Despair

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  Common occurrences can produce traumatic after effects that are just as debilitating as those experienced by veterans of combat or survivors of childhood abuse. Traumatic effects are not always apparent immediately following the incidents that caused them. Symptoms can remain dormant, accumulating over years or even decades. Then, during a stressful period, or as the result of another incident, they can show up without warning. There may also be no indication of the original cause. Thus, a seemingly minor event can give rise to a sudden breakdown, similar to one that might be caused by a single catastrophic event. What We Don’t Know Can Hurt Us When it comes to trauma, what we don’t know can hurt us. Not knowing we are traumatized doesn’t prevent us from having problems that are caused by it. However, with the incredible maze of misinformation and myth that exists about trauma and its treatment, the denial is understandable. It is difficult enough to deal solely with the symptoms of trauma without the added anxiety of not knowing why we are experiencing them or whether they will ever cease. Anxiety can crop up for a variety of reasons, including a deep pain that comes when your spouse, friends, and relatives unite in the conviction that its time for you to get on with your life. They want you to act normally because they believe you should have learned to live with your symptoms by now. There are feelings of hopelessness, futility, and despair that accompany being incorrectly advised that the only way your symptoms can be alleviated is through a lifelong regime of medication or therapy. Estrangement and fear can arise from the thought of talking to anyone about your symptoms, because your symptoms are so bizarre you are certain that no one else could be experiencing the same thing. You also suspect that no one will believe you if you do tell them, and that you are probably going crazy. There is the added stress associated with mounting medical bills as you go in for a third or fourth round of tests, procedures, referrals, and finally, exploratory surgery to ascertain the cause of your mysterious pain. You live with the knowledge that the doctors believe you are a hypochondriac because no cause for your condition can be found. When interpreting trauma symptoms, jumping to the wrong conclusions can also be devastating. Harmful consequences can ensue when inaccurate readings of symptoms lead people to believe they were sexually, physically, or even ritually abused as children, when they were not. I am in no way suggesting that childhood abuse does not occur. Large numbers of children in every segment of society suffer unconscionable abuses every day. Many of them do not remember the abuses until they become adults. However, as I will explain in later chapters, the dynamics of trauma are such that they can produce frightening and bizarre “memories” of past events that seem extremely real, but never happened.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘In the month of January that is now approaching, I want a garden, somewhere near the town, that is full of green plants, flowers, and leafy trees, exactly as though it were the month of May. And if he fails to provide it, let him take good care never to send you or anyone else to me again. For if he should provoke me any further, I shall no longer keep this matter a secret as I have until now, but I shall seek to rid myself of his attentions by complaining to my husband and kinsfolk.’ On hearing about the lady’s proposition, the gentleman naturally felt that she was asking him to do something very difficult, or rather well-nigh impossible, and realized that her only reason for demanding such a thing was to dash his hopes; but nevertheless he resolved that he would explore every possible means of furnishing her request. He therefore set inquiries afoot in various parts of the world to see whether anyone could be found to advise and assist him in the matter, and eventually got hold of a man who offered to do it by magic, provided he was well-enough paid. So Messer Ansaldo agreed to pay him a huge sum of money, and waited contentedly for the time the lady had appointed. And during the night preceding the calends of January, when the cold was very intense and everything was covered in snow and ice, the magician employed his skills to such good effect that in a beautiful meadow not far from the town, there appeared next morning, as all those who saw it bore witness, one of the fairest gardens that anyone had ever seen, with plants and trees and fruits of every conceivable kind. No sooner did Messer Ansaldo feast his eyes upon this spectacle than he caused a quantity of the finest fruits and flowers to be gathered and secretly presented to his lady, inviting her to come and see the garden she had asked for, so that she would not only realize how much he loved her, but recall the solemn pledge she had given and take steps to keep her word in the manner of a true gentlewoman. The lady had been hearing many reports of the wonderful garden, and when she saw the flowers and the fruits, she began to repent of her promise. But for all her repentance, being curious to observe so rare a phenomenon, she went with several other ladies of the town to see the garden, and after commending it greatly and betraying no little astonishment, she made her way home in the depths of despair, thinking of what it obliged her to do. So profound was her distress, in fact, that she was unable to conceal it, with the inevitable result that her husband, noticing how melancholy she looked, demanded to know the reason.