Self-Betrayal and The Corpse

Perhaps it is inevitable we confront betrayal of our self at the end of life. How do we batray ourself? The parts of our self we cut off because they are shamed into hiding, parts that we must place into shadow thinking it necessary in order to survive and move on. These parts of our self seem to require recognition and reintegration before we die. If we do not do this we can be overtaken by unconscious forces at the end of life that manifest as depression, various hallucination and dysphoria and exacerbated physicial symptoms such as pain and dyspnea. Our task is to carry the corpse of our dead selves to the magic circle, the arena of transformation, the alchemical vessel. But along the way we must extract from the corpse a lesson, a riddle that seems to be important more for the struggle it requires we go through than for the answer we give because just as we think we have the answer we must start all over.

What was the lesson of Rose's story of Sam, the interloper, who seduced her and betrayed her? We worked through this story as she carried the corpse of his memory for a few sessions. She was a young woman in her 20's still living at home in order to care for her parents but also because it was not accpetable for an Italian girl top leave home unless one was married. So Rose was courted by Sam, a man devoted to Rose, often jealous of how confident and gregarious she was. Rose hobnobbed with some of Chicago's politicians. She was a secretary but very in contact with many improtnat people and she had the confifence to negotiate these high society waters, but Sam did not like that and he courted her with a serious look toward marriage. He would often visit Rose with her family. But when she asked him about his family he wouild always say his mother was ill and he was caring for her and there was never a good time for her to meet his parents. She went out with him for 5 years and eventually could no longer tolerate his jeolousy and stalking. He would follow her home from work and park in front of her house. Then she recieves a call from a woman identfying herslef as Sam's wife and that she demanded she stop seeing her husband. Rose never knew he was married.

There was a part of Rose deeply ashamed of this experience and she was left with the feeling she had done something wrong and the part of her that was naive was cut off from her and the part of her that was more skeptical, less trusting, more critical, the Critic in her came out and became a predominate way of dealing with the world. This explained why Rose was perceived as such a witch, overcontrolling, hyprecritical of everyone and why she threw a podiatrist out of her room.

So how did Rose intergrate this part of her again or did she? Over the course of the 2 and 1/2 years I saw Rose she chnaged from being seen as a witch to the archetypal old crone, wise woman and all caring. The young workers in the facility would go to her for advice on matters of love and sex and motherhood. I believe the part of her that was cut off also contained that softer, more loving side of Rose that emerged again toward the end of her life. But we must carry that corpse many times before we can assimilate its lessons and finally bring it to the center of the circle.