Vortex Surfers

by eeabee

Note: I might post a few things here, like this one, that I’ve also posted a version of on my individual blog (sparks in the night on Oct. 25 2007)–things I’d like to revisit. But I’ll write different things too.

Last fall I had some major descents into shame vortexes (I think I prefer not to use the “vortices” plural form at this time) and I’m thinking back on them, from a little distance, now that I’m a few feet away from the edge, the precipice. Sometimes the ground around the vortex seems to slope, so that the vortex expands and engulfs the normally-level ground around it, engulfing whatever in it’s path. But it’s staying more contained now, for now, ’til next time.

For me, falling into the shame spiral goes like this: I am walking along feelin’ fine and not on edge (that’ll teach me not to be on edge!) and I fall right into a wormhole-rabbithole. Rejection (real OR potential OR only imagined) or anything that triggers an overwhelming attack of self-criticism seem to be what make me lose my balance, tilt, and fall.

These are moments in which the past seems to return, uncalled for and unwanted, to make the present seem like a replay of the past.

Anything that smacks of rejection and/or not being seen and/or how much I allegedly suck is potentially lethal for me. Lately it’s been moments of remembering difficulties with my spouse and therapist, and me worrying that I have ruined my car somehow (because it’s having a couple issues, and of course it must be my doing somehow, even though one issue is at least due to a faulty computer and others are due to having been hit by another driver, but so what, it could still somehow be my suckiness that is to blame). Rejection, invisibility/unrealness, suckiness–these are installed ideas that can be easily triggered, and can be harmful and even threaten to be lethal. Because that’s the life they have when stirred and not balanced out. And I’m afraid I find myself getting all dismantled more times than not. I’m told I have a choice about this, but I have little idea about how not to, and little-to-zero skill in the matter. But it’s a nice thought that it’s possible to learn to have a choice, even if it’s just a dream, and maybe it’s more.

But that’s not always available, not always there in the present moment; some days are for falling into rabbitholes, for being whisked out of time. This timelessness, this collapsing of time and space, this vortex–it swirls with shame and fear. It pulls me in, and I am gone once I enter the spiral. Or so it seems to me, and so it is in effect, for a time. If I don’t know I exist for a minute–if I lose touch with myself, I am not there for myself until it passes.

I fear the vortex; I want to learn its power in a new way, without such fear. It transforms, which is scary, but it is other things too. Exchange. Recirculation. It is not a black hole, though it feels like one; it does not eat. It takes me in. But I come out, or some version of me does. What if I could move in it, through it? What if I could ride its energies?

I’m getting carried away though, as I generally do. It’s one thing not to fall apart in terror of the vortex, but that doesn’t mean I have to love it, be seduced by it, give myself utterly over to it. Like the kids so wisely say, “if I love it so much why don’t I marry it.” Just call me Mrs. Vortex. Life is never boring in our house. It’s wild.