I am proposing that we reconceive the dream. That we consider what would happen if security were not the point of our existence. That we find freedom, aliveness, and power not from what contains, locates, or protects us but from what dissolves, reveals, and expands us.
—Eve Ensler, Insecure at Last: Losing it in Our Security-Obsessed World
"One-liness"
Every survivor has known loneliness⎯the kind of solitary pain that comes before, during, and certainly after the wound of sexual trauma. There are few words to truly describe this experience, and often, too few who will listen, hold or believe unbearable, perhaps unsayable, truth.
You may have been instructed or threatened with words or customs to keep your story secret. Perhaps you keep all that you carry to yourselves, either directly or through the unspoken family lineage. These secrets are the legacies of shame that bury themselves deep within the DNA of the psyche, calcified in your body and nervous system.
Perhaps you were punished or shunned because you dared to use your voice or your actions to reveal the truth. You may have devoted your life to political or legal work, to self-sacrifice and long hours of service, perhaps sacrificing your own health or wellbeing to continue to feel apart from connection. You might have created new avenues of psychological, physical or spiritual bondage by recreating abusive practices within yourself that further isolate you from real connection.
These kinds of one-liness can be a chosen separation, a lifestyle that has been embedded by trauma to survive. However, one-liness cannot protect or keep you safe any more than secrets can. It is often most present in the midst of family or social gatherings, when the performance of connection is so starkly different from the actual experience of disconnection. Neglect, one of the most devastating aspects of the loneliness of abuse is so often unrecognized from the outside. In this loneliness, you learn to become invisible even to yourself when you believe you don't matter.
This form of isolation is not solitude. Solitude is regenerative and necessary⎯truly essential to centering the self and reconnecting inside. Isolation is the other end of solitude. It is generated by depression, anger, or fear. It leads to less life and vibrancy as you go down countless rabbit holes of possible dangers, distractions or addiction, instead of making real connection. Isolation distances you because of the fear or pain of abuse. You may keep yourself in this tight capsule of isolation or one-liness to feel safe, but it won’t feed you nor make you feel any more secure. The result is a profound loneliness that only replicates the pain of the past.
How do you reckon with the wounds or habits of isolation? How do you manage or cease contact with those who have hurt or harmed you, especially family members or partners?
Maybe you experiment with new connections that resemble the playbook of the past.
Or…maybe you risk seeking relationships that have the capacity to nourish you and perhaps allow true mutuality in the connection. Maybe you begin a new friendship and actually enjoy the experience, not only by being truly seen by the other, but also by getting out of your own way in the exchange. Maybe you take the chance to let someone in.
It may be a challenge to trust yourself enough to differentiate between the toxic "woundology" of a trauma bond and the real depth and freedom that honest connection generates. Of course, this means you may have to feel the scary reality of caring, or the possibilities of loss that are natural consequences of life and death.
It may be worth the risk.
You will know when you can actually hear and listen without numbing out or simply waiting to have your turn to speak. It will be easier to share and to listen, to speak your truth, laugh freely, and...connect honestly.
You know you are on the right path when you begin to notice that you are not front and center in your exchanges, when you are as interested in the other and an active part of the conversation—neither star player nor non-player in each exchange. You begin to experience and feel the warmth of true connection.
You will know when others matter, because you matter.
You will know when you are less concerned with whether you are recognized for what you do or how you perform, but recognized because you are simply enough.
You experiment with new thoughts, new choices, new realizations…and new connections.
You may still feel lonely at times, which is recognizing a longing for meaningful connections.
But you are on the road to recovery, discovering a way out of isolation.
You have to love. You have to feel. It is essential to being human. Taking the great risk to finding connection and true community is the road to healing.
Insecure at Last: Losing It in Our Security-Obsessed World —Eve Ensler
Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. —Louise Erdrich