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  Things did not start out so badly. I rented a house with some photography students who blew up their grainy black-and-white images of fallow fields and lonely churches and plastered them on billboards set along the country roads. Though I ignored the rabid English department politics, I enjoyed my role as an avant-garde feminist lecturer from California, hired because I could teach both the traditional canon and the hot new field of women’s studies. Then, over summer break, the only good friend I’d made on the IU faculty blew his brains out in a soybean field. Soon after, a group of coeds from my spring semester’s Twentieth-Century Women’s Lit class declared that they, too, had been seduced by the romance of suicide thanks to having read Sylvia Plath’s Ariel in my class; though I resolved never to teach Plath again, her black gloves beckoned me as well. The bottom didn’t fall out, though, until Clara phoned to report back to me on Philip’s sustained silence. When I’d left him after summer vacation, we were on good terms. My understanding was that he was still my boyfriend, who would be waiting when I flew back at Christmas. But Clara reported that Philip had moved out of the beach house, given notice to the landlord, and taken an apartment with a new girlfriend to whom he was engaged, all without mentioning a word about it to me. And one other piece of news: I’d left my cat Jadu in Philip’s care, and Jadu was dead, either eaten by coyotes or hit by a car on Pacific Coast Highway. The hidden explosive device—buried when my father left—was triggered by Philip’s betrayal and detonated. Eight years before, when Neal had left me, I’d been surprised that all existence was not wiped out. Anaïs and Rupert and Renate had encircled and protected me from impact. This time, though, I was entirely alone. With detached interest, I watched myself become a perpetual motion machine that did nothing but shake and leak tears. It didn’t eat, didn’t sleep, and had no stop switch, although it somehow turned itself off for the hours I taught in the classroom. Anaïs had been right; she was the only one who had understood that although taking the job was the honorable and feminist thing to do, my emotions and nerves could not follow suit. I’d let happen what Anaïs had warned me about in the beginning: I had failed to protect myself from re-injury by a man. I hid in my upstairs bedroom, watching the endless, frigid rain roll down my windowpane and splash in the courtyard below. When the phone rang and Anaïs said hello, it was a voice from another life. “Tristine, are you alright? I got worried that I haven’t heard from you. How is it there?” “Not so good.” Gently she asked, “What’s the most immediate problem?” “I have a blister on my foot that’s infected.” “Have you been to the doctor?”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Father,’ she said, ‘for the past few nights I have been dreaming about various departed relatives of mine, and they all appear to be suffering dreadful torments and continually asking for alms, especially my mother, who seems to be in such a state of affliction and misery that it would break your heart to see her. I think she is suffering abominably at seeing me persecuted like this by that enemy of God, and hence I should like you to pray for their souls and say the forty masses of Saint Gregory, 1 so that God may release them from this scourging fire.’ And so saying, she slipped a florin into his hand. The reverend friar gleefully pocketed the money, and having poured out a torrent of fine words and pious tales to reinforce her godliness, he gave her his blessing and let her go. Unaware that he had been hoodwinked, the friar watched her depart and then summoned his friend, who realized as soon as he arrived, from the friar’s agitated appearance, that he was about to receive some news from the lady, and waited to hear what the friar had to say. The latter repeated all that he had said to him previously, and for the second time, angrily and without mincing his words, gave him a severe scolding for what the lady alleged he had done. Being as yet unsure of which way the friar was going to jump, the gentleman denied having sent the purse and the belt, speaking without much conviction so as not to undermine the friar’s belief in the story, just in case he had heard it from the lady herself. The friar practically exploded with rage. ‘What!’ he said. ‘Can you really have the effrontery to deny it, you scoundrel? Here, take a look at them – she brought them to me herself, with her eyes full of tears – and tell me whether or not you recognize them!’ The gentleman put on a display of acute embarrassment. ‘Yes, indeed I do,’ he said. ‘I admit that it was wrong of me, and now that I fully appreciate her inclinations, I guarantee that you won’t be troubled again.’ The words now started to flow in good earnest, and eventually the blockhead of a friar handed over the purse and the belt to his friend. Finally, after preaching him a lengthy sermon and getting him to promise that he would call a halt to his importunities, he sent him about his business. The gentleman was feeling absolutely delighted, for not only did it appear quite certain that the lady loved him, but he had also received a handsome present. On leaving the friar, he went and stood in a sheltered place from which he showed his lady that both of the items were now in his possession, all of which made her very happy, the more so because her scheme appeared to be working better and better.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  Renate’s white hand squeezed a fistful of the afghan next to her as if she would fling it. “How can you ask this of me, Anaïs?” she cried. “To help you get a movie made, when I don’t want to see anybody. I don’t want to talk to anybody. I don’t want to live.” Remaining perfectly calm, Anaïs said, “That is exactly why I am asking you to help.” I felt myself pull back, questioning Anaïs’s judgment. She continued gently to Renate, “Do you remember the Artist’s Credo we wrote together?” As if with great effort, Renate said, “No.” “I brought my copy.” Anaïs produced from her purse a sheet of onionskin paper rolled like a scroll and held with a thin ribbon. “Do you remember any of the items on it?” she asked, even though Renate had closed her eyes. Renate opened her eyes and spat, “‘Let’s celebrate the individuals who struggle to create a world of freedom, beauty, and love.’” She added bitterly, “A lot of good it did.” Anaïs asked, “Do you remember the very first statement?” “Stop this, Anaïs!” Renate snapped. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” “The one we thought was so important we put it first.” Anaïs prided herself on being sensitive to the feelings of others. Why was she being so insensitive now? “‘We celebrate the refusal to despair!’” Anaïs read from her unfurled paper. “That was then,” Renate said indignantly. “Before.” Anaïs replied, “When I wanted to give up living you reminded me about it.” “With all due respect for your pain, Anaïs, this is different.” “Yes, it is different and much harder.” Anaïs took Renate’s bloodless hand in hers. “That is why we are here—to celebrate your refusal to despair. If you can choose life, it will give Tristine and me inspiration no matter what befalls us in the future.” Renate remained silent, angry and unmoved. Anaïs urged, “Refusing to despair doesn’t mean you don’t love Peter. It’s just acting as if there were a world worth living in without him. It’s an absurd, surrealist act.” At the word “surrealist” Renate’s eyelids fluttered. Anaïs tried to press the scroll into her hand, but it fell to the floor as tears rolled down Renate’s pale face. She gave Anaïs a helpless, apologetic look. Anaïs held her gaze as if the connection might transmit to Renate her own fierce hope. They stayed that way for many minutes. I watched, awed, as if at a live birth or a ritual fire being built. Renate straightened and bent forward from her crushed pillows. Anaïs quickly reached behind her to prop them up. With a note of her old irony, Renate said, “I suppose if I’m going to pretend to be alive, it should be for something as completely illusory as getting a movie made.” I had just witnessed Anaïs raise Renate from the dead. CHAPTER 23 Malibu, California, 1965 TRISTINE

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  an essential humanity whose nature is peace and whose expression is thought and whose action is unconditional love. When we identify with that inner core, respecting and honoring it in others as well as ourselves, we experience healing in every area of life.” — Joan Borysenko, Minding the Body, Mending the Mind 15. The Eleventh Hour: Transforming Societal Trauma Technology and rapid population growth are bringing us into a world where time and distance do little to separate us. At the same time, we face serious threats to ourselves and our planet. We live with war, terrorism, the possibility of annihilation from “super weapons”, a growing split between haves and have-nots, and environmental destruction. Citizens in our inner cities randomly destroy property and life as the effects of years of accumulated stress, trauma, hostility, and economic oppression combust. The rich swallow up each other’s companies in primitive, ritualistic feeding frenzies. The outlook becomes even more grim when we consider the frightening potential for violence in a soon-to-be mature generation of children born with drug addictions. As the world population increases and our communities become more interconnected, it becomes imperative that we learn to live and work together in harmony. We have problems that will destroy us if we cannot work together effectively to solve them. Yet, rather than negotiate economic, ethnic, and geographical issues, individuals