Words that Never Leave You: “You can tell it to stop.”
Part Twenty in an ongoing series from Hollie's book "Words That Never Leave You: Fifty Pearls of Wisdom and Reflection from Survivors Across the World."
I sit in the dirt and sob uncontrollably into the slender rays of light that shimmer like puddles on the earth, the “gray day” following a tumultuous night in Mexico using the plant medicine Iboga to deal with the years of complied moral injury. As the old, familiar chaos returns, my mind begins to spin uncontrollably again. My head trembles, and I throw up, lamenting that the tumult of my mind’s memories is returning and wreaking nauseating havoc.
“You can tell it to stop,” one of the other volunteers turned treatment workers said matter-of-factly.
What? So simple? Still, I do. I tell those maddening voices to knock it off. The calamity disperses – the voices, the noises, and the mayhem heed my demand. We can control the internal monologue, but the discipline is reminding ourselves how to use it.
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