Healing in a fractured society.
Whose responsibility is it?
We are living in such a fractured society, but hasn’t it always been this way? Yes, I think it has but only now is it becoming so apparent how fractured it actually is. We are all experiencing such a divide in the world right now and have been for some time. For me, I have been feeling a certain way for many years but haven’t been able to rectify it. I have been imagining and somewhat dreaming of a feminine lead community, families living together, raising children, sharing skills and resources, a move back to how it would have been many moons ago, calling in the ancient ways of being in community.
No single person had to start these, ‘villages’ that’s just how we lived. We have moved so far from what is natural for humans that we, or should I say I am, experiencing a sort of grief, a death and dying on a daily basis. We are not all on the same page or in the same time frame. We have been deliberately separated over 100’s of years through competition and we are being kept even more separated now.
I have just recently birthed my last babe, I tried so hard to plan my post-partum period, my aim was to create the village. I hired a doula, arranged meals for the freezer, I really thought I had it all covered! You know what I discovered? You cannot buy the village. You cannot truly recreate the village if you are not living close to your women. It’s impossible. We are so separated, by distance, circumstance and sadly individual schedules. I felt so alone, desperately wanting my two weeks in the bedroom to heal, I needed this physically more than ever being number 5, my body needed this. But mentally I wasn’t good, I also struggle to reach out when I am in a certain space, it’s thanks to my upbringing, I learnt not to speak out as no one could hold me, there was no one to hold my feelings, they were ‘too big’ or ‘too much’ so I kept quiet and this is where I can now find myself. I get it, I find my kids emotions a lot to handle at times as I am still learning to hold my own, whilst learning to hold theirs. This is so much harder when I struggle to feel held by my society!
I have relied too heavily on my husband over the years, expected too much to be honest and expected him to hold me in ways he cannot, not because he doesn’t want to, that also maybe the case but he simply can’t, he is spread too thin, trying his best to work, hold our other kids and not let the ship sink, if you know what I mean? And I, well, I couldn’t ask for help, didn’t know how and didn’t know I could.
Our society has been set up to value the nuclear family, we’ve been taught to depend on the state, use schools and state funded nursery’s, get your 15 hours free, get back to work! Where there is nothing inherently wrong with this, if, it is what you’re choosing, but having this expectation thrust upon us because we need all the new gadgets and toys is a societal problem. This is all contributing to the split from community. We are shown that what’s on the outside counts more than anything else, I know there has been a collective shift over the years but for me it isn’t enough.
Women are coming together, the sisterhood wound is healing, call it the witch wound or the mother/father wound, we cannot hide any longer, society as we know it is deeply wounded and governments and or the media have driven another wedge over the last 18 months. So much so that I’ve had to come off Facebook and IG, I needed to think my own thoughts, I am a highly sensitive person, an empath and I’m still vulnerable. I needed space to breathe my own air, it’s only been a week, yes, I miss some elements and I’m sure I’ll be back but I’ve picked up my crocheting again and listened to more podcasts, painted and played more with my babies and started watching Poldark! I have spent many hours on social media over the years, trying to feel connected in some way to my own existence and conversely feeling more and more disconnected at the same time.
I believe we have been fed lies to keep us dumbed down and unquestioning in so many areas of life and I am done not speaking up. I have had nights where I am feeling so trapped in my own pain and trauma that I cannot speak on it because I have been so brainwashed by society that my mental health is my problem. My mental health is a problem of the society I have been raised in.
I have “suffered” in some form or another with mental health issues since childhood, my family passing me off as crazy, or THE problem, without going into it too much now, maybe that’s another piece of writing altogether, I know from various things I’ve read over the years and conversation’s I’ve had that if I had experienced psychosis, or mental breaks living in a different culture I would have been held by the community, even taken on by the elders, usually the shamans, and I would have been educated and guided through my awakening. Instead, I was drugged by the system, sorry, I meant to say, medicated by doctors.
At 15 I was on anti-anxieties, anti-depressants and anti-psychotics, I was showed that I was the problem, not the fact that I was the product of a fractured society, and a broken family dealing with parental death, generational/ancestral trauma, and on some level even with all the healing modalities I have tried I am still here, thinking it’s all my fault, that I am broken and need to be fixed. But look at society now. We are so separated; I do not believe the mainstream narrative that is playing out right now and I am struggling to connect daily with humans on the same page as me. This is all contributing to my mental state.
My mental health is a product of unhealed trauma, but I am not solely responsible for that trauma, nor is it my fault, therefore the burden of healing it all does not lie with me. Yes, I have my own healing journey and that must continue, but society also has its collective healing journey that we are all responsible for. We need to heal as a whole for ourselves and the generations that follow.
Healing is not a straight line, it’s fucking messy (read many times on social media and using here paraphrased), mine looks more like a page of scribbles and will continue to do so. Thanks for reading to the end if you managed to make it this far.
Charlotte Ann Rose xx
IG @magickalhealingmama
