising their children.
And ‘done a good job’, seriously, what does that also mean. That parenting is nothing more than a job, and you’re either good at your job or bad at it. And all those parents who are bad at it fuck their children up, but my parents get a big pat on their backs because they did a good job.
It’s all so pathetic Terry, and that’s how I feel today, fucking pathetic. I am nothing more than a good job, and good end product; I’m not a person called Ann who is a living and breathing and FEELING person. And all so long as they can sleep well at nights knowing they’ve done a good job, but it’s all their own fantasy, it’s nothing about what’s real. And I don’t feel like I’m a job-well-done, I feel fucked today, completely miserable and all strapped up in my fucking pusher while mum pushes me around doing her good job.
It’s all such a show, she’s just putting on the show of ‘doing a good job’ all to impress all the other people around-
It wasn’t much of a show the mother in your dream, and all those other mothers we’ve seen ignoring their kids like that.
I know, but still, she thinks she’s doing the right thing; and it’s what - so it would seem to someone like her who’s not aware of her own feelings let alone my feelings - everyone does. It’s what’s acceptable, it’s how you ‘be a good parent’, only as we’re starting to see more clearly now, it’s the connection you have with your child that matters, not the show of being how everyone else is, you all doing the same things, and because you do, then you’re all doing what’s right.
I hate how there’s nothing very personal about it. It’s always ‘that’s how it is’, ‘that’s how it was’, as she said, it’s how it was in her day, what they all did, what all the mothers did, so she feels she’s done a good job. Argh but it all sucks, it really does Terry, that much I at least understand now.
Bad, I feel bad, very bad, still so miserable. I feel very miserable Terry, very miserable about it all, miserable for myself, miserable for mum, she didn’t know, she was treated that way by her mother, miserable for us all.
Yeah.
And seeing that other woman yesterday with her little toddler boy, she was so relaxed about everything, talking to him like he actually was a real person, and the little boy wanting to push the pusher around himself and it wasn’t even his pusher, she not having one for him. And they seemed so happy together, and she saying he was her fourth boy, and she looked so good, so tall and slim, you’d not have thought she’d have had four children. And how she never reprimanded him, didn’t say no or growl at him, like so many other mothers are usually doing. She was easy going with him, not fussed at all, but was right there with him; and he seemed so happy, not like that poor sad little boy in my dream, and all those other poor sad looking children we’ve seen strapped in their pushers.
And how they were laughing and she was still doing her thing, and he was there happy to be with her and she with him. It was all so nice, you could feel the love, the bond, the happy connection, not how I feel it was with me and mum.
I feel so miserable Terry, so bad, so unloved, so unhappy, and so unwanted. I feel so alone, alone with this man and woman who are called my mother and father and yet are really strangers to me-
You might have felt better with a stranger had she been like that mother you were just talking about.
Yes, that right, you just don’t know do you. But it’s how it was for me, that much I know, or I’m getting to know, and none of it is making me feel good.
But it’s the truth Terry, I can’t get away from that, it’s the truth, that much I’m starting to wake up to. It’s not as if I’m looking deeper into all the aspects of my relationship with mum and dad and all I’m seeing is making me feel happier and happier to have had them as my parents. God it’s completely the other way around, with all I’m seeing eroding all the so-called happiness I felt - thought I felt.
Miserable, miserable, miserable, god Terry I still feel so miserable.
But you know, something I was reading that Rilke, you know the poet, is supposed to have said, something about loving your sorrows, and appreciating your bad feeling feelings, they sort of being like the winter of your life, and that they shouldn’t be dismissed, they should be cherished and loved for being a valuable part of yourself, that being what we read in those childhood repression books. And you know, I can understand that more, even though I feel so bad today. It is all important, isn’t it Terry. I mean, look at all we’re coming to see about ourselves, and even though it’s not good, as in it doesn’t make us feel good, still, it is all amazing. And to think that we can be subjected to such bad and unloving parenting and yet because it’s all we got, so all we knew, we believed it was good.
Because they said it was good - ‘they did a good job’ and all that crap. I’m sure if they’d not told us all those sorts of things making it out to be and pretending it was good, then we’d feel closer to what it was really like.
Yes, I’m sure you’re right Terry, but it is good, isn’t it, that we’re seeing all this truth about how it really was for us.
Yes, I agree, it is, but fuck it’s horrible when you feel horrible. Like how you’re feeling now. Who wants to feel like that. And sure it might be all valuable feeling so bad and experiencing the other side of life, the bad side, or negative, or whatever you want to call it - the winter; but I’d sure like some summer, or more summer, I feel like we’re going into a bloody ice-age and all that global warming is crap.
It is crap Terry, that’s what we’ve been reading, but I know what you mean, that for us personally, we’re going into our winters... or is it that rather we’ve always been in them only we’ve pretended we’ve been in a summer.
We’ve probably just been in the solarium. Ann, would you mind if I went out and fixed that loose fence paling, or would you rather I stayed so you can talk more about your feelings.
No, it’s all right Terry, and thank you for asking. I’m feeling a bit better having spoken about it all.
Twenty minutes later after some hammering sounds could be heard, the back door slams.
Fuck it, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK! Ow, ow-
What’s wrong Terry, what happened?
I hammered my fucking thumb. Ow, fuck it hurts, the fucking fence, I hate it, the fucking thing is falling apart, it’s never going to be right, we should get someone to build us a new one. It’s so old and the nails aren’t holding, and the wood is all springy and I couldn’t fuck’n hold it, and missed, and fuck it hurts. The fucking fence-
Feelings Terry, speak more about how you’re feeling, not about the fence. How does it make you feel hitting your thumb like that, how do you feel; do you feel stupid for doing it?
Yes I feel fucking stupid, that goes without saying-
Yes but you’ve got to say it, that’s what our expressing our feelings is all about, you’ve got to still say all you’re feeling, even if it’s obvious to you.
Yeah all right, fuck it hurts, it’s throbbing, the fucking thing, why did I have to hit my thumb, I was feeling okay this morning, but now, fuck, now I feel like my whole day is ruined, that it’s over, that... that... aw fuck, here I am again at the place where I don’t know, I don’t know how I feel.
