She asked me how I felt and I responded with angry. But she wouldn’t accept that. I was in for a tussle. Sister Rosemary was the one in charge and she was about to take me on a journey of revelation and discovery. I was sitting among a group of 17 other women in a residential rehab about to be confronted by the head nun who ran the place. Iden Manor, Kent. An idyllic country house converted into a temporary home for those of us who had destroyed ourselves sufficiently with chemicals, we needed to be placed there for our own safety. Every day group work was part of the deal. The slogan they bandied about was, we break you down to rebuild you. I was about to experience this breaking and I was not ready for it.
I’d not been there long, my full stay being 7 months. I was thawing out after a brutal detox, where the intensity of the shame I felt was coupled by the shaking of my hands as I withdrew. As the detox neared to an end I began to get in touch with my emotions. I felt a surge of energy I can only describe as electric. What came next was the emotion that took me over, for a long time. Anger. It was a pure emotion, one which would show me the truth of my life. Being as fierce, and more importantly as forbidden as it had been, I had come to use it as a way to destroy myself. Here it was without any anaesthetic poured over it. It felt like pure power and I needed that strength it gave me. It protected me from all the powerlessness I had ever felt during an abusive childhood. Powerlessness I was not ready to face at that point. Anger felt like a coat of armour, one I used with everyone and everything around me. For a while in rehab I was allowed to have it without having to look at what might be living underneath it. But then came that day when Sister Rosemary decided she would come into group and confront me to look deeper. She was gentle with me, this impressive Irish nun, with her lilting accent and piercing blue eyes. She then did something no one else had ever done. She saw the vulnerable, fragile, broken child hiding behind the roar of rage I was using, and in doing this she gave me permission for the first time in my life to see her too. She started by asking me what was going on, what I was feeling, so I trotted out my answer about the slight I felt toward another woman in the group, who had criticised me the day before for loosing my temper when I was sharing. She did not try to deny I had a right to my anger, she accepted it, but she leaned forward and looked me in the eyes to ask me what it was I was feeling. It became very quiet at that point. I was not aware of anyone else in the room, except me and her. I felt baffled as she continued to ask me what I was feeling. I told you I said, I feel angry and I repeated what had been said to me about my temper, that I could seem intimidating at times and hostile. I said I’d felt judged for angry feelings that were legitimate. She did not disagree with this, but she kept on pushing me, asking me what I really felt. There was a moment of stillness between us as I stopped to think about what she was asking me. In my confusion I suddenly started to feel very small. This shift occurred inside me and I touched on a feeling I had never been allowed, or was even aware of. I felt as if only Sister Rosemary and I were in that room. I felt held by her. A feeling of warmth from my solar plexus spread out through my body. I felt a sense of wonder and amazement at what was being revealed in me. She asked me again, what is it you feel my dear ? I suddenly knew the feeling, but I could barely voice it. Could this be it ? I sat stunned, looking at her and she knew I’d got it. She didn’t need to ask me again, I could tell her now. I feel fear, I feel afraid I said. We just sat and looked at each other. It is a moment I will never forget. In discovering my fear, in saying it out loud to someone else who cared, I suddenly felt safe. For the first time in my life I had been able to be real about what I felt without having to hide it. She had given me that and then I had given it to myself. It was a turning point, the start of becoming real. That was the day I started to treat myself with compassion and wonder. It was the point I turned my eye inward to look for the truth, to how I could care for it, no matter what. There were many more days of being angry, there always will be, but after this day with Sister Rosemary I knew however justified my rage, my anger, and it was so justified most of the time, I could use my curiosity and compassion to go within and ask what is going on ? She gave me permission to explore that day, to explore and see the child I was. I was no longer invisible. Over time this child did not have to shout so loud to get me to hear. She was allowed to be vulnerable and I responded with kindness. The need to hide was no longer a need.
