Where is my narrative?
I listened to a wonderful talk this morning about narrative psychology and paganism. One of the thrust of this talk was our own “life story” and how we see ourselves in these story. This is highlighted by Berne and his life scripts. He uses 6 myths to show how our narratives fall into society. These myths are Arachne, Hercules, Damocles, Sisyphus, Philemon and Baucis, Tantalus. This myth are examples how we using negativity on never reaching the life that we want. With those thoughts “I will never” “It always happens to me” “I can’t be happy until…” “What will happen after?” “I almost made it” or just living an open ended life are holding us back. There is also the fact of the “character” we see that we are in our own story. This can be linked to Joseph Campbell and archetypes. We can see ourselves as the “hero”, “mentor”, “shadow or antagonist”, “ally” “shape shifter or sceptic” “Trickster” or “threshold guardian and herald” in terms of Campbell. We may use more common thoughts of “hero” “villain” “victim” “comic relief” or worse still, the “bit player” in someone else’s life. And of course the way we see ourselves is sometimes clashing with how others see us. However, if your “story” is so ingrained into yourself not matter if others tell you the “truth”, you will believe only your story. And your story comes from your childhood, either the person who impressed you the most or the person you spent the most time with. This leads us to my story. And listening to the talk I realised that my “story character” is “martyr”. When I tell my story I tell of the horrible things I have “forced myself to endure” as if I had no other choice.
This “character” has been implanted in me, as mentioned early from childhood by my mother. As an only child, and with a father who worked, most of my time was spent with my mother. A woman herself grew up an only child with her mother only as her father abandoned her. A woman who was constantly told that she was not a good person, to the point that she abandoned her own mother at the age of 15 and never spoke to her again. All my memories seem to be of times when I was not “good enough”, despite from being the only emotional support for the woman. A woman who went through strong bouts of depression and agoraphobia. The woman who shared a home with her only child, her daughter. It may come as no surprise that my first long term relationship had the same bows of emotional support. A person who struggled with the outside world. A person who would use emotional blackmail and taunts to keep me by their side. But who could never give the same the emotional support in return. Even in this abridged version of the first thirty years of my life, it sounds like a tale of a martyr. I had no choice in the relationship I endured. And while that may be partly true for family, it is never true for love. And thankful I am in a wonderful relationship but I still speak as a martyr.
As a writer I subconsciously turned the “character” of me into a real character and I give them the life script is I felt I should have had. Pandora in Blood Bound started out as me, a woman struggling to find her place in the world after the death of her father. At the time of writing I had finally broke free from the aforementioned relationship. Blood BOUND was a very conscience title for the novel. Pandora is tempted by a persona of a person that she has yet to met. This is a mixture of people that I “met” online through my poetry. Many who claimed to understand, some did. Or at least they knew the tales to tell to tempt me. And the turning point was when true love entered my life and that become Pandora’s true love interest. The telling mother what she felt, just for the briefest moment is purely imagination as they would not be done by me. And the triangle was also created as a plot device. At this plot device Pandora become less about me, and more a character creation. Yet, I could not give Pandora the “happily ever after”. Why? If Pandora, even in the smallest part now, is me then the reason she does not get the happy ending is because I don’t believe I deserve it. Even before this talk I realised that the way I thought about myself was negative. And with my boyfriend giving me sly looks during the talk, he also was hearing the truth in these talk. But when you have been telling the same tale over and over again, how do you stop? Even those that “story” is not your present, you still make it your future. One step at a time I suppose. That first step will be to stop saying those negative things. I am constantly telling myself that I am a failure, that I am ugly, and the most hurtful one, and not just to myself but to my boyfriend, that I do not deserve him. I can list some of the things that I am proud of. That during the hardest time of my life I got a degree. I have turned the pain into at least one poetry book (hopefully another one soon) and a novel and I sold some. I crawled up from having no home, no job and no love to having all three. And I am on the verge of improving two of those. Not the love, that is beautiful and I deserve the wonderful man in my life. I know I am a great friend as well for those who have known me years or months. The one I find hardest to break is my own physical appearance, but while I will probably never see myself as beautiful. I am not ugly. And that is still a step forward.
