“I have treated many hundreds of patients. Among those in the second half of life – that is to say, over 35 – there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost that which the living religions of every age have given their followers, and none of them has really been healed who did not regain his religious outlook.” ~ C.G. Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul
Here’s the rest of the story I started last week.
The event with Ken receded from my mind as I moved through high school. I had a few dates with a few nice boys but it wasn’t until the summer after graduation that I had a boyfriend. ‘Steve’ and I dated until I left for college that fall, and I looked forward to seeing him again over the Christmas vacation.
One night during the holidays Steve said we’d been invited to the house of a man to whom he was distantly related. This man, who had specifically asked Steve to bring me along, had occasionally offered Steve a little fatherly advice after his stepfather had died. In a bizarre synchronicity, he was Ken’s father. I went reluctantly, fearing to see Ken who had not spoken to me since the tenth-grade dance. He wasn’t home. Steve and I talked with Ken’s father for a few minutes, then he asked to speak to Steve alone. They returned shortly, and Steve and I left.
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Reblogged this on lampmagician.
Thank you for sharing this. 🙂
Thanks Jeanie. I was horrified when I read last week of ‘Ken’ and your girlfriend who pretended to be you talking dirty to him on the phone and his subsequent treatment of you .. and again when you met his father in the company of ‘Steve’ a few years later. Be that as it may. It is no wonder that Trump’s actions, words and deeds continued to wound
Your dream of DT and being at his apartment and changing your attitude to him is extraordinary. If only we could see that we all contain both positive and negative attitudes or qualities which are inherent in us. It is not an excuse for anyone’s behaviour; maybe just an awareness that we can make wise choices if we unearth the ‘negative’ qualities within and confront and wonder about them and know that as much that I have them, so too do others.
Thanks Susan. I think early hurts are the hardest to get over. Teenagers are so terribly innocent and vulnerable under all their faux bravado. Beneath my stoic, unflappable exterior was an unusually serious and idealistic child who repressed her emotions and refused to mourn for years. I suppose that’s why my mid-life awakening was so difficult and traumatic, and why I’ve worked so hard since to uncover and empower my feminine side. And yes, why Trump’s misogyny continues to wound.
I think the DT dream is extraordinary too. In my experience, our dreams are the most powerful healers we have because they know us inside and out and cut through the layers to reveal the heart of us. With enough attention to them we can only ignore our ‘negative’ qualities for so long before the time bomb of our hypocrisy explodes in our faces and replaces it with compassion.
Wouldn’t it be neat if children were taught to attend to their dreams from early ages? Prejudice could be wiped out in one generation!! Dream on, Jeanie. 🙂
Wow, Jeannie. Your dream surprised me. And yes, I too, say, “It has to stop.” But in a world, a country where this has arisen so sharply, I have little hope that it can stop in our lifetimes. I fear that no matter how this election goes, we are lft with a power struggle such as we have not seen in a hundred years.
It surprised me too, Diane! As did that little softening I felt in my heart. I didn’t expect that.
After about 5,000 years of misogyny, I agree it’s not going to disappear any time soon. However, I think that what has ‘arisen so sharply’ in our country and the world of late is our consciousness of a cancer we collectively managed to repress until television and computers came along and forced us to see it. Now that we’re seeing it at last, the end is also in sight, if not in our lifetime.
Thank you for writing.
Jeanie
I can hear the better Don shouting What’re we gonna do? We’re gonna tear down the walls!”… well, we can dream!
I’m struck by how hurt Ken must have been by your apparent two-facedness, and how he carried that with him for years, warning off others to what you were “really” like. His proprietorial interest in you caused hurt on both sides. But then without all that, where would Fred be? That part of your life worked out beautifully didn’t it?
Hahahahaha! You obviously have better hearing than I have! But yes, we can dream…..and as you know, I do.
I’ve thought about how much hurt ‘Ken’ must have carried around for so long too and find it very sad. If, as I said to Susan above, it’s true that ‘early hurts are the hardest to get over,’ I suppose it’s possible his inner child is still hurt by my seeming two-facedness. If so, I can only hope he might one day read this. I always liked him until his remark at the dance. After that, I was just afraid of him.
And yes, my life did work out beautifully. With the perspective of hindsight I can see how the combination of all the hurts in my youth brought me to where I am today, and I’m so grateful for it all. Even, dare I say, the misogyny. Without it, what would I write about? 🙂 Thank you for your understanding.
I too see some of myself in you know who and have softened my attitude. Thankfully, unlike America’s Lost Boys, I’ve grown up enough to know I should vote against him. I don’t envy his life after November 8th. Karma responds perfectly. Remember Icarus!
Good for you and me. Softer is good. As long as we remain hardened in our self-righteousness, we’re no different from He Who Must Not Be Named. (Shades of Harry Potter!) 🙂
The second half of life slipped to bigger number since Jung wrote. Maybe 40 now?
Your story became sadder and more maddening as it unfolded–except for the part about being free to meet Fred. A young girl with no defenses who wasn’t allowed to tell her side of the story. I imagine how clueless those high school boys were. I imagine that no one ever tried to straighten out their misguided views. I think it’s sadly common that women don’t defend each other at times like these, and they certainly didn’t when we were in high school. We bowed to power–even as it was represented by a high school kid. Your psyche chose a startling image to highlight an inner attitude about a misogyny. I’ll ponder that for a long time. I haven’t had one dream about Mr. Trump, but I’m watching.
Thank you for your thoughtful observations, Elaine. Yes, I suppose it could happen at any time, depending on personality and life experience. Plus, the numbers may change with improvements in life expectancy. But my disowned contents, like Jung’s, began demanding my attention in my mid-thirties.
No, girls didn’t defend each other when we were in high school. At least not the girls I knew. Certainly my ‘best friend’ didn’t. I didn’t trust her and had ‘no defenses’ so I never told her what happened. I didn’t realize it had anything to do with her then, and it just felt too shameful and terrible to share with anyone. She only found out about it about 10 years ago when she read The Bridge to Wholeness. Even then she didn’t apologize when I asked her why she did things like that to me. She just shrugged it off with, “Because I could, I guess.” But the upshot is that these things were exactly what had to happen to me before my awareness of my wounds could be heightened enough to commit to self-discovery.
I had never dreamed about Trump before this dream and he didn’t actually appear in it either. There was no image of him…my dream ego just had an awareness that it was his apartment and he had loaned it to us and that I was surprised to discover he had a softer, gentler side. To me this says that even though I have very positive and loving and creative animus who helps me, because of the misogyny I’ve experienced, there’s also a part of me that has unknowingly distrusted men and unconsciously projected misogynistic tendencies onto them and my animus. In fact, my mother had some dismissive attitudes toward most men, and I know I absorbed some of those. Seeing and correcting that has been an important part of my journey.
Perhaps the best summary statement I can make about this series on misogyny is that If wide-scale healing is going to happen between men and women in our culture, women are going to have to deal with their wounds, distrust and rage, as much as men.