Remember that post about touch in times of anguish? Well, today was the culmination of a major fall out with my mentally ill family member, and I feel like I have been run over by a freight train. I will write much more about the relationship of abuse, trauma and pleasure in future blog posts – it has been a long path of healing for me as I reclaim my body after a childhood of not only child sexual abuse but also near daily physical abuse from my bipolar sibling. I believe that most of us are dealing with the aftermath of trauma in our bodies – maybe it was a date rape in high school or physical violence at home, perhaps it was incest or maybe persistent emotional abuse from someone you counted on. Truth is, we live in a really unhealthy culture and so many of us are silently dealing with the aftermath of violence – physical, emotional or often both.
So today, I was run over by this person who I care so much about, this person who has spent my lifetime hurting me, this person who I have persistently been trying to build a healthy relationship with. I’ve been showing up year after year with nothing but love and generosity. And when she attacks, my entire lifetime of pain is triggered and I fall apart.
So what to do? I needed more than a cuddle. I needed pure escape. So we went to the movies. We saw This is 40 from Judd Apatow and crew, and it was so cleansing to sit in the dark theater for a few hours and laugh at other people’s problems, sigh at fictionalized families that are as crazy and flawed as my own (wait, no, my own was way more fucked up) and find hope in the happy endings. Coming home, I feel much better. Still sad and scared for my family, but also way more grounded in my own reality. The lesson? Sometimes escaping into fiction can help us find our truth again. And to live a pleasurable life, to occupy our erotic bodies and maintain a sexuality in this crazy world, we must stay dedicated to healing our wounds, seek comfort where we can find it, and once in awhile laugh our asses off at cheap jokes.