I’m longing for the truth - I want to see the truth of why I did it to myself, why did I have to go and ruin my day by hitting my thumb?
Ow, the fucking thing hurts, it eases off a bit then comes on strong again - throbbing. I don’t know, but I do feel stupid, very stupid, what a stupid thing to do. Fuck now that sounds like dad, I feel like I’m him saying it to me, and he’s saying, now that was a stupid thing to do to yourself, wasn’t it Terry. And he doesn’t leave it alone. Of course it was a fucking stupid thing to do, but fuck we all make mistakes, it was an accident. He goes on as if I did it on purpose or something and he’s telling me off for having done it. That’s how it seems and how he makes me feel anyway.
Like his ridiculing me, as if he can now go and tell the whole world how stupid Terry is; his own fucking son is the biggest moron idiot that’s ever lived because he hammered his own fucking thumb. What a fucking idiot, what idiot - and only an idiot - would do something as dumb and stupid as that. What a fucking imbecile that young Terry is... and it’s as if he’s going into the house telling mum, that I’m an idiot - again, and look what Terry did to himself, what a klutz, what a fool, what an idiot!
Shit, when you long for the truth, sometimes it sure works doesn’t it; now I’ve got this feeling that he’s sort of having one-up on me, that in fact that’s how he was a lot, that any chance he got to have a laugh at me... yeah, sort of like he has to prove he’s the tough one, the great one, the best, and the best at doing everything, and any chance he gets to run me down he takes it. So anything stupid I did like hurting myself, that’s a great chance for him, he’s onto it, he’s going to make the fucking most out of it he can. And he doesn’t hold back, no fucking way, he’s not going to miss this opportunity, so he’s into me, ridiculing me, making me feel even more humiliated than I already do.
And how does that make you feel?
Fucking angry! The fucking arsehole, what right did he have to do that! Fuck him, I’m his fucking son; but I feel like we’re in competition together, when he should be on my side. And... oh fuck Ann, now I see even more, that it’s sort of like he’s vying for mum’s attention against me, like he’s fucking jealous of me or something. Could that be right, fuck I’ve never thought of anything like that, it would never have occurred to me.
Yes of course, I’ve read where lots of parents are jealous of the child, the women suddenly doesn’t give the man all the attention he’s used to having because she’s got a new baby, something other than him to fuss all over. So he feels rejected, he feels he no longer has all her love, so naturally he wants to hit back, and at the child, the thing taking his love away from him.
But that’s fucked, I mean he’s a grown man for God’s sake.
I know, but he’s also a sad and fucked up little boy who’s still desperate for his own mother’s love he feels deprived of having. So he marries a women who he unconsciously believes is a mother substitute, and possibly even a better and more loving mother than the one he had, and certainly one he can tell what to do and order around like your father often does to your mother.
Yeah, he does doesn’t he. The fucking shit; shit what a fuck, what a fucking arsehole, and yes, I think you’re right, it’s like the veil is lifting and I can see him in that light, like the little unloved child as you say. Yeah well fuck him, and then he shits all over me every chance he gets all so he can what... run me down in mums eyes, all so she’ll like me less and him more. But that doesn’t work because whenever I hurt myself she always made more of a fuss over me. And now I remember he did used to go on at her too, at fussing about me too much, and that she shouldn’t, that I was the idiot and if I was stupid enough to hammer my own fucking finger then I should be left alone and in my own pain. And yet I bet he’s hammered his finger, fuck everyone does it at times. And it’s not stupid, it’s just something that you do by accident, fuck it’s not as if you mean to do it.
Yeah, fuck him, the arsehole, and to think that I grew up in competition with my own father for my mother’s love and affection. I mean, that’s weird, that’s perverted - that is fucked!
I know, but I think that really is how it is for all of us in some way and to some degree. And all because we’re not full adults, we can’t be, we’re still all feeling-unloved little children who still want their parents love. So we choose partners who we unconsciously believe will fill in those love gaps, to be the loving parents or parent we felt we didn’t have.
So you’re what, really just a mother substitute for me or something like that?
Yes - aren’t I?
Oh fuck it, yes, I suppose you are. And then I’m a nicer more loving father substitute for you?
Yes, in many ways, you are.
Oh god it’s all so bad, if that’s all our relationships really are, fuck no wonder so many people have so many problems with them - no wonder I did!
I know, and it’s been the same for me. And that’s why our doing our feeling-healing like this is our only way out, it’s something different, something that hopefully will allow us to break all those hidden patterns as we see the truth of them.
Yeah, so as the truth comes to light, then we’re be free of them. Oh god, I know we already know that-
It doesn’t matter Terry, if that’s what you want to say, then keep saying it, it doesn’t matter that you might have said it a million times before. It’s all in there and connected to deeper repressed stuff, that much we’ve experienced for ourselves, so we’ve got to use every opportunity, which really is every feeling we have, good or bad, to talk more about ourselves. We’re telling our story to each other, and it’s all got to be told, it’s all got to come out, every little bit, and I don’t know how it works, but one thing you can’t deny, when you commit yourself to the process as we have, more keeps coming to light.
Yes, shit I feel like I’ve had yet another huge insight, a real revelation into my relationship with my parents. It’s turned my relationship with them on its heads - yet again. God, how many times has that happened to me now. And now all I can see is dad being like an older brother to me, not my father, and like we’re fighting - yeah, sibling rivalry - for mums attention. But fuck, he’s supposed to be my fucking father, not my fucking brother. Oh shit, it’s all so bad, what fucking hope did I have. To have had to grow up being subjected to the likes of that all the fucking time, having to battle my own father, and he being stronger and more powerful and able to shit so easily on me. I want to punch him in the fucking face and tell him to fucking grow up. To behave like a man, like my father, and not like some bully who can’t get his own way. And he did ridicule me, so often I felt so badly humiliated by him... scared of him, I do... fuck, and now I feel worse!
