"Pearl in Shell" via Blue Eyed Ennis
I recently had an anniversary. About a year ago, I was unable to sleep and up late at night calling anonymous help lines. To even admit this, I am bashful. Who wants to represent the image of a person who has reached the point in their life when calling anonymous help lines in the middle of the is nothing out of the ordinary? I did this for about a week until one night I was connected to a local hotline, not one of those 24-hour hotlines that have someone sitting by the phone around the clock. Nope, the person I spoke to on this particular night had been sleeping and was woken up because it was their night to watch the hotline. For the next few days this counselor, the one I had awoken, relentlessly called me until I agreed to go to the Rape Crisis Center in my area.
Not long after that, I reluctantly showed up at the doorstep of this old house turned office building in the middle of the city ready to talk about what happened to me ten years ago. As I rang the doorbell and waited for security to let me in, I figured that talking to a counselor couldn’t possibly make me feel worse than I already did.
Is it sad that Scarlett O’Hara, Vivien Leigh’s character in Gone with the Wind, used to be my idol? Is it ironic that I too grew up to be emotionally unavailable and heartless? I’m not really heartless (my boyfriend has dropped the H-bomb a few times during heated disagreements) but I am without a doubt “emotionally unavailable.” I can be compassionate, caring, concerned for others, but when people show the same feelings towards me, I am often just plain cold, and unsure of how to react. This is a common defense mechanism adopted by many who have experienced excruciating pain and rejection. It is just one of the results of abuse and neglect. I think this is why I idolized Scarlett O’Hara. It was not just her beauty and tenacity, but the strength and power she gained from being unfeeling. As a young girl who had already experienced much sadness, I too thought I could just put up an emotional wall like she did; rather than internalize the pain, I adopted her “I can’t think about that right now. If I do I’ll go crazy. I’ll think about it tomorrow,” attitude.
