Defrosting the Abyss
The Deep freezer stood. Silent. Alone. Unseen. The room for its existence must have been occupied at some point, echoes of voices, the scratch of a door, turn of a key. The freezer was filled over time. It had to have been…. a distant hum of it’s thermos, chilling the contents solid.
I think the room has always been there, to hold secrets from the past, to freeze moments before they become real. Almost so that they are nothing.
Nothing can be safe. It holds no value.
Neither good or bad: black or white: hot or cold: joy or despair.
Nothing is a black abyss.
On February 2021 I had my first trauma counselling session. I opened the freezer, to defrost the abyss.
My counsellor and I lifted the lid.
Revisiting my pain, each memory frigid and unyielding, slowly surfaces, the warmth of my counsellor’s words defrosting each one.
Warming the memory, long buried and spoiled, I have to absorb the stench, I cannot look away, or hold my breath.
Today I welcome 2025 and it is a cold January afternoon. I have now been in therapy for 4 years. The journey has taken me way back to the beginning, but the journey has not been linear, or smooth. There have been short cuts and diversions, road works and blocks too, as I navigated the different eras in my life, my therapist the listening passenger on a voyage of trials and tribulations, house moves, divorce, separation, suicide attempts, social services, alcohol, abuse and self-harm.
I started therapy in 2021, thinking it was a response to the after effects of one of my mother’s particularly violent suicide attempts (I will talk of this in later chapters). This is how I introduced my story and as any therapist worth their weight in gold will tell you, there is no beginning, there are no rules. The conversation can be anything you want it to be.
I had my first session on a day like any other. In fact, the pain that was central to all the conversations we had has been alive for as long as I can remember. The conversation could have started ten years ago when I suffered multiple miscarriages, or further back still, when I withstood more than 12 months of sexual abuse at the age of 25, or even further back, when I was subject to social services intervention when my mother first attempted suicide, before which she tried to care for me while juggling un-diagnosed Bipolar. This conversation would have required parental support though, because I was only five. Fast forward forty-one years and I had fallen head first into a four-year conversation about complex PTSD.
This has been the driving force of this book and the desire to share the experience and the journey with this condition. I want to show the world that potential and light and resilience lives in every part of us, even in the darkest most painful places. I want to celebrate the ability of the human spirit to withstand enormous pain and tragedy. I want to elevate our minds collectively, and embrace a shared consciousness. We are not alone. We all face adversities, but the rich tapestry of life can also teach us grace, love and forgiveness, no matter the darkness or weight of the pain.
This book pushes its way into the world of the written word, finding its own space to send messages of survival, resilience and growth. Find space on your shelf and find peace in your heart and time in your day to sit with it, absorb this story.
