Mothered

 My first night in ceremony with aya was violent. Although once the medicine took root I was no longer "in the room," the place I found myself was physically violent and terrifying. I actually wished for death. It would have been merciful. I wanted help, but couldn't ask for it. I would come to long enough to begin the thought, "I need help," but before I could finish it, I would be pulled under again. It felt like what I imagine it must feel like to swept away in a tsunami, suffocating and simultaneously being thrashed about under water with massive amounts of debris presenting obstacles your body slams into with magnificent force, then continuing to rake you forward in the torrent. Sometimes when I awoke, I was vomiting and had no idea how long I had been. I didn't know if I was puking into a bucket, onto the floor, or onto myself. Once I was able to say "help me," but when everyone came over to assist, I couldn't speak. Nothing that they offered in the form of help was what I thought I needed. I don't know what I thought I needed. To get out of it, I suppose. 

Charlie's perspective is that that is the world Exile lives in, all the time. The place where the need for dissociation was born. And that my inability to ask for help that I desperately needed is parallel to the same in my actual life. It seems accurate. If Exile wants to die, dissociating is the next best thing. The big ask now is to sit in that, or with that. Just like with the anger and sadness about my parents. All the places that make me afraid, uncomfortable, or want to die are the places I NEED to sit in. Jesus.