Cabot O’Callaghan takes us into the ice cave of despair where the fire of his soul burns brightly.
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Blood loss in a bathroom stall
Southern girl with a scarlet drawl
Wave goodbye to ma and pa ’cause
With the birds I’ll share
With the birds I’ll share this lonely view and
With the birds I’ll share this lonely view and
—Red Hot Chili Peppers, Scar Tissue
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Culture’s gravity: There’s the pulpit, the political podium. The scholarly lecture, the familial legacy.
The diagnosis.
Like a bonsai I was pruned and bound into a shape. What if I hadn’t? What if I’d simply been nurtured and allowed to process life and grow at my own pace, in directions dictated from within?
I read the essay Mutiny of the Soul by Charles Eisenstein recently and I cried. He was speaking to a deep part of me that has struggled since birth. It’s not something I could articulate until the pain of my unnatural shaping compelled me to dig in my scarred landscape.
In my adolescence I began to feel that something was fundamentally wrong. The emotional itch was nebulous, but real. The frustration of not being able to scratch it made me desperate to define it. But in my search I couldn’t resist listening to the din of definitions being screamed in my ears.
I was weak.
I was a failure.
I was inconsequential.
I was an underachiever.
I was poor.
I was fat.
I was too sensitive.
I was weird.
I was perverted.
I was unwanted.
I was a sinner.
I was a coward.
I was unworthy.
I was wrong.
My frustration turned inward. I began to hate myself. Years and years of suffering followed. I tried hard to fight against being these definitions by being what was defined as right but a stubborn part of me continually resisted. I blamed that part of me as the origin of all my wrongness.
It was a hell I no longer wanted to reside in and I turned to face what I had labeled the devil and instead found myself.
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That’s when I was diagnosed with depression, a defect with a largely unknown cause. The “what” could be loosely explained but not the “why.” I took pills designed to help cope, but not to cure. When this approach ultimately failed to “cure” me, I was unwilling to accept the fact that I was going to feel this way for the rest of my life because I suffered from some disorder. I was tired of warring with myself, of being innately wrong. It was a hell I no longer wanted to reside in and I turned to face what I had labeled the devil and instead found myself. He was certainly no devil, he was a tortured and starved prisoner begging to be released. Bruised, torn and wound in barbed wire, he had still endured decades of abuse without breaking. He was my itch—his iron will to survive, to live an authentic life, was the irritant ghost of my mind.
He is my true self, my core. I set him free.
There were consequences. But the pain of this unraveling was unavoidable. At least it was pain full of truth instead of lies. I accepted it.
Thus began the mutiny of my soul.
It’s a lonely land to walk. People flee from the exposed truth of my scars, too afraid to question their engrained assumptions. This is why the movie Fight Club is dear to me. It overflows with meaning both symbolic and literal. One scene in particular roars loudest with truth:
Tyler licks his lips until they’re gleaming wet. He takes
Jack’s hands and KISSES the back of it.
TYLER
The first soap was made from the
ashes of heroes. Like the first
monkeys shot into space.
The saliva shines in the shape of the kiss. Tyler pours a
bit of the flaked lye onto Jack’s hand.
TYLER
Without sacrifice, without death, we
would have nothing.
Jack’s whole body JERKS. Tyler holds tight to Jack’s hand
and arm. Tears well in Jack’s eyes; his face tightens.
TYLER
This is a chemical burn. It will
hurt more than you’ve ever been
burned and you will have a scar.
Jack looks — the burn is swollen, glossy, in the shape of
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JACK (V.O.)
Tyler’s kiss was a bonfire on the
back of my hand.
TYLER
Look at your hand.
JACK (V.O.)
Guided meditation worked for cancer,
it could work for this.
SHOT OF A GREEN MAPLE LEAF, GLISTENING WITH DEW. RESUME:
Tyler looks at Jack’s glazed and detached eyes.
TYLER
Come back to the pain. Don’t shut
this out.
Jack, snapping back, tries to jerk his hand away. Tyler
keeps hold of it and their arms KNOCK UTENSILS off the table.
JACK (V.O.)
I tried not to think of the words
“searing” or “flesh.” I imagined my
pain as a ball of healing white light.
SHOT OF A FOREST, IN GENTLE SPRING RAINFALL. RESUME:
Tyler JERKS Jack’s hand, getting Jack’s attention…
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Stop it. This is your pain — your
burning hand. It’s right here. Look
at it.
JACK (V.O.)
I was going to my cave to find my
power animal.
SHOT OF THE INSIDE OF JACK’S FROZEN ICE CAVE. RESUME:
Tyler JERKS Jack’s hand again. Jack re-focuses on Tyler…
TYLER
Don’t deal with this the way those
dead people do. Deal with it the way
a living person does.
SHOT OF INSIDE THE ICE CAVE – ON MARLA, LYING NAKED UNDER A
FUR COAT, TURNING HER HEAD TO LOOK TOWARDS US. RESUME:
Jack tries to pull his hand free. Tyler won’t let go.
Jack’s eyes glaze over again. Jack speaks, whiny from pain:
JACK
I… I think I understand. I think
I get it…
TYLER
No, what you’re feeling is premature
enlightenment.
SHOT OF A GREEN FOREST WITHOUT RAIN. RESUME:
Tyler SLAPS Jack’s face, regaining his attention…
TYLER
This is the greatest moment of your
life and you’re off somewhere,
missing it.
I did, and still do, suffer from depression and a litany of other emotional scars. Unlike we are taught, I will not deny them or escape their pain through our culture’s soothing kaleidoscope of self-medications—material and emotional. I will not blame myself, nor hide them in shame. I will feel them and acknowledge their true origin. I will see them as the warning sign they truly are.
We’ve all been hurt in deep and savage ways. Everyone. None are immune but many are unaware. Most accept the pain as personal flaw instead of injury. They do not truly know their pain.
I still take antidepressants. I take them to cope with an insane world, not because I’m insane.
I hurt for a reason. That reason is not me.
The house is on fire.
Photo—Denise Mayumi/Flickr