“I need a moment on this one, guys,” Joanna said, slipping back into her mind. “I want the Irish Cottage. I need the warmth of my cottage.”
At once, the scene in my mind melted away to the once familiar wood floor boards in the kitchen. A table immediately to the right. To the left, the stove, refrigerator topped with Jameson, Four Roses, and…
Joanna smiled. “I see wine has been added to the fridge.”
Bergen leaned against the archway that separated the kitchen from a living area that seemed to burst with plants that filled a bay window. A piano, a book shelf adorned with books, and a single black cat seated in the window opposite the room.
Imagination glided into the room and began a kettle for coffee.
“You needed to talk,” Bergen said.
Joanna shook her head and sat down at the table releasing an exasperated sigh.
“Should someone say…,” Imagination said.
“This is our Dome, dear reader,” Bergen said, pushing his weight off of the arch and coming to sit at the table with Joanna. “And this, is all happening inside the author’s head right now, as we see it.”
Joanna lifted her head and stared off in the distance, not seeing anything as her mind raced.
“I can see it,” Joanna said. “How I crave visibility. How that is what I feel is threatened when I’m in a relationship. How… This need for visibility, not love, is the core of my NEED to be seen. Without it, I lose my Name, my Voice, my Feelings all over again! I lose my freedom! I’m a slave all over again! And god knows when I’ll have the window to speak again.”
“These are all the things I feel when he… when my Number #1 isn’t available for me. It’s what I feel when he doesn’t answer his texts. It’s what I feel when I…”
“See me. Hear me. Feel me. Touch me.” Kallan’s crystal voice filled the adjacent room.
“See me. Hear me. Touch me. Heal me,” Imagination echoed.
A tear slipped from Joanna’s eye.
“I want to know what love is,” Joanna said. “But this… thing… this need for Visibility… keeps getting in my way. It takes over inside me like a leviathan. And it derails my progress!”
Kallan stood inside the arc, watching Joanna cradle her head.
“You know what to do, lass,” Bergen said.
Joanna nodded. “Of course,” she sighed. “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Meditation. Identify the feeling. Pause. Name it. Isolate it and validate it.”
“Pet it,” Bergen said. “Call it by name. Soothe it.”
“In the validation,” Imagination said, pulling down four cups from the cupboard, “we confirm our perspective. And this reinforces our truth and our confidence and ability in assessing, judging, and understanding the world around us. And in so doing, we can plan accordingly to knowing our place and position in that world.”
“Like knowing the positions on a chess board,” said Kallan, taking a seat at the table between Bergen and Joanna.
“Exactly,” Imagination said, setting the cups around the table and joining them at the table. “When our perspective is taken from us, we lose our heading. We lose our North. Suddenly, we don’t know our enemies, our allies… we don’t know ourselves. Perspective is the greatest thing we can possess. All of this, all of the subconscious is simply a chess game. We need to know the players, our selves, the terrain, the positions and the moves. We need purpose and direction.”
“And abusers alter our perspectives, alter our identities, and pose as friend when they are really foe. All the while, they move to enslave you in their mental maze. And when they impede their definitions on you, ‘this is a rock,’ ‘this is a tree,’ ‘this is love…’ you lose all ability to move on your own without their aid.”
“Which is why, one of the first things a therapist will have you do, is change the definitions of words you use,” said Kallan.
“Trauma recovery,” Bergen said, “is the redefining of these definitions and the reclaiming of one’s own clarity so you can be free to move without the abuser.”
“Abusers require your dependence,” said Kallan.
Joanna nodded and sighed again. “And this is why I smoke weed… to unlock this clarity.”
The kettle bubbled and sputtered, and Imagination stood from the table and turned off the stove. A moment later she was pouring coffee into the cups. Bergen was up, pulling down the whiskey as Imagination pushed the sugar bowl and cream toward the center of the table.
“Could you have done it? Without the weed, I mean,” Kallan asked.
All eyes turned to Joanna.
“I think so,” Joanna said. “I think, one day, I will… But I also think the weed expedites the process and sharpens my focus.”
“And time is of the essence, my dear,” Imagination said, sipping her coffee.
“You drink coffee?” Joanna asked furrowing, her brow. “I always thought you were a tea drinker.”
Imagination winked and hummed with delight into her coffee.
“I crave visibility,” Joanna repeated.
“Well,” Bergen sighed sitting back at the table and pouring Four Roses into the coffee.
“Four Roses,” Joanna said darkly over her coffee. “Really?”
Bergen flashed a sly grin and winked knowingly at Joanna. He took a gulp of whiskey before continuing. “You have discovered that happiness is just gratitude. That you mistake love for visibility. Now… Let’s talk about love.”
“Love…” Joanna repeated. “I felt it with Raven.”
All paused. The room fell silent, and all eyes turned to Imagination who had frozen mid-setting her cup back to the table.
“I suppose,” Imagination said, setting the cup down. “You want me to elaborate on that… situation.”
“How did you do it? What was it? How?” Joanna blurted.
Imagination closed her eyes and recalled an Irish field eight years ago.
“I knew the reality. That he never would meet me. That we never could be. I loved him. Pure and simple. His happiness was my happiness. His pleasure was my pleasure. I didn’t seek to own him, posses him, have him, I just… accepted him and admired him from afar. For him, loving him was enough.”
“Then why isn’t it that way with… Number #1?” Joanna asked.
“I imagine,” Imagination flashed a small smile, “it is because your Narcisstic Abuse Syndrome, your Relationship abuse, and your slavery threaten you where Number #1 is concerned, because he can hurt you. Raven was never in a position to hurt me. Ever.”
“So… the possession…” Joanna’s eyes widened. “The enslavement is the trigger… is the catalyst for the symptoms!”