I hate him and I feeling so afraid of him; I don’t want to do anything or he will laugh at me, always taking the fucking mickey out of me. Fuck, I can’t bear the thought of it, the picture, but it’s so fucking true, I can feel it all through me - it is exactly how it was. And I never understood back then.
How could you, you were only a child, and you’re not aware of all that complex psychology going on. But you still felt all those bad feelings. And because you didn’t know what they were or what to do with them, so you’ve buried them, blocked them out. And now they’re coming back up, and all because you’re wanting them to.
Yeah I do, and I can see that, they are - that’s for fucking sure! So I’d better go out there and do some cutting or something all so I can cut my finger and then have dad go on at me even more.
Yes Terry, here, I’ll get you a knife and you can have a go at it, that should help get you more in touch with those hidden feelings!
I’d want to cut him with it, that’s what I feel like doing. Fuck him, I still can’t get over it, that my own fucking father was wanting to shit all over me to make mum like him more.
And you’re not meant to get over it Terry, you’re only meant to keep speaking about all the bad feelings it makes you feel - telling me how bad that all makes you feel. And longing for the truth of it.
Terry had to drive over to Jim’s to drop something off in his letter box. Ann stayed at home. Terry is in the car talking out loud to himself - actually, yelling out loud.
YOU FUCKING ARSEHOLE WHY DON’T YOU WATCH WHERE YOU’RE GOING. Fuck him, people like that shouldn’t be allowed on the road. Ah shit I feel angry, so fucking angry: I FEEL FUCKING ANGRY, ANGRY, ANGRY, ANGRY - DO YOU HEAR ME WHOEVER IT IS THAT MIGHT HEAR - I, TERRY ARNOLD FEEL FUCKING ANGRY!
Fuck, fuck, fuck, I feel like I want to smash that driver, run up his arse, just go for it, smash into him and smash his car to bits; him chopping me off like that, fuck, didn’t he even see me! He’s probably on drugs or pissed or something, the fucking cunt, all I want to do is fucking smash him. Talk about road rage. Fuck, do your childhood repression healing, get in touch with your hidden anger and rage, then go for a nice peaceful drive... fuck it, but fuck it Terry, feelings boy, what are you feeling, stay with your feelings! Okay, so what would Ann say...
And so how does feeling so angry wanting to smash and kill this block in the car make me feel?
GOOD! FUCKING GOOD!
Okay, now seriously...
Oh shit, it’s more anger at dad. It’s dad I want to smash! Yes, fuck me, I can see it, I want to go and yell at this man for being stupid, being a bloody idiot, just as dad did to me. And yes, to even humiliate him as much as I can, to make him feel soooo big, to reduce him to a nothing, to shit all over him.
Aw shit, that’s not fucking good, FUCK IT! I’m just like dad is! I’m the fucking same as dad! Ah shit, that’s it, I am, oh fuck, I am the same as him. But how can I be any other way! Argh, I want to scream! I only want to smash this driver because I want to do to him what dad to me, I want to make him feel as bad as dad made me feel. Ah fuck it, fuck, fuck, fuck - I do!
I just want to pass it down the line. Ah no! That’s what I’d do to my son if I had one. Fuck it, I bet I would. Shit! I would, I can imagine it, and I’d do it without knowing I was doing it. And fuck, it’s what dad’s dad did to him. I don’t remember grandpa well enough, but he must have, and dad is following on the great family tradition.
Ah it’s all such a fuck, this whole fucking thing. I can’t stand it. Fuck I can’t wait to get home and tell Ann. Shit is just keeps coming; but yes, I can feel it, I only want to smash that person because I want to be the powerful one, and shit all over him, make him feel the powerless weakling, the stupid idiot one, just as dad made me feel, and all because he could, because he was The Dad.
Fuck it, so many bad parents not loving their children; I wasn’t loved, you can’t say you love anyone when you treat them like that, and your child - me - I sure don’t feel loved now by dad.
And fucking mum, she never told him off, she never stood up to him to show him what he was doing. She must have been able to see it... ah FUCK!, what if she even liked it that way. Ah Christ, it just gets worse and worse. Who the fuck keeps making me think these things, where do they keep coming from?
But what if it’s true, what if mum did like it, what if she loved all the attention, even pretending to fuss more over me all to get dad more riled up. And they probably had great sex afterwards! NOOOOOOO, I can’t bear it!
Fuck it’s tearing my relationship with them apart. There’s going to be nothing left - nothing. I can’t bear it, what’s it all about, what really is it all fucking about. What is the point of having a relationship with these two people who are supposedly my loving parents and yet I can’t have a good relationship with them; where it’s all fucked, and it always has been only I’ve not wanted to face it, not wanted to admit it. Shit it’s not fucking good. I don’t know anymore. I feel like I’m having a mental breakdown, and where is it all going to end. And then to go over there and see them, it’s all so bizarre to continue it all on, all the charade. Shit, maybe I should bite the bullet and say, no more, and not keep seeing them, not keep living the lie... but fuck it, I can’t, not yet anyway, I just can’t.
Ah fuck it’s too much, I’ll have to talk about it all with Ann. Thank god for her, shit I couldn’t do this on my own. It’s too heavy, to much serious shit. Shit, shit, shit, and so fuck that driver of the car; fuck me, he’s the least of my worries. Fuck I guess I should even be thanking him, not smashing him, for giving me these experiences of making me angry so I can get in touch with yet more of my repressed stuff.
It’s all so fucking mad, thanking him instead of smashing him, hating mum and dad instead of loving them, everything is around the wrong way. Nothing is as it seems, and I don’t know what to make of it all. What is one meant to do - keep it personal Terry as Ann would say, okay then, WHAT AM I MEANT TO DO?
Ah fuck, I just don’t know. What a fucking ride, it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced before - this healing caper. Fuck what we read was right, that it would take you beyond anything and everything you’ve ever experienced, well you’re not wrong about that! And that it would turn everything, every part of your life, every part of yourself on its head, and other than being with Ann, that’s true too!