and communities seem bent on destroying one another. It is to these issues that the causes of war are often ascribed. But are they the root causes? Our survival as a species and the survival of this planet may lie in our ability to answer this question. The roots of war run deep. Any truly honest person will acknowledge that we all have the capacity for both violence and love. Both are equally basic aspects of the human experience. What may be even more significant in understanding the roots of war is the human vulnerability to traumatization. We should not forget that it was in the frightening symptoms manifested by some of the soldiers who returned from combat that the effects of trauma were first recognized. As we discussed in the last chapter, trauma creates a compelling drive for re-enactment when we are unaware of its impact upon us. What if entire communities of people are driven into mass re-enactments by experiences such as war? In the face of such mass mindless compulsion, a “New World Order” would become a meaningless polemic. Lasting peace among warring peoples cannot be accomplished without first healing the traumas of previous terrorism, violence, and horror on a mass scale. Does the drive for re-enactment propel societies who have a history of waging war on one another into confrontation after confrontation? Consider the evidence and decide for yourself. The Animal Approach to Aggression

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  I needed a new dream. One so buoyant that it could float like a hot air balloon and pull me out of the depths. As a child I’d imagined pretty clothes, a crown on my head, or a chocolate candy tree to keep myself from despair. I’d visualized myself as a famous movie star whom everyone wanted to touch, so I wouldn’t care that no one touched me. I’d promised myself I would become a famous writer with her picture in a magazine, so it would no longer hurt that I was all but invisible. Later I’d imagined myself as a distinguished professor of literature so that people would have to respect me. But having failed at those dreams, it was harder now to put my faith in a ginned-up fantasy to comfort myself. Now I knew the charlatan’s gears behind my compensatory trick. But I did it anyway. I looked at my tear-ravaged face in the mirror and told myself: You will go to film school and become the most renowned woman film director in the world. You will no longer be the fragile woman who was dumped and fell apart. You will be powerful and admired and you will direct movies that will win Academy Awards. No one will know that you fell off the wall and shattered. No one will be able to see the million cracks. It will not matter that you were admitted to film school without qualifying. No one will guess that you no longer care and have no hope, because you will act so driven that you will fool even yourself. CHAPTER 30 Malibu, California, 1974-75 TRISTINE I WAS ABANDONED AND ABANDONED again, and then I abandoned myself. I abandoned my hard-won career, and once I’d returned to LA, I abandoned my body to one man after another, just for the thrill. When my plane landed at 5 a.m. at LAX, I hit the ground running on adrenalin. Arriving by taxi at the beach house at dawn, I cleaned the house, re-arranged the remaining furniture, napped for an hour on the cold waterbed, and showed up at UCLA in time to register for a full load of film production classes. Now I had to keep running hard and fast enough to keep the wolf of depression from catching my heels. My mother could not have been pleased with my surprise visit after I told her that being an English prof hadn’t worked out and I’d enrolled in film school. But she allowed herself no sign of disappointment, sautéed me a plate of mushrooms—my favorite dish—and offered me furniture from her endless stash to replace what Philip had taken from the beach house.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘A mournful song swelled through my heart When I perceived that I was spurned, That dwells there still; and oft I curse Faith, hope, love and the hour I learned Her noble beauteousness Whose radiance doth oppress My dying soul, which yet Cannot those charms forget. ‘Bereft of every comfort now, Oh, Lord of love, to you I cry; I burn with such a torment here That for a less I’d crave to die. Come Death, then, end my life With all its cruel strife; Strike down my misery! I shall the better be. ‘No other way nor other ease Remains to soothe my grief but death. Grant me this, Love, and end my woes; Take from me now my wretched breath. All joy is gone from me, No pleasure’s left for me; Make then my death content her As the new love you sent her. ‘My song, if none should learn to sing Thee over, I take little care; No one can sing thee as I can. Only, to Love one message bear: Beg him, since life was all Loathsome to me, and vile, To safer haven take Me for his honour’s sake.’ Filostrato’s mood, and the reason, were made abundantly clear by the words of his song. And perhaps the face of one of the ladies dancing 1 would have clarified the matter still further if the shades of darkness, which had meanwhile descended, had not concealed the blush which spread across her cheeks as he was singing. Many other songs followed, until finally it was time for them to go to bed, whereupon, by the queen’s command, they all retired to their rooms. Here ends the Fourth Day of the Decameron

