Imagine to Remember

As a child I worried about the end of the world. I saw the “signs” everywhere. I worried about natural disasters and civil unrest. I had apocalyptic dreams and was increasingly drawn to the dark and morbid. I was terrified that I would not be one of the “saved”. If only I could be good, enough, pure enough, pious enough. I would go as far as to give up the enjoyments of childhood as a sort of penance, a proof of my sincerity. I became more and more withdrawn. In my adolescence I continued to go in and out of phases of intense religiosity, sometimes lasting for many months and even years at a time.

As much as I’d like to think I was a wise, intuitive child who sensed what others could not, I know now that I was experiencing something else entirely. These were not the visions of a mystic in the making or the instincts of a true believer. What I was experiencing was a sort of neurotic obsession and projection. Not real spiritual experiences or real insights, although it is easy enough to confuse the two, and many do. Projection is to see the contents of one’s own unconscious in others and in the world. We see the world as we are, not as it is. And so I became fixated on the chaos of the world and the fate of humanity because I could not and would not deal with the turmoil of my own life. I could not make any sense of the dysfunction around me: at home, in the neighborhood and in the wider world and this created immense anxiety; confrontation and integration was not an option, any attempt would have been dangerous in both the literal and metaphysical sense. The obsessions gave expression to the unconscious content which continued to terrify me well into adulthood. 

The little girl I was cannot be faulted for the coping mechanisms that provided her what seemed like clarity, direction and even a strange sort of solace. But the woman I am must confront what frightens me if I am ever to live in truth and alignment.