And it only keeps getting better with Ann. Yet again not in any way I would have thought a relationship would or should go. It’s all new with her, I’ve never experienced anything like this before with the other women, and it’s not sexual and all about love and being soulmates and all so romantic and all that shit. It’s about simply being good friends for each other, there truly for one another and wanting to help each other by listening to each other’s yuk. All so we can help each other heal ourselves of our unloved states, of our negative self- and feeling-denying minds.
And really what more could you do for another person. What is real love about if it doesn’t involve that. And yet can I say I love Ann more... no, I don’t think so, and even less, less compared to what I thought I felt about her when we first met. And yet back then, fuck I was so deluded, all so caught in trying to find the perfect partner and having thought I found it in Ann. And possibly I have, but nothing like how I thought it would or should be, shit that was all just fantasy. Our getting together and only wanting to be loving in each others arms all day long, and then get married and have a family... and... and what, just carry on the big lie like mum and dad did.
Ah fuck, it doesn’t matter what way you go, it all comes back to the same thing, back to the same point. And you can’t escape it, you can’t run away, not like how I used too, which I’m getting a better understanding about every day.
So Terry ‘ol son, what is your future going to be, eh? And what’s that you say, you don’t have a fucking clue anymore. Yeah well maybe that’s as it’s meant to be, but it makes me feel so insecure, because what if it all goes to shit and I can’t work and my feelings take me down into being unable to do anything. Ah I don’t know, it’s all too fucking much to think about - more bad stuff to speak with Ann about. And as she says, we can’t know, so it is one day - one feeling - at a time whether we like it or not. And as she also says, but then who’s to say that’s not how it’s meant to be anyway. And that how we live trying to insure ourselves against some bad thing happening is all wrong. And that if we do just live true to our feelings, then God or whomever it is who’s set it all in motion will look after us... but then again, what does that mean - that He will look after me. God, will you look after me?
Oh, what’s that you’re saying God... You already are looking after me by putting me through all this shit. Oh well if that’s the case, then thank You very much, and oh I am so happy, thrilled to bits to be able to live in such a fucked-up state. And hey, remind me to recommend it to every new soul that’s wanting to come into the world... hey you there, soul, you new-soul-to-be, do you know that you’re incarnating into evil, that you’re going to feel unloved by the very people who should love you the most; and then, just when you think you’re having a grand old time, you’ll become and be just as evil as they are. And if you’re blissfully ignorant, hey, you might even like or love your life, doing all your shit parenting to your own children and pets, fucking them up no end whilst you all pretend you’re having such a wonderful time. Hey, it’s great stuff, and then you might even happen upon doing your healing like I have, and then you might find yourself like I am, raving away about all this shit to no one whilst you’re in your car going nowhere, just doing more of your meaningless life.
And hey, it’s great fun, yeah, a real fucking hoot! So come on in, and get all fucked up and then pretend you’re fine and you’re having a fucking ball, and then do your healing and realise you’ve been legging yourself over all this time, and feel all those bad feelings you’ve been trying to hide from yourself. Oh yeah, I highly recommend it. Me - Terry Arnold, fuck I hate the Arnold part more so every day, I wonder if Ann wouldn’t mind changing her name and we could get married and fuck everyone off.
Yeah maybe we should do that, just go away, go and live somewhere else, in another country or something, just get right away so at least then we’d have a good excuse not to keep seeing the family. But na, that too is probably just running away even more, better to stay and keep seeing what bad feelings come up, as Ann would no doubt say.
And fuck, how come she is so bloody good at all this healing shit, how come she seems to know what it’s all about so easily. God, she speaks sometimes about it as if she’s always known it, like she’s the ruddy expert. And it seems right what she says, and the further we go the more she is proved right. So fuck that, that is an amazing thing, so maybe it’s a woman thing... or maybe I’m just a dolt. A fucking dolt man, yeah, and fuck that too, Ann would probably fucking agree. And what a mad relationship it’s becoming. She is living with me a stupid idiot dolt man who is fucked and can hardly express his feelings and doesn’t seen to know where he’s going with it all, and yet all she keeps bloody saying is she likes me more and more. The more fucked I am admitting to myself that I am fucked, the more she seems to like me. So fuck that, how does that make sense. But none of this stuff does make sense with our minds, that’s for sure, even though here I am working it all out, or at least trying to, with my mind. But still it’s really only through and with our feelings that it seems to make sense, and who’s ever been able to make any sense out of feelings - not me!
So fuck, I don’t know. But am I supposed to know? Ha! Another bloody insight: maybe I’m not supposed to know. Maybe that’s it! I’m not meant to know, when all along, all these years I’ve believed I am somehow meant to know. But maybe it’s unknowable, and that it just comes to us as we move along growing in truth. The truth sure comes that much I know, but maybe also the whole knowing about it will as well. When I look back at myself I can sense how far I’ve come. I am not the Terry I used to be. And yet on the surface I’m still doing the same things I used to be, still in the same job, seeing the same clients, still with Ann, and yet on the inside I’m a different person every day I see these other people. I wonder if they can sense any change in me, because no one has said anything.
So maybe it is all just an inner thing, but na, surely it’s got to show on the outside sometime. So then maybe it will, it’s only a matter of time. And then what happens, what if these people don’t like the new Terry, what then do I do. And what if I no longer like them... Ah fuck it’s too much again, so I’ll let that one go too. Or, yeah, more to talk over with Annie. Fuck I’ve only been away a short time and look at how much I want to talk to her about again, it just keeps coming. I hope she’s feeling better. Maybe I should by her some flowers... but na, that’s only bullshit, what good will they do for her. I’ll tell her that I thought about it and then what I just thought, and I’m sure she’ll say that’s all too affected all that crap and she’d much rather we just talk about it all. And you can’t argue with that, talking sure is cheaper, we hardly go out anymore, we’ve got more money, our expenses are coming down, and all because we’re preferring to talk about everything with each other. Just sitting there talking, talking and talking, fuck I don’t think I’ve talked so much about anything before. And just when I think that surely is it, there can’t possibly be anything more to talk about, then I go for a half-hour drive and fuck me, I’ve got so much more to I want to talk about!