• From The Decameron (1353)

  It seems that you do not believe me when I tell you, here and now, that I long to see you dead: but if you want proof of my words in the life hereafter, why not throw yourself to the ground without any further ado, in which case your soul, which I truly believe to be nestling already in the arms of the Devil, will soon see whether or not your headlong fall has brought any tears to my eyes? But since you are unlikely to afford me so great a pleasure as this, I shall simply advise you, if you find yourself being scorched, to remember the freezing you gave me, and if you mix the hot with the cold, you will doubtless find the rays of the sun more bearable.’ On perceiving from the scholar’s words that he was determined to wreak vengeance upon her, the hapless lady burst once more into tears, and said: ‘Since nothing pertaining to me can move you to pity me, at least be moved by the love you bear this other lady, who is so much wiser than myself, and by whom you claim to be loved. Forgive me for her sake, fetch me my clothes so that I may dress, and let me come down.’ Whereupon the scholar burst out laughing, and observing that it was already well past the hour of tierce, he replied: ‘Ah, how can I refuse your request, now that you have appealed to me in her name? Tell me where your clothes are, so that I can go and fetch them and arrange for you to descend.’ The lady took him seriously and, feeling somewhat reassured, described to him exactly where she had hidden her clothes, whereupon the scholar issued forth from the tower and ordered his servant not to move away from the spot, but to stay close to the tower and do his best to see that no one set foot inside it until he returned. And having given him these instructions, he made his way to his friend’s house, where in due course, after eating a most leisurely meal, he retired for a siesta. The lady continued to lie on the roof of the tower, foolishly entertaining some faint hope of a speedy end to her predicament, until, feeling exceedingly sore, she sat up and crawled over to that section of the parapet which afforded a little shade from the sun, where she settled down to wait with no other company than her own bitter thoughts. By turns brooding and weeping, now hoping and now despairing of the scholar’s return with her clothes, her mind flitting from one doleful reflection to the next, she eventually succumbed to her grief, and since she had been awake for the whole of the previous night, she fell into a deep slumber.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Between her tears she bitterly cursed Cimon’s love and censured his temerity, declaring that this alone had brought about the raging tempest, though it could also have arisen because Cimon’s desire to marry her was contrary to the will of the gods, who were determined, not only to deny him the fruits of his presumptuous longing, but to make him witness her demise before he, too, died a miserable death. These laments she continued to pour forth, along with others of still greater vehemence, until, with the wind blowing fiercer all the time, the seamen at their wits’ end, and everyone ignorant of the course they were steering, they arrived off the island of Rhodes. Not realizing where they were, they did everything in their power to make a good landfall, and thus prevent loss of life. Fortune was kindly to their endeavours, and guided them into a tiny bay, to which the Rhodians released by Cimon on the previous day had brought their own vessel a little while before. Dawn was breaking as they entered the bay, turning the sky a little brighter, and no sooner did they become aware that they were at the island of Rhodes than they perceived the very ship from which they had parted company, lying no more than a stone’s throw away from their own. Cimon was dismayed beyond measure by this discovery, and fearing just such a fate as eventually overtook him, he called upon his crew to spare no effort in getting away from there and allowing Fortune to carry them wherever she pleased, since she could hardly choose a worse place than the one they were in. They strove with might and main to make good their escape, but without success, for a fierce gale was blowing directly against them, which not only prevented them from leaving the bay but drove them of necessity to the shore. They eventually ran aground and were recognized by the Rhodian sailors, who by now were already ashore. One of these hurried off to inform the young Rhodian nobles, who had mean-while made their way to a nearby town, that the ship carrying Cimon and Iphigenia had, like their own, been driven into the bay by the storm. Overjoyed by these tidings, the young Rhodians assembled a large number of the townspeople and instantly returned to the shore. Cimon and his companions had meanwhile disembarked, intending to seek refuge in some neighbouring woods, but before they could do so they were all seized, along with Iphigenia, and led away to the town. Here they were held until Lysimachus, the chief magistrate of Rhodes in that particular year, came from the city and marched them all off to prison under a specially heavy armed escort, as arranged by Pasimondas, who had lodged a complaint with the Senate of Rhodes as soon as the news had reached him.