Bibliotherapy

Bibliotherapy

n.  bib·li·o·ther·a·py (bĭb'lē-ō-thěr'ə-pē)  

A form of psychotherapy in which reading and/or writing is used to assist a person in solving personal problems.

The pencil sits softly in my palm.  With each lazy scrawl that I lay down, the last dregs of stress seem to slip away. I have always enjoyed writing, but tonight I grasp at the art of it like a drowning man toward a life preserver, trying to envelop myself in my character’s life, immerse myself in her world in order to forget my own.  I don’t want to think about what’s happening, don’t want to hear my mom’s quiet cries coming from the other room, don’t want to remember the General’s cruel sentence and the way my father’s mouth curved over the words ‘January’ and ‘Iraq’.  My dad is a Chaplain Major in the Army.  He’s been deployed before; I don’t want to- can’t think about it happening again.

In the inky scribbles, my main character, Roza, is trying to explain her need for books to her friend, James.  In an attempt to make him understand, she has underlined the horrors of her past, the grief she has trudged by in the deaths of those close to her, the abuse she has shouldered from multiple foster care situations she’s been put through, and other purposeful as well as accidental psychological injuries she has sustained.  In taking on her hurts and pains, I am able to forget my own.

Roza felt a dull pain at his words, but she pushed it away, and it was so easy.  After years of learning to ignore the hurt, it was all too easy to do it then.  Maybe that’s the worst part of it all.  How easy it is to forget.

I sit on a cheap, junkyard-worthy, gray folding chair, the dented device creaking as I lean forward.  The metal sides dig into my back most uncomfortably and my treasured wooden desk wobbles in warning, but I barely notice, too entranced by the going ons of my creations.

“The books are-” she paused at that point; unsure how to explain.  Then she started over, “When you sleep, everything is forgotten, right?  You are taken into this black abyss where you don’t have to face anything or anyone, where you don’t have to feel.  That kind of escape is so very tempting to someone like me.  But I know, as well as you, that if I were to take sleeping pills constantly, even in safe amounts, people would notice.  They would realize the depression behind the act, and put a stop to the extremely detrimental self-medication.  Because that kind of escape is dangerous, right?”

Then the words come quickly, but as easily difficult as Roza’s forgetfulness, the pencil suddenly flying across the crinkled notebook paper with a near desperate determination.  For some reason I can’t define, this figment of my imagination has become all at once incredibly important to me, important to show and portray; alive.  It is all at once vital that James understand Roza, understand the pain and hurt, and help her.

James nodded, confusion still written across his face, but crossed with a willingness to understand, a desire to comprehend the deeper meaning behind the metaphor.

It’s nearing 3:00 a.m.; the story continues like a madman’s promise: uncontrolled and uncontrollable.  When an author writes, many times he or she can become very conflicted.  Their character can become so fully formed in their mind that the author can’t force the character to act a certain way.  In the same way that you throw a party for someone, but you can’t control how they react, the author can manipulate events, but not the reactions to those events, not if a character is well built.  I am no different and I find myself unaccountably angry with James.

‘Why doesn’t he get it?’ I think, ‘Why doesn’t James realise, recognise, understand?!  Doesn’t he see how much she’s hurting? Why can’t he comprehend?!’  

‘This is your story,’ I snap at myself, ‘It’s not real.’  But for some reason, it feels real.  

‘She has to get through to him,’ I think, ‘She has to make him see.’

“But when your escape is a book, when all you’re doing is reading, no one has any reason to worry, any reason to suspect.  And a book is better than sleep sometimes anyway.  There’s no risk of nightmarish dreams of the past, of unwanted memories springing up.  You become someone else; take their life as your own.  Your problems disappear, because they are no longer your problems.  But the thing is, with every mask you take on, with every story you slip into?  You lose a little bit of yourself.  And there’s no one to stop you, because there’s nothing wrong with reading,” her voice took on a slightly mocking edge,

“The quiet girl in the back of the library, nose deep in the thick, musty pages, she’s smart, responsible, curious, and academic.  There is no reason to interrupt her and every reason to leave her alone.  And that’s what people do; they pass her by, and she’s buried her hurt so deeply that she barely feels the blow of it anymore.  And she just keeps reading.  Stripping herself clean until the skeleton of her soul is all that remains and even that is becoming fractured. And she just can’t breath, but it doesn’t matter.  Nothing matters but leaving herself, because she can’t breath and when she reads, when she’s that other person, she can breath, because she’s not me anymore-” she was sobbing by then, uncontrollable cries wracking her body, merciless.  And she couldn’t look up at him, couldn’t face the horror and disgust that she knew would cover his face. All she could think was, he’s going to leave now.  

The pencil snaps in my too-tight grip and I feel splinters of wood tear the soft skin of my palm, but the pain barely slows me.  Tears gulp and catch in the back of my throat as I struggle to get those last words down, driven by some unseen force.

And it hurt.  It dug past everything, that one thought, and somehow reached her ripped and broken heart.  And she could feel her soul begin tear.

And it hurts.

Suddenly, I’m her, crying, but with soft, silent sobs replacing the bitter ones I’d imagined, tears that slowly envelop me with the sorrow they contain.  I feel empty, but sweetly so, as if a burden has been lifted.

That’s when I realize: All this time that I’ve thought I’ve been writing about the broken, unaccepted, little girl from Pierpont, Ohio, the girl with dark brown hair and deep eyes, who wanted love and acceptance more than anything else, all this time I’ve thought I’ve been writing for Roza, I’ve actually been writing for myself.  Our lives may be infinitely different, but in this one moment we are the same.

I wish I could say that now I know that my father is meant to go next year, that the fear leaves me, that his inevitable danger will become easier to handle.  But I can’t.  Because I don’t.  And it doesn’t. And, I already know, it won’t.

Rather, now I understand myself in a way I never have before; I understand why I am the way that I am.

And that is what changes me.

A/N: This is a true story, one of my memiors, please keep that in mind with any comments that you decide to post. I love to hear from you guys, but this is kind of raw so just remember that.