Creepy and Horrifying

CREEPY & HORRIFYING

“She put out her hand against the screen.  She watched herself push the door slowly open as if she were back safe somewhere in the other doorway, watching this body and this head of long hair moving out into the sunlight where Arnold Friend waited.”

Have more disturbing words ever been written?  Not that I’ve read.  She “watched” herself walk into grave danger --- against her intuition, against her fight or flight instincts… As if she were merely a puppet controlled by an entity outside of herself.   Is there a puppet master sometimes pulling our strings?  If so, where does it reside? In a battle of wills between ourselves and that other voice arguing in our head, what determines the winner? 

It reminds me of the typical horror movie when I am yelling, "No, don't go up the stairs into the room with the creepy noises!  Are you freaking crazy?!?!?!?"  And it reminds me of the vampire genre where the vampire has to smooth talk his way into the house.  Somehow the victim is talked into being a participant of their own victimization.  

This piece disturbs me on a visceral level.  So much so that I actually feel physically ill when I read it.

When I was 25, I was held captive for over 24 hours while a demented man oscillated between a raping madman and concerned caregiver as I puked over and over.  The raping madman kept his weapons close to insure cooperation.  However, when I was making a mad dash to the toilet, he held my hair back and caressed my face with a cool cloth.  To get out of there alive was my ultimate goal.  Many times I felt as if I were “watching” myself be violated as my “other” self mentally focused on how to manipulate this crazy situation into a survivable one.

Repeatedly, I kept thinking, “My last experience on this planet will be with this person?  My final words will be heard by a crazy man?  My final thoughts will be filled with ….”  And it was then that the light bulb blinded me.  My physical experience, he could control.  My last words, he would hear. 

But my last thoughts….. THOSE WERE MINE AND MINE ALONE!!!  What would I feel those final moments with was my choice.  I could choose fear.  I could choose beauty.  I could choose love.  The point was I COULD CHOOSE! 

As he drove me to a deserted field, relieved me of all personal identifying items, and picked up his knife, I knew it was time for my final conversation.  Obviously, something I said triggered a response that made him release me with a sound of disgust and anger.  My body was free!  Mentally, it would take years for freedom to arrive.  Even now when I read a story such as “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” the impact of what transpired during those endless hours haunts me.

Last Tuesday night, my stepson shot his wife and himself.  Both are alive.  He was transported to jail yesterday and has not had contact with anyone outside of law enforcement yet.  I wonder if he will say that he felt like he was outside of himself and watched himself do this horrible thing, even as the other voice in his head told him to not destroy all of these lives.  I don’t know, but the questions hang heavy.  I imagine him laying on his prison cot wishing he could take back that moment in time, switch to an alternate universe where sanity had reigned, or thinking of the countless ways his life might have taken a different path.  He is a handsome, brilliant man with everything to live for and all who know him stagger in disbelief at what he did to his new (3 months) wife.

One of our classmates mentioned the coping mechanism of compartmentalizing.  Although not a desired method for her, I, on the other hand found it a life raft in raging ocean.   The variety of coping mechanisms humans employ are as diverse as our species.  There is no “right way” only what works for you to be able to continue your life with some modicum of “normality” – whatever that is.  I’m not sure anyone can teach another how to divide his/her life up into manageable pieces.  I don’t ever remember not doing it.  For me, I find comfort in visually boxing up certain events in pretty packages, placing them in my storage closet, and then locking the door.  I have control over the key that opens the door.  The secret is that I feel, (whether it is true or just an illusion), that I control the door. 

There is little that terrifies me more than not being able to control circumstances that affect me.  I guess that is what terrifies me about this story:  Connie could not control herself and walked out of that door into danger’s arms.  Who controls our lives?

image from Osho Zen tarot deck