Ah, fucking home at last, shit what a ride!
Back at home
Terry, I still feel so miserable.
Do you?
Yes, really terrible. I don’t think I’ve felt this bad before. I feel like I’m sinking into the sea of my misery and it’s very deep and I had no idea that I such depth of misery feeling is in me. I feel so bad, so wretched, so bad... how was it?
Good, I had a very insightful time. I felt very angry again because of some bloke cutting me off, and I tried to express my anger out loud as if you were in the car - so I yelled and talked away to myself like I’m mad, but it was good, I had lots of insights as I said, but there’s plenty of time to tell you about it all, I think it’s probably better if you can talk more about how you’re feeling. Can you?
I’ll try. I feel so bad, so down, like I’ve sunken down inside myself and I fear I’ll never get up, I’ll never recover. I feel worried that I’ll remain in this state forever, feeling so down, depressed, so miserable. Usually I’m what you might call a cheery even gay sort of person, but right now I feel like it’s all gone. I don’t know where it’s all gone to, but it’s as if I never had it. I feel like I’m the most dull and boring person in the world. That I have nothing of any value to talk about. All the writers I read all have so much to say about themselves and life, so much they’ve come to see and understand about everything, but what do I have - nothing. What sort of life have I had - a nothing life. I’ve not travelled, I’ve not had a family, I’ve not even got married. I’ve not done anything of what most people do, and I’ve only had a few jobs, but really I’ve not done much at all.
So I feel like I’m nothing, like I’ve got nothing to offer anyone - the world. I’m just a waste of space, a nothing sort of person, a no one, just no one Terry, that’s how I feel.
And you worry about that, like it’s wrong to be that way, like you should be how other people are?
Yes, yes I do. I do worry about it. All my life I’ve wanted to be someone, but now I’m getting older and I’m having to face the truth that I’m a nothing no one, and that no one will like me because of that. I have nothing to give, nothing to offer anyone, and I’ve only got you. Sure I’ve got my family and a few friends, but what are they to me and they are fading away every day as I work more on myself. So really all I’ve got is you Terry, but what are you, you’re a no one like me, we’re just two nobodies, too useless nobodies and that makes me feel very bad. But you don’t feel like that, do you Terry, like you’re a useless nobody?
No, not at the moment. I’ve had my moments, but at the moment I feel rather good with all I went through on the drive. I feel more mad, but at the moment I feel okay about that too. I feel like I don’t have a fucking clue about any of this, any of my life, anything about where it’s heading, and that it’s falling down around my ears, but still not bad. I’m sure I will, but not right at this point in time - no.
I wish I didn’t feel bad. I wish I didn’t feel so miserable. I wish I were happy and felt really good and really loved. I’ve had a shit rotten life really Terry, that’s something I’m having to face more of. I thought it was good, okay, even better than some others. But now I don’t think so, now I think I’ve had a nothing life, a no account life and I’m a no account person because of it.
And look at my parents Terry, what do they have to show for all their years. Okay so they’ve got their own nice house and they are quite well off and won’t have to worry about money or anything like that. And they can settle back into enjoying being grandparents with the boys and my sisters all having children. But I don’t have any, and I can’t see us having any. Really Terry, would we want to subject our children to our shit. I don’t know. It all seems so pointless, everything I think about, less and less do I want to have what other people have anyway. Would I want to have the lives of my brothers and sisters, no, no I don’t think I would. I used to, but not any longer, all of that seems to be fading away. Because I only have to think about their lives, all they do, and what’s it all for, and are they really happy and do they feel really and truly loved. And I hate so much of how they treat their children and I can see it’s just how mum and dad treated us; and so no, I don’t envy them anymore and nor do I feel like I’m a failure because I’m not ‘getting on with my life’ like they are.
So I don’t know, I just feel so bad.
At least you’re working on those bad feelings Ann, striving to bring them up so you can see the truth of them, your brothers and sisters aren’t, and one day they will.
Yes I know, but I don’t care about any of that either. I feel so down, so depressed, so full of misery and like I’ll drown in it all.
Does that scare you, it does me?
Yes I feel scared about it, but I know there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t stop it and I don’t want to. You know how I feel about such things now, so I want to let myself, if I can, drown in my misery, just give in and subject myself to it, to allow it to overwhelm me even if I feel depressed for the rest of my life. I don’t want to feel so bad, and I hate feel this way, but it’s all obviously in me or else I wouldn’t be feeling like this; and I know we can’t make these feelings up, so I just want to submit to them and see where they take me. Only I wish it was a nice journey of self-discovery and not the hell-ride into darkness it’s turning out to be.
Yeah, I agree with you there.
And we might both end up feeling so miserable Terry that we can’t go on. Or you might find that I’m too much of a down and depressed miserable person, not the happy life-of-the-party girl I was when you first met me. But that me was all false, this is more like the true me, the me that I was trying to cover up.
I like you as you are Ann, and I don’t mind if you want to be depressed all the time. I don’t mind now, I might if you go on and on with it, but that’s up to you, and as you said, it’s not as if you can do anything about it anyway. And as neither of us want to go to the doctor if we can help it, so until it becomes too unbearable and you might be driven to get that sort of help, I’ll here and wanting you to keep being as you are.
No way do I want to go to the doctor Terry, not if I can help it. More and more I’m feeling I’d rather die first than do that. But as you say, how do I know, it might get so bad that I have to do something like that. I don’t know, it’s all so terribly difficult and always having to work on ourselves like this, always having to look to try and express and uncover the truth of yet more bad feelings. And so many bad feelings - so much misery. I can’t believe I felt so miserable during my early life particularly when I thought I was quite happy and mum, and dad always said I was a happy child.
But I feel so miserable and I only have to remember all that which we talked about this morning and I feel so sad again for myself. So I don’t know, all I can do is keep talking about it all to you. That’s all I can do, keep expressing all I feel.
Yeah I know. That much I’ve come to myself as well. It is all we can do, there is nothing else. How about I make us some lunch.
