The Perpetual State of Surrender

Every now and again, I’ll be listening to music, just flowing with it and not thinking about anything in particular– when a sudden epiphany will come to me whole cloth and I just suddenly have a wider understanding of something.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about trauma and its effects upon people’s lives. I’ve come to know so many people, mostly women, who lead devastated lives because of abuse from their past. For most, there is an uphill battle that requires too much strength to overcome alone. So their lives remain isolated, contracted, diminished from the great splendor of what they could other create, produce, experience, etc.

I’ve been there, and I’m still working on my own issues of this nature. Although I’ve come a long way– to the point of being a very different person– I still have some distance to go and the memories of my own diminished life are very close to me. When I meet and come to know others undergoing the same struggle, I can’t help but feel as if I am a “Sister Unarmed.” I say that rather than “sister in arms” because what we have in common is a lack of fighting ability.

People who have had their self-esteem devastated by unrelenting criticism, physical and/or sexual abuse, long term neglect, and more seem to get trained to surrender rather than fight. Fighting back wasn’t allowed in situations where someone else had control and enforced it with impunity. What’s left are the ruined promises for a life, and a soul stuck in a perpetual state of surrender.

And THERE is the rub: How does one combat that which requires a fighting spirit– when it is that very thing which has been systematically expunged from one’s psychological repertoire? 

Healthy, self-defensive RAGE is needed to survive so many difficult circumstances, and many of us have had most of that suppressed and repressed into a state of near oblivion. Now to summon it seems next to impossible. Even when we try– it feels so scary to “allow” into our behavior. We so fear becoming that which we hate and fear ourselves. We dread the consequences of something so justifiable as standing up for ourselves in even the most extreme of circumstances.

I want to change that. For myself, and for the others I know who have this issue. We need to learn to summon, control, and USE our anger for our own benefit. To demand others treat us fairly. To command respect. To take what is rightfully ours. And to prevent further abuse, denigration, or disrespect from anyone who has more than a momentary effect upon our lives.

May it be so!