“The threat of being hurt is the trigger,” corrected Bergen.
“Which means,” Kallan said, “that love very well may exist with Number #1 –“
“In fact, it did!” said Joanna.
“But when your conditioning turned on,” Kallan continued. “the symptoms that come with the conditioning also turned on…”
“And it overshadowed and buried the love,” finished Joanna.
“Exactly,” said Kallan.
“So,” Bergen said. “The disruption that we need to conduct for ‘Slave Mind’ or the Narcissistic Abuse Syndrome isn’t for the triggered symptom…”
“It’s the Conditioning,” Joanna concluded. “It’s the threat of being hurt! That is the trigger!”
“There it is,” said Anna out loud.
“Half of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, if it is going to work, is to identify the correct trigger, the primary catalyst, and not a symptom,” Imagination explained to the reader. “If you have a trigger that triggers a trigger, it is easy to identify a tertiary trigger as the initial catalyst.”
“Which doesn’t actually solve the problem,” Joanna said.
“Follow the trigger path,” Bergen said.
Joanna inhaled deeply and closed her eyes.
“Fear of pain. Vulnerability. Threat,” Joanna began. “These things all trigger “Slave Mode” and “Narcisstic Conditioning.” Which triggers the need for Visibility. Which sends me back into the “Serve and Give” to earn Visibility mindset. And just like that, I’m back in my slave environment, invisible, and I have forgotten that I can now use my words and just speak. Fuck.”
“This was the rat’s nest buried inside your PTSD and Borderline Personality Disorder…” Kallan said.
“And the Multiple Personality Disorder,” Joanna added.
They all laughed.
“And all of this is still without love,” Bergen said.
“Which is just human connection,” Joanna said.
“And all of this is still without love,” Anna said out loud.
“Anna is the author,” Imagination clarified. “She is the body, the physical being that is Anna.”
“She’s the truck,” Bergen said into his coffee.
“Without love and human connection,” Joanna continued, “We are lonely.”
“I don’t think human connection is the same thing as love,” Bergen said.
All attention shifted to him.
“Well…” They watched as he lit a pipe and leaned back in his chair. “Think about it,” he continued.
“Imagination described the feeling of just observing and admiring without possession. She experienced pleasure in his pleasure and happiness in his happiness. But… Anna has been going out with her interviews seeking human connection with people.”
They all exchanged glances.
“That’s right,” Joanna said. “Human connection is the exchange of ideas, emotions, experiences, bodies, …”
“This is it, love. Keep going,” Imagination said.
“Human connection is sharing,” Joanna said. “But love is admiring. Wallowing?”
“Love is caring,” Imagination said. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t stand waiting any longer for you to find the answer. Love is simply caring. I love coffee. I love the earth. I love The Nature. I love animals. I care about what happens with those things. How much we love or care, determines the depth of love.”
“So what is sex?” Joanna said, blurting out the question.
“Sex can be… a shared experience…” Imagination said. “Depending on how deep the caring is for the person.”
“Or how shallow,” amended Bergen. “As is the case of the Narcissist.”
“Now, I would argue that a Narcissist knows these feelings,” said Kallan. “They can feel love, but it eludes them. They don’t understand them. They struggle to comprehend them. They may not even be able to recognize what they’re feeling when it comes to them.”
Anna writes to Number #1 via text:
Maybe you should know what my deal breakers are. I don’t think we’ve ever talked about those. Ever.
Drugs like Meth and Heroine. Coke is pushing it. Coke… and we’re going to have a talk. Morally corrupt behavior that hurts yourself, others, or society. A refusal to “work” on a relationship. A refusal to “work” on your self. Hitting me. Ever. Instant deal breaker. Name-calling. Deal Breaker. I don’t tolerate character assassination. Nor should you. Violence. And that… is it. Those are my deal breakers. Those are my ethical guarantees that I will leave. All other times… holy shit… all other times I threaten to leave are triggers! And I need to be asking what I am afraid of. Well there is the line in the sand that I’ve needed!
“Oh…” Bergen sat up.
“Holy shit,” said Kallan.
“You see it?” Joanna said.
“All other times that I threaten to leave are triggers!” Imagination repeated, rising from her chair. “Ladies. Bergen. I do believe we have a very clear line drawn in the sand to help us determine if and when we’re “Acting out” verses when we legitimately need to exit a relationship!”
“This is night and day,” Joanna said. “Just write up a list of our deal breakers and, if he hasn’t violated our deal breakers AND we have the urge to leave…”
“We’ll know it’s an impulse urge!” Bergen said. “And a trigger! And we’ll know we need to evaluate ourselves and stay put!”
“Which means,” Kallan said. “No more threatening to leave the relationship! Ever!”
“And that’s how it’s done, ladies and gentlemen!” Joanna said. “List of deal breakers again?”
- Drugs. (Meth. Heroine. Coke.)
- Morally corrupt behavior that hurts the self, others, or society.
- A refusal to work on the relationship
- A refusal to work on the Self
- Hitting Me
- Violence
- Character Assassination AKA Name-Calling
- Narcissism
“That’s why you left the first husband…” Bergen said. “Refusal to work on the relationship.”
“I need to take this all in,” Joanna said. “I’m in pain. My discomfort is high.”
“Number #1,” Kallan said.
“How will you bring down the discomfort?” Bergen said.
Joanna shook her head and rubbed her eyes. “I don’t know. We’re both tired of the pain. Tired of the work. Tired of the stress. Tired.”
“You need rest,” Imagination said.
“We have to get through this,” Joanna said. “He pushed me away to protect himself, and that made all of this worse… Because now, we’re not close enough to heal and repair the damage. We just sit in the pain.”
“Process this, Anna,” Imagination said. “Rest.”
I nodded, wiped the tear from eye, and published the post.