Yes please, I don’t think I can do anything how I’m feeling.
Does your misery feelings make you feel like you want to do anything?
What like, what do you mean?
Well like... kill yourself for example, like if it all gets too bad. Do you ever think about that, about what if it did get too bad and you couldn’t cope with it?
I have thought about it, but I don’t think I could go through with it. However I don’t know how bad I might feel. Have you thought about killing yourself?
Occasionally I have. But like you, I doubt I’d be able to do it. I still can’t relate to those people who do, they must feel so unbearably bad.
Yes, I don’t know, but I would imagine they would. But still they must have some power within themselves to be able to do it, it’s not as if it’s an easy thing to do. How I’m feeling now I don’t feel like I have any power, I can’t do anything, I’m a useless nothing of a person, so not even one who would be capable of killing themselves.
I’ve not thought of that, that you’d have to have some amount of power to knock yourself off. But you’d surely also feel so powerless as well, that being why you feel so bad, like as you’re saying that you’re a nothing and no good person - it seems a bit of a contradiction.
I don’t know Terry and really it’s pointless talking about it, because it does us no good to speculate. That’s you going off again trying to be the other person, trying to imagine how it is for them when there is no way you can possibly know. Maybe if you could somehow meet them, like in the afterlife and they could tell you how they felt and so why they did it, but until then, there’s no point talking about it.
True, I can see what you’re saying, but still I think it’s reasonable to put yourself, or try to at least, in another person to see what they are feeling.
But you can’t know what they are feeling Terry, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. You can’t possibly know what another person is feeling. And you might think it does something for you, but it doesn’t really as all it’s doing is taking your mind off yourself, off what you’re feeling by trying to work out what another person might be going through. It’s just more fantasy stuff Terry, that which we’re trying to avoid.
Yeah all right, I can see what you mean. And yes, you’re right, it is my going off and leaving myself and my feelings, and no, I don’t want to do that.
But still you should talk more about it, about why you do want to do it, because you do do it. And you can’t just stop yourself doing it, and you shouldn’t anyway. But you should want to long to see the truth of why you do, what happened to you to make you want to do it, how your parents treated you so as to help you form that behaviour.
Yeah, but I don’t know. Unless I have a bad feeling up in me pressing for me to speak about it, I find it very difficult to just do it. But I’ll try and see what comes. Okay, so what was it... oh yeah, that I have to work out, or find the truth of why I go off in my mind putting myself in other people trying to work out how they might be feeling. And, so why...
And fuck me Ann if I don’t already know, the answer has just dropped into my mind, that’s what it felt like, like someone was even telling it to me.
And it’s because, again, mum and dad made us all do that, we all had to ‘put ourselves in the other persons shoes’ and feel what they were feeling. Shit, so I can see that’s what I’ve done - what I do. But as you said, I can’t do it, it’s impossible because I’m not that person. And fuck me, all these years I’ve believed I was able to do it, and-
That’s right, and you’ve just made it all up for yourself. You’ve told yourself what they are feeling and you’ve believed you’ve been right and that you know.
Yes, you’re right, I have. I can see that. I have made it all up, it’s all been as you say one big fantasy. And shit really I’ve not had any idea. And I do that with you. I believe I know what you’re feeling or how you will feel if such and such happens, but it’s not true, is it?
No, and that’s how I knew what you were going to say, because you do do it to me. I’ve not pulled you up on it much, but I’m pleased you’re coming to see it for yourself.
So what else have you not pulled me up on Ann?
Lots of things Terry, but I’ve decided that it’s better if you come to see how you are for yourself in your own time and all through your own feelings, instead of me just telling you what I think. And it’s not right for me to keep telling you anyway, unless I have to say something because something you are doing makes me feel bad. Which I do, I can’t not talk about such things when you make me feel bad. And you must have things about me you can see that I’m doing that are not right, and so would say so if they made you feel bad.
I’d say so if I felt bad, but I can’t see anything at the moment that you’re doing that I would say is not right. Shit how would I fucking know what is right! Less and less am I having any idea about any of this, about anything about myself and my life. It feels like it’s all falling down around me, but still, as I said, strangely, or so far so good, I’m not feeling bad about any of it at the moment. Tomorrow... yes, tomorrow is another day, and no doubt I’ll feel shit about it all then.
Probably Terry. That is something isn’t it, there’s no getting away from it.
Yeah I know, it all catches up with you.
After dinner
How are you feeling now Ann, still as miserable?
No, it’s eased off a bit now. But still I feel all those same things I was speaking about at lunch time. I still feel like I’m of no account, a nobody and that no one will like me because of that. And now I feel very lonely. Yes Terry, that feeling has started to come up in me again. I feel very lonely again, and as you know now, I don’t mean lonely now for with you, but it’s all feelings of how I felt back then with them - with mum and dad.
I feel so lonely, so lonely. I am with these people but I feel so lonely, and that’s such a horrible feeling. I can remember that’s how I used to feel, but I didn’t fully understand or realise what it was all about, what it all meant back then. But now I do, or at least I’m beginning to.
I feel so depressed and miserable I think because I feel so lonely, and I feel like I’ve never actually recovered from the shock and trauma of feeling so alone. I felt so bad as I’ve told you when I was sent to my room having to cry myself to sleep, but that’s only one part of it, for now I feel like it applies to all my early life. And it’s such an odd thing to reconcile, because I can remember us all laughing and having a good time together. During Christmas or our birthday parties and lots of other times with mum and dad, and us all rolling around in fits of laugher, and feeling happy and so good to be feeling so good... but now, now I just feel the complete opposite, and so alone. I feel like they are all strangers to me, as if I’ve never really shared any good times with them, as if I’ve never really been happy. Oh it’s all so weird all these contradicting feelings.
Yeah I know. I wonder if it’s just because when our bad feelings come up in us, because they are all we feel at that time, then that’s how we feel it’s always been, when it wasn’t actually as bad as that. Or, are these feelings all very real and true, and all those so-called good feelings weren’t as good as we thought they were.
