Full Color

When I was fourteen, I attempted suicide by taking an overdose of antidepressants. This act landed me in a psychiatric hospital where the only department for teenagers was limited to drug and alcohol addicts. For my three month stay they didn't know what to do with a teenaged incest survivor. A few days before my release, a therapist escorted me into the psychodrama therapy room, handed me a bat, pointed me toward a blow up doll, told me to think of the doll as my father, and encouraged me to "hit him". I understood then, that I was supposed to get angry at my father. That's about all the clarity I got out of that.

Unfortunately, that few minutes of psychodrama caused untold damage to the rest of my teenage years, as I had unlocked the door to my anger, but didn't have any further tools to know how to deal with such terribly consuming rage. I ended up acting out in very destructive ways, being hurtful to the people who loved me by raging and being out of control. I often justified my bad behaviors with the fact that I was an incest survivor.

Eventually I hit rock bottom and decided that I might very well have to figure out how to live a meaningful life, and that the first thing I needed to do was to start healing. However, I didn't want to go to a therapist. I needed to be completely in control of my healing. So I read many self help books, and discovered the Twelve Steps. I attended every twelve-step group that I could find that was applicable, going to groups as much as twice a day.

One evening, after a twelve-step meeting, I met up with a friend who encouraged me to try doing some anger work. At the time, I was so consumed with grief and anger that my life was dark and depressing. You could say I was deep in the tunnel, stumbling forward blindly, with no light in sight. By now I was a young adult, had read and learned a lot about recovering from abuse, and was in complete control of my healing. The anger work I was going to attempt to do, was very similar to what I was exposed to as a teen in the hospital. However, this time I understood the process. I was in control. And I had made the choice to do the work.

I met my friend outside of a meeting place, in a large, deserted, low lit parking lot, and I picked up the first thing I found, an abandoned sport shoe. I threw it to the ground, picked it up, threw it down, and allowed and encouraged myself to put voice to the pain and anger. I yelled and screamed and cursed my father.  I did this repeatedly and to the point of complete exhaustion, with my final words being, "How could you?"

That night, I slept like a baby and the next day, as I walked the very familiar path from my apartment to my car, I looked at the world in wonder. The flowers were purple. The sky was blue. Was the grass always so green? My world went from shades of gray to full color. It was awesome.