Outside the Wall

All alone, or in two’s,
The ones who really love you
Walk up and down outside the wall.
Some hand in hand
And some gathered together in bands.
The bleeding hearts and artists
Make their stand.

And when they’ve given you their all
Some stagger and fall, after all it’s not easy
Banging your heart against some mad bugger’s wall.

-Pink Floyd, Outside the Wall.

For years I have been working hard to undo the emotional scar tissue of years of fighting with my parents, frustration and unhappiness over the past and everything that comes along with it. The past year has been especially intense in the work in shedding the layers of the onion. The onion is the same thing that Pink Floyd refers to as The Wall on the album of the same name. Floyd describes the various occasions of pain and suffering that build up in life as being bricks in the wall. I have chosen to describe them as layers of an onion. I feel that the majority of the remainder of the onion was shed for me 2 weeks ago when I chose to finally let go of nearly 45 years of fighting with my mom and ask that we re-establish communication and forgive each other for the past. What I did not realize is that this shedding of the onion, tearing down of the wall, was only actually the beginning. Last night what remained of The Onion was shed when I wrote a letter to 8 year old me while crying my eyes out telling myself that I loved myself and forgave myself for the misunderstandings of the past.

Here I thought I had actually come to the end of the work when the rest of the onion was shed, but I didn’t realize what lied beneath the onion, outside the wall. The day after I had asked my mom for forgiveness and understanding, I actually found myself wondering what I would write about on my blog. The onion had built up a thick layer of scar tissue around my ultra sensitive soul. My soul is incredibly sensitive. I sense and feel everything much more deeply than your average person. I have a personality trait called a “Highly Sensitive Person” that is much more common in women than in men, and which has been both a blessing and a curse to me. Yes this personality trait is at the core of my creativity and the art which I love to produce, but it is also at the very heart of much of the emotional pain which I have suffered in life. To make matters more complex I also have aspergers syndrome. Aspergers is a sensory disorder. So you take a highly sensitive soul and mix it with a sensory disorder and you have a recipe for really great art work and at the same time a lot of misunderstanding and emotional pain. Most people will look at me and say that I do not look like a person with Aspergers. I ask them “What does a person with Aspergers look like to you?”

And so I feel the nature of this blog is changing. I am past the onion. It is shed. Now it is time to focus on the real issues at hand. The onion was simply there for my protection. I no longer need protection. Oh brave new world….