I don’t know, but in these feelings now it’s as if there’s no room for any other feelings, and certainly no good ones. So that’s all I’m focused on. And they are so overwhelming, and you might be right Terry, it might be that it’s just because they are so strong and up within me at the moment that they block out all my good memories and good feelings like I said I remember feeling, but I don’t know. And maybe it was all crap too, all untrue, all a fantasy and lie. Maybe how I’m feeling now is the truth, and all the rest is a delusion. Maybe I never truly did feel good and all the good feelings I felt were just within the bad, sort of like a subset of them or something like that. Or possibly they were just all part of my falseness, all superficial and not really real at all. I don’t know if we can create unreal feelings, feelings I think are always real - they are as they are, but it’s more how we interpret them where we might go wrong. Or it might be how they come about, that our false mind like we read about somehow creates them, so we believe we’re feeling good when in fact we’re not, it all showing how far we’ve turned ourselves away from our true feeling self.
Yes I feel a bit better. I’m looking forward to going to bed, but not if I’m going to have more bad dreams. I hate feeling how bad I felt today Terry. God I hate it. It’s so bad, and there’s no feeling of ever feeling good again. I feel like I’m at the end, so despairing and that in some ways I shouldn’t keep going on.
Like you should die or something?
I don’t know. Because if there is an afterlife, then I’m going on still. And what I was feeling earlier was like I should just cease to be. Like my feelings are so unbearably bad that I should just crease to be, like they should extinguish me or something like that. Like I, all the other parts of me should or will cease to exist and I’ll only be my bad feelings. And that terrifies me Terry, like I’ll be trapped in them forevermore, that there will be no escape, no ever getting free of them. That I’ll be bound up in a bad-feeling pusher forevermore, unable to move and do anything for myself. And that me, the person will have disappeared in some way, no longer being real or there, and all that will be left of me will be my misery and despair and all my yuk bad feelings.
So like you’re nothing else but bad feelings.
Yes, like that. And like they will have finally, once and for all, taken me over, consumed me or something like that; and I will not be as I am, I will be only my bad feelings. Yes, like they are sort of like the evil monster that has devoured me and I will have become as it is, just all my bad feelings, one big seething mass of bad feelings. And no one will like or want me, on one will want to come anywhere near me. And I’ll be all poxy looking - one big huge pox, all pus-ridden, all full of puke, like a cancerous disease that is misery and despair and feeling so alone and unloved. And I’ll be just a seething mass of bad feelings, just a blob of them, so vile, so putrid that no one will even want to look at them - at me. And neither will I. I don’t want to look at my own putridness, my own bad feelings, the whole lot them in all their ugliness. And I can’t see them in a good light, that they are something even beautiful and amazing. Oh god no, I see a putrid rancid spreading fungus, foul-smelling and disgusting. And it’s all me, I can feel it, as I am my feelings.
So you’re describing yourself - what you are as in what your feelings are?
Yes Terry, that’s right, that’s what I’m doing, and I’m not a pretty sight.
Oh I don’t know about that, you look kind of cute in that nighty.
You know what I mean Terry, that you are going to bed with a slimy putrid smelling yuk that I am. That I’m not actually how you think I am.
You mean you’re not some sexy broad that I want to kiss and cuddle to death.
No, that I’m really an evil monster in disguise, and if you don’t watch it, I’ll consume you as well. And that’s what some people say or think, that it’s wrong to indulge in your bad feelings because they’ll consume you, they being the very evil you fear, so you want to do all you can to keep as far as possible away from them. As if bad feelings are evil, they are an evil monster, and yet it’s themselves they are talking about, their own bad feelings. As we ARE our feelings.
Yeah well if you’re evil, then I don’t mind at all Lying With The Devil.
I don’t know why Terry, you should, and you should be repulsed by me. You should want to kick me out, to get as far away from me as you can. Not want to be with me, and even share the same bed with me.
Yeah well you can think that, but I don’t want to kick you out because then I’d be all alone, and those bad feelings I don’t want. So I’ll just have put up with all your bad smells and slimy putridness. And it’s not so bad anyway, really it’s not.
You must be deranged in your head Terry, that’s all I can say. Why you or anyone would want to be with me, that’s how I feel. I can’t see it, I can’t see what you see in me. And if you were to throw me out with the garbage it would be right and I expect you to.
And what would you do?
I don’t know. I can’t think about that. Lie in the gutter somewhere with all the other filth I should think. Lie there until I perish, that’s what I feel like I would do. There were I belong, cast aside, unwanted filth, waste rubbish unwanted by the world, unwanted by anyone, unwanted by mum and dad, unwanted by even you Terry. That’s how I feel.
Shit Ann, if that is how you really feel, shit, I had no idea.
I’m not joking, it’s how I’ve been feeling all day, it’s only taken this long for me to be able to bring it all up. But I have felt like this on and off through my life. I’ve not really been able to speak about it, but I can see those same feelings have been there all along. I’ve had them from my early childhood, that much I know, so it must be how mum and dad made me feel.
Yes, I guess so. But fuck, you can’t tell what might be going on in someone. And with so many depths to us all, and all so hidden.
I know - I told you, can’t know what another person is feeling, you can only know yourself, if you want to as we’re doing. But it’s all real, our feelings don’t lie, and as you know you can’t make them go away when you allow them to be up within you. So they are real and all we can do is just go with them, saying whatever it is they make us want to say, all so we can see what they are wanting to show and tell us about ourselves and our lives and our relationships with everyone. Terry, would you mind if we went to bed early tonight?
Shit no, not at all, it sounds like a good idea. I’ll be able to get in with you in all your sliminess.
You’ll be sorry, you wait. When you come to your senses and see me in my true light, see me for how I really am, you’ll be sorry and you’ll be out of here running for your life.
Yeah well if it comes to that I’ll worry about it then. And in the mean time, I don’t care what you say about yourself, you can run yourself down into your slime pit, but I don’t see you in that light. It might be true and I might be as you say still seriously deluded and looking through rose-coloured glasses at you, but until they get taken off, I’ll not be running anywhere but to the bed.
