Words Paradise Lost
Writing post-narcissism abuse (with Milton’s help)
Writing is a difficult habit to develop. For myself it is a daily necessity and not just a creative outlet. I have been penning poetry, odd little quotes and occasional moody pieces to discreetly share my inner bits and pieces. Being broken has helped me find a piece, stare at in wonder and recall locations with characters and their tones and feelings. There is a story in each piece concerning that part of the mind of which I have not been fully aware of but which influences one’s actions and feelings.
“Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all”*
Making meaningful moments with my mind or soul was never done in his presence. I had limited expectations that I could ever return to my bygone era of literature and art because I was tied down with a reactive partner and usually gathering eggshells; that I may not walk on them. I secretly struggled to buy books, find time to read or paint.
“for now the thought
Both of lost happiness and lasting pain”*
I now, make an effort to write so as to heal my twenty years of exhaustive judicial-like scenarios with a highly controlling individual. This was a gradual build up of power and control. I never detected it as threatening. People who encounter and deal with such facadesque individuals know that such a disorder of thought processing harms the entire atmosphere of living life itself. One cannot differentiate the wrong from right. Because they force us to see what they think is right. Theatrical but convincing.
“Who now triumphs, and in th’ excess of joy
Sole reigning holds the Tyranny of Heav’n.”*
I have been blind to the stark stress I faced most of my adulthood with a person who I still have hope for becoming more kind and emotionally stable. I endured extempore explanations to a demanding person who I thought had noble intentions to solve matters whereas this was not the reality. I was actually tinkering tantrums of ignoble heights. My submissiveness was not letting him change.
“Nor what the Potent Victor in his rage
Can else inflict, do I repent or change,
Though chang’d in outward lustre; that fixt mind
And high disdain, from sence of injur’d merit,”*
I experience micro-suffering from flashbacks while doing my daily tasks and then there is a splurge of emotions from dusty memories which choke me to tears. At any given moment, any one walking in on me will become a little shocked at my state. I breathe, sit and find something from mind and in my surroundings to be grateful for and then I write.
“Awake, arise, or be for ever fall’n.”*
Setting aside all psychoanalysis - an individual who faces verbal degradation is really not aware of this constant dialogue with malignant people till one loses their self- worth, health and finances.
When a day comes and one sees a droopy-eyed aging person trying to keep up an image of an ideal marriage and physically tired of pretending to be happy- that’s when words are lost along with hope. I let myself out the door of what I thought could be heaven.
“The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n”*
11,000 lines of Milton’s Paradise Lost and I have so much to tell. I am trying to regain the status of my thoughts and present them in words through short rituals and reading up literature on how to write. I am my own muse. I invoke my pain and memories. I can only share what I have lost.
*All quotes are verses from: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45718/paradise-lost-book-1-1674-version
