How to remove poison
By: Peter Romaskiewicz
The memory is so deeply rooted it’s as if my body remembers directly. My stomach churns and tightens as if it’s remembering all by itself. There’s a poison gutting me from the inside.
I’ve come to believe creativity is essential for overcoming childhood trauma. Our enduring challenge is to imagine a future life we’ve never experienced in the past. The expanse of our imagination must be unburdened by the limits of the known.
I’ve previously held strong aversions to creating fake pasts and false futures. I once was asked in therapy to play-act and talk to my dead father; it was impossible to shake how silly the entire exercise felt. Why would I fantasize my parents showing me care they never expressed when they were alive?
My childhood memories of bullying and isolation are painful and live vibrantly in the crooks of my mind; they come to me when I do not want them to. It seemed futile to combat them, after all, they reflect what actually happened.
I don’t remember everything, however, some moments have always been indelibly tactile. I remember the cold metal of the overturned trash can I stood upon; I remember the metal lip that jutted up from the bottom, like the edge on a can of beans. I remember my toes curling uncomfortably over top that sharp lip.
I stumbled across journaling and writing well into adulthood. I use writing as a method for creating order out of chaos.
When intrusive thoughts and ruminations take hold, I can escape to the written word. I write to refine, I write to transmute. I treat writing as an exercise in proper word choice measured against the gut-wrench of my emotions.
Writing captures those painful feelings and externalizes them as pen glides over paper. In time, words diminish their power. Writing is wizard’s alchemy; it diminishes the circulating poison.
I remember the rope, it was thick, twisted, and raspy. The hairs scratched at my neck like a winter wool sweater. This sensation shook me from my trance, I quickly felt a shiver of fear. I begged for someone to protect me. I retreated to the cold ground, my tears soaked into the concrete.
Sometimes, however, even ordered words do not give closure. Writing can diminish the intensity of pain, but can still leave me feeling alone…isolated. I again feel the sting of abandonment, second to my father’s alcohol and my mother’s indifference.
My childhood memories may be tamed, but my deepest self demands new worlds of possibility, new horizons of meaning. The limits of the known must be overcome.
Creativity is essential. Is there a world where I was not weak? Where I felt safe? Is there a world where I was loved?
I fell asleep that night in the darkened basement, alone.
I realize now that creating fantastic reality is an act of true self-heroism. I give myself what I needed, but never received. I do not do this to rehabilitate my family, I do this to nourish my most fundamental self.
This imaginative act is performed in spite of a harsh and retrenching reality. My imagination creates security and finds a footing in hope. It lights a path forward unburdened by a darkened past.
Fantasy is the heroic magic that breaks the curse. Self-compassionate imagination is the antidote to the poison; I seize the spell to reshape reality.
I imagine my mother running to me, sweeping me up and embracing me close. My father follows, holding my head closely against his. Then my grandmother comes, caressing my back, with my grandfather supporting my feet. All of my aunts appear, holding my hands; my uncles gather around and tell me they love me. The more tightly they hold me, the more I breathe freely. The tattered rope unravels and scatters into dust.
This is a healing I deserve, the antidote I can only give to myself.
Peter has a Ph.D. in Religious Studies. His creative nonfiction explores trauma-informed phenomenology and survivor-based epistemology. After twenty years as a hobbyist runner he discovered a passion for lifting heavy weights. He used to fight demons, but now he performs feats of strength.X I Website | BlueSky