Hello 2 year old Susan
I am your adult self. I see your awareness that there’s something different about your brother. That you’re 18 months younger but can move better than he can. People outside your immediate family are uncomfortable around him. I see your confusion and your reliance on your mother to interpret this for you and to decide what to do.
Hello 10 year old Susan
I feel your intense embarrassment at your early and rapid puberty. How wrong you feel amongst your peers. How frightening it is to be examined naked by specialists. How confusing that your cousin is about to finish high school and shows no signs of developing breasts or hips or starting her periods. How impossible it is for you to understand the conflict between your mother and your paternal aunt over this. None of this is reflected in the “Now You’re a Woman” sex education materials available in the 1970s. You feel unstable. It makes sense that your strategy to protect yourself from the unwelcome attention of adult men at this age is to turn yourself off as a sexual being. Easier to continue to identify with your family of origin than it is to trust your body. But this cuts you off from the rebelling that teenagers must do, and from wider social and political changes.
Hello 33 year old Susan
I’m right here. Your 61 year old self. I knew to come. That you need help and no one is available. There is someone now. I’m here.
Do you need acknowledgement of helplessness? of hopelessness? of powerlessness? Of course! Of course you do!
There has been a change in the law. Back in 1990 in your part of Australia - 3 years ago. This change is right and fair. It is hard won and necessary. But you did not notice and now you are shocked. George continued to claim you as his girlfriend even as he made his identity change to being a gay man. 1994 is when he tells you. There is a sharp slap of finally understanding. He is still vulnerable to family and social rejection. You do not yet see how vulnerable you are. And you need accompaniment to sort this all out. But your parents are dealing with your older brother in intensive care and supporting your maternal aunt to die at home. Your younger siblings are not close by. Your friends no longer feel safe, and you can’t speak about it yourself. Sworn to secrecy by George and frozen by a shame too awful to bring to light, you adopt a familiar coping strategy - dissociation. Separation from the feelings and truths only your own body can bring you. It makes sense that you become functioning but frozen. Survival.
Hello 50 year old Susan
I want to say how grateful I am that you work with Non-Violent Communication. Attending residential trainings; committing to a regular practice group and to empathy partners. It will be challenging, even confronting and painful, but also playful and ultimately a means for ME to feel connected to the full flow of life - as a childless, 61 year old spinster.
Is it sweet to know that you do find a way to accompany yourself? That you even come to own the shame you carry for behaving in a way that did not meet your own integrity? That you learn to start reintegrating all that you have learned? You are still far from able to maintain it in the face of a major triggering event, but you are a lot more accepting of you. It is sad that it takes so long, but that lends a conviction that even moves you towards courage. To claim the processing time this needs. To trust the kindness of strangers and chuckle when things go wrong. I hope this helps.
Love, Susan
Susan Dowrie
Photo by Linus Nylund on Unsplash