On the road to recovery

I started reading a book that was suggested to me and lent to me by D’s roommate. It’s called Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk. I am only a quarter of the way through it, but after I read a passage from it, it completely changed my perspective on things. A short synopsis on the book so far….a woman who was a model was in a car accident where someone shot through her window and the bullet mangled her face which included removing her jaw. She spent a lot of time in the hospital recovering, but in one fell swoop, she lost her identity, her career, her fiancé, her voice, her beauty, her friends, and ultimately, the life she knew. She gets out of the hospital and upon her first outing, a child calls her a monster…this spurs her breakdown where she ends up back at the hospital and into the room of a woman recovering. She scribbles everything she lost and is mourning over on a pad of paper. The woman reads it and tells her to write it down all night, tell her the story repetitively until she realizes that it is no longer happening to her, it’s done and over with, and when she realizes that and throws the paper away, she can put it in her past and begin to rebuild her life. That really hit home with me! In one fell swoop, I lost my husband, my security, my confidence and self-esteem, my love, my best friend, my future, my marriage, and ultimately, the life I knew. I keep reliving it over and over. I dwell on what has happened and what I have lost. I still mourn and cry over it. I have to stop. I have to realize that it’s over. No amount of ‘what if’s’ or replaying it over and over is going to change anything. It happened, but it’s done. It was awful and unimaginable, but it’s over. It’s time to crumple that paper up and throw it away. I am rebuilding my life and I don’t need this thing holding me back! I feel liberated for the first time!