Really Terry, you really mean all of that what you just said?
Of course, I wouldn’t have said it otherwise.
And all I’ve been saying about myself hasn’t put you off me one bit?
No, not in the slightest. And in fact I find it kind of a turn on, but don’t ask me to talk about those feelings, I’ve had a big day - we both have.
No I won’t, that’s all right, I understand your depraved and perverted in many ways, but that’s okay with me. You can be that whilst I can be a slime bucket.
It’s a deal.
And you probably only feel turned on by it because I’m in such a weakened state, so powerless, and now is your big chance to gain some power by having power over me. So you turn it all into a sexual fantasy.
God Ann, where do you get it all from?
I don’t know, it just comes to me. It’s probably from all I’ve read. You’d probably get it all too Terry if you read more, if you’d have read all the books I have about peoples lives and how they’ve felt about things. There is a lot in what I feel about myself that I can see from my reading of books that other people felt about themselves. I don’t think any of us are really too different Terry, it’s just that some peoples lives have taken them possibly deeper into their feelings, I don’t know; or it might be just that that’s how it is, we all have different experiences yet about or involving the same feelings. And my interpretation of what I feel is my way, and yours is your way... but I don’t know.
No, me either, and it’s too much for my brain anyway. What say we call it quits and we can talk more about it in bed.
Okay.
A couple of hours later, lying in the dark together
How are you feeling now Ann?
No so bad. It’s nice just lying here with you Terry, even though you stink.
Do you want me to have a shower, it must have been all my handy-man work around the house today.
All your hammering your own thumb you mean. No, it’s okay, so long as I don’t put my head under the sheets.
It was an incredible day, though, wasn’t it!
It sure was!
And thank you again Terry for not rejecting me, for not throwing me out because you finally saw that really I am a drain on you, that you do all the work and I do nothing, because I am a nothing person, and just an evil slime nothing at that.
You can’t say you do nothing Ann, if it wasn’t for you I sure wouldn’t be here now having worked this much on myself and come this far.
And you would probably have met some nice attractive woman and be happily married with a couple of kids by now.
No Annie, that’s not for me, not anymore. It was, yes, I do admit that, that’s what I wanted, but now, it’s not to be, it’s not my life, because if it were, I would be with that other person as I’d be another person, but here I am with you. And we’re in this together, and so far as I can see, for as long as it takes.
But what if I go mad or something horrible like that. What if I go all gaga and start frothing at the mouth and pooing in my pants. What if I turn into the slime that I am?
We can deal with that if and when it happens. And I don’t think it will get to that anyway.
How do you know Terry, you can’t say that, you don’t know how it will get. We’ve got no idea what might be inside us and how we really feel about ourselves. We might end up two old farts dribbling and drooling all over each other.
Yeah well, I can’t think about that. God I don’t know where you come up with it all.
I’m just being realistic Terry, you’ve got to face these things, you know, bring them up and out into the open and see what they consist of. They are all just feelings, they keep coming up into my mind, so I keep speaking them. I can’t help it, it’s just how I am. And I don’t know if that’s how other people would be like if they do their healing, but it’s how I am like and I can’t be any other way.
No.
But you don’t have to like me Terry, you know you’re not under any obligation, you’re not under contract. You can hate me, and be repulsed by me; you can reject me and throw me out on the heap to rot.
Jesus Annie, is there no end to it!
No, there isn’t - are you ready to throw me out now?
No, I’m not angry yet with you, but I am amazed at how you keep coming up with it all.
Well I think I’ve had enough for one day now Terry. I think I need to go to sleep. Do you mind that we don’t have sex or do anything like that?
No, I’m too tired anyway, and it’s not as if all you’ve been saying is conducive to it.
I thought you said it turned you on.
You went way past that.
So now you’re turned off by me!
No, just neutral, you’ve given me a lot to think about. I don’t know what I think about it all. I think I need to sleep on it.
Thanks for putting up with me anyway Terry. I do like it when I can say all my worst stuff and you don’t abandon me. When you don’t throw me out.
You certainly are always pushing it to new extremes, new depths - new limits. And I feel all I can do is simply go along with you, doing the best I can to express what I feel. But it’s a lot take in, and it’s all still so new all of this for me. I’ve never heard anyone speak about themselves like you have been doing. I don’t know what to think, I don’t know whether I am shitting myself because you are scaring the hell out of me and I should do as you say and boot you out and run like hell. But then I don’t feel bad, it’s not as if you’re doing anything bad to me. But then I also have little panic attacks about what if you do go mad, or I do, or something happens and one of us does change too much. And then what would I do, where would I go. I can’t see I’d meet anyone else who wanted to do their healing, and even if they did, would it end up the same way, with our hating each other or rejecting each other because we can’t stand how we’ve changed.
Nothing any different to how any relationship ends.
Yeah I guess not. But this is all so new to me, and really I don’t know what to think. Fuck, how many times have I said that now! And I don’t know what to feel. There are too many feelings, shit they are coming up all the time, and about every thing we talk about. I hardly have time to think about one thing you say and then you’re saying something else that’s taking me into new areas, it’s all too much.
You’re doing okay, you’ve not freaked out or got angry with me or tried to stop me.
I’m only just hanging on. I think I must be near the edge, you’ve pushed me to almost over it.
All right, then so I’d better shut up and we can go to sleep.
If I can and don’t stay awake thinking about it all.
If you need to speak, wake me up.
All right, but is it going to be like this twenty-four hours a day, I’ll not be able to cope.
Then it’s lucky you’ve got Sunday tomorrow.
Yes, probably another full-on day like it was today.
Oh well if it is, there’s nothing we can do about it other than keep speaking about all we feel and longing for the truth of such feelings. It’s all in God’s hands, He’s doing it all to us, or making us do it all.
Oh god would you shut up, I’ve had enough for one day, don’t you get tired of it, and you were the one feeling as miserable as shit all day long.
All right, I won’t say anything more. Goodnight Terry.
Ah thank god, peace at last!
Terry...
Nooooooooooooooooooo!