Repetition Compulsion

39.

Sera slowly opened her eyes, jerked her head and then spat to get rid of the wet, smelly sock that was in her mouth. She got up, slowly, being careful not to put too much pressure on her body.

Then, as she slowly came to, and regained her sense of being, it came to her attention that there was a strong, gasoline smell emanating from all over the living room she was now standing in. As she looked down to scan her surroundings, she noted that her living room carpet was now wet with what appeared to be diesel, and there was a smell of smoke emanating from the kitchen.

However, she didn't have much time to wonder or at least try and figure out what was going on, because just then, as she was standing in the middle of her living room, she noticed that her one hand was holding onto an empty gas container, and the other-a lighter. And then, she had an epiphany. 

***

When Sera was 11 years old, she went to see a therapist for the first time in her life. She was fresh out of tears to cry, but she had watched enough crime documentaries to know that it would look a little suspicious if she went to a therapist's office to try and get help coping with her mother's death, when she couldn't even get herself to shed a tear for her. She didn't want to talk about her real emotions, so, she decided to fake it. Before her session, Sera went to the school bathroom, and she put eye drops in her eyes, and then dabbed her cheeks with water.

As soon as the school therapist called her into her office, Sera 'broke down crying'. But when she was asked why she was crying, she found she did not have a clear answer to her question: She was not sad about her mother. And she most definitely was not sorry about her death, either. 

In fact, the only two semi-appropriate answers Sera could think of giving her therapist was that everyone else around her seemed to be crying endlessly about her mother's death, even though they hadn't known her that well at all, and that she didn't want anyone to suspect her of being one of the reasons why she (her mother) had jumped. So she figured that's what she had to do, and that that's what she was expected to do: she figured everyone was meant to cry after a tragic event, regardless of whether the tragic event had touched them or not. Otherwise they would be suspected as having a hand in the other person's death. She figured crying was the most appropriate response to trauma, even if the trauma hadn't actually traumatized her at all.

Sera's therapist's response to her 'crying' would change the course of her entire life forever. She said: "Sera, people die every day. Sometimes we feel sad about these deaths, and sometimes we don't feel sad. Both of these feelings are completely valid; it's okay to feel sad, and it's okay not to feel sad. But what's important is how we express our feelings. You can choose to cry or you can choose not to cry...both of these options are okay. But, if you choose not to cry, you need to find another way of grieving. You don't need to grieve like how everyone else is grieving, Sera. You can find your own way of grieving, and as long as it works for you, then so be it."

Looking back at it now, that was a very silly and irresponsible thing for an adult to say to an emotionally numb child, mainly because saying such things has the potential to get interpreted the wrong way, but dwelling on that now would be extremely pointless. The damage was already been done.

When Sera was 18 years old, she was once again sent off to therapy for help coping with the trauma of losing her little sister and her uncle all in one night. She was scheduled for eight sessions, and during all of these sessions, there was not a point in time when Sera shed a tear. At the end of her last session, Sera's then therapist asked her why she never cried during any of the sessions. In response to this, Sera offered her the same reply that her old therapist had offered to her a few years prior.

Sera's therapist looked her straight in the eye and called her out on her 'bullshit'. Being a well trained professional, she obviously knew that Sera did not actually have a 'special' grieving process. She knew Sera wasn't grieving at all.

Her response to Sera's 'unhealthy grieving procedure' did nothing to Sera...well at least not at the time.

She said to Sera: "Sera, trauma demands re-enactment". To put this into simpler terms, she said: "If you don't deal with your shit, then your shit will deal with you"

She said, "Trauma is a very touchy subject, but if you don't openly talk about your it, and recognize all the signs leading up to it, then you will spend the rest of your life re-enacting the traumatic experience."

At the time, Sera had called bullshit on her theory and walked straight out of her office without batting an eyelid and she had never looked back. After all, Sera thought what she was presenting did not make any sense: Why would she, being of sound mind and body actively try to relive and re-feel all the things that had hurt her and broken her in the first place? So, as she walked out of her office, with her hands folded and her head held high, Sera had chosen to dismiss her therapist as a mad woman, because at the moment that's what it felt like she was: an extremely literate mad woman, but a mad woman nonetheless.

But as Sera stood in the middle of her living room with a lighter in her hand and an empty bottle of diesel in the other, it was hard not to think of her old traumas and compare them to this one. It was hard not to remember how she had done the exact same thing three years prior with a heaviness in her heart and a darkness in her soul. It was hard not to believe she was not about to mess up again, like she had done before.