Other Worlds is a collection shared from the memories of the child parts I became within myself, having to grow up in an abusive family. They were involved in an organised group of abusers, a cult made up of powerful people whose wealth and position protected them from any consequences. Like all cults they claimed ownership of the children within the group. We were no more than prisoners. Over the years they used methods of conditioning and torture to silence us, and keep us terrorised. Despite these odds I was somehow able to hold onto love as a form of resistance, it was a choice I made from within my Soul, the side I picked. It was this love that shaped me. I found love in places I was not supposed to, I did it quietly, it was my child’s wisdom when the world outside was trying to teach me fear, loneliness and powerlessness. Because of the nature of the abuse I experienced the only way I could cope was to dissociate, or to not know the full impact of the trauma I was being caused. To live with it consciously was impossible for a small child. So I created many parts to me, fractures of the real self I was not allowed to be. Each child part holding a memory, a feeling, an experience of the trauma. These children have been my other worlds, my protectors holding all of the trauma I could not live with back then. Over time with lots of work in and out of therapy I have come to listen to all their stories and remember, feel what it is I actually survived. I have often had my breath taken away by the cruelty of my family and the measures they went to in order to break me. But whatever they tried , it did not work because I knew all along I was different to them. In all the things they did to destroy me I managed to hold onto my belief in love. It became my core force which never gave up guiding me towards the truth of my life and the chance to be real and free. I have remembered many occasions as a child when I was supposed to be broken by the methods they used to control me. Instead I seemed to be able to see hope and beauty from my own child’s vision. I will never really understand how I did this, all I know is that I did and it saved me. It saved my Soul.
The Shire Horse
Lily stands at the top of the stairs looking down to the front door. The wooden banister shines in the hall light, glowing with honey wax polish. Its sweet smell fills the space, merging with the dense colours of vibrant green and red curtains shutting out the night’s darkness. She pauses a moment before moving her tiny feet to walk down, her eyes focused on a black and white drawing waiting for her next to the door. It confronts her senses, pulling her in each time she leaves the house. It gives her heart a sad wondering, imagining the love she could give. It is so beautifully drawn it could deceive in it’s content, but it is this very quality that makes it so mesmerising.
In Lily’s eyes is a stark, black and white drawing of an old shire horse standing in a snow blizzard. His long mane is blown back against the wind, his strong head bowed in cold neglect left so cruelly alone in the storm. His huge body is braced against the icy wind, he stands with his back leg pushed out to steady himself. His white and grey coat is pelleted with snow and ice. He is frozen and forlorn stood in thick, deep snow, his long eye lashes dripping with the soft whiteness. He is so beautiful in his strength and vulnerability, an image of abandonment. Of suffering. Lily sees him with her heart. She wants to save him, to lead him to a warm stable, giving him shelter and food, covering him in a blanket to keep him warm. She could give him love and kindness, settling him down in the hay to stroke his nose and whisper tender reassurances in his ears. She is left feeling anger and so much sadness at his predicament. She feels she cannot save him like she wants. She carries this feeling of frustrated powerlessness with her as she leaves the house in the darkness.
It’s only a drawing after all. This image capturing complete abandonment, the steep loneliness of this state. But it affects her deeply because she is a child with a child’s imagination. To think of an animal , any animal treated so cruelly breaks something in her. A brokenness reflected by the horse that can only be healed with love. She feels this from looking at him. She knows animals are the safe, loving ones, and humans ? Well they caused his pain. The pain she sees so clearly, captured vividly in front of her. She recognises this pain, the pain she wants to stop. With love. The front door closes and off she goes into the night, a child alone with the image of the shire horse in her mind and how she can save him.