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  The day went on and the sun shone out brightly, dazzling the tired eyes of the drivers. Dusk fell, and the roads grew treacherous and vague. Night came—they dared not risk having lights, so that they must just stare and stare into the darkness. In the distance the sky turned ominously red, some stray shells might well have set fire to a village, that tall column of flame was probably the church; and the Boches were punishing Compiègne again, to judge from the heavy sounds of bombardment. Yet by now there was nothing real in the world but that thick and almost impenetrable darkness, and the ache of the eyes that must stare and stare, and the dreadful, patient pain of the wounded—there had never been anything else in the world but black night shot through with the pain of the wounded. 4On the following morning the two ambulances crept back to their base at the villa in Compiègne. It had been a tough job, long hours of strain, and to make matters worse the reliefs had been late, one of them having had a breakdown. Moving stiffly, and with red rimmed and watering eyes, the four women swallowed large cups of coffee; then just as they were they lay down on the floor, wrapped in their trench coats and army blankets. In less than a quarter of an hour they slept, though the villa shook and rocked with the bombardment. CHAPTER 361T here is something that mankind can never destroy in spite of an unreasoning will to destruction, and this is its own idealism, that integral part of its very being. The ageing and the cynical may make wars, but the young and the idealistic must fight them, and thus there are bound to come quick reactions, blind impulses not always comprehended. Men will curse as they kill, yet accomplish deeds of self-sacrifice, giving their lives for others; poets will write with their pens dipped in blood, yet will write not of death but of life eternal; strong and courteous friendships will be born, to endure in the face of enmity and destruction. And so persistent is this urge to the ideal, above all in the presence of great disaster, that mankind, the wilful destroyer of beauty, must immediately strive to create new beauties, lest it perish from a sense of its own desolation; and this urge touched the Celtic soul of Mary.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  On learning of her husband’s intentions, from which it appeared she would have to return to her father’s house, in order perhaps to look after the sheep as she had in the past, meanwhile seeing the man she adored being cherished by some other woman, Griselda was secretly filled with despair. But she prepared herself to endure this final blow as stoically as she had borne Fortune’s earlier assaults. Shortly thereafter, Gualtieri arranged for some counterfeit letters of his to arrive from Rome, and led his subjects to believe that in these, the Pope had granted him permission to abandon Griselda and remarry. He accordingly sent for Griselda, and before a large number of people he said to her: ‘Woman, I have had a dispensation from the Pope, allowing me to leave you and take another wife. Since my ancestors were great noblemen and rulers of these lands, whereas yours have always been peasants, I intend that you shall no longer be my wife, but return to Giannùcole’s house with the dowry you brought me, after which I shall bring another lady here. I have already chosen her and she is far better suited to a man of my condition.’ On hearing these words, the lady, with an effort beyond the power of any normal woman’s nature, suppressed her tears and replied: ‘My lord, I have always known that my lowly condition was totally at odds with your nobility, and that it is to God and to yourself that I owe whatever standing I possess. Nor have I ever regarded this as a gift that I might keep and cherish as my own, but rather as something I have borrowed; and now that you want me to return it, I must give it back to you with good grace. Here is the ring with which you married me: take it. As to your ordering me to take away the dowry that I brought, you will require no accountant, nor will I need a purse or a pack-horse, for this to be done. For it has not escaped my memory that you took me naked as on the day I was born.6 If you think it proper that the body in which I have borne your children should be seen by all the people, I shall go away naked. But in return for my virginity, which I brought to you and cannot retrieve, I trust you will at least allow me, in addition to my dowry, to take one shift away with me.’ Gualtieri wanted above all else to burst into tears, but maintaining a stern expression he said: ‘Very well, you may take a shift.’

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  As I sat there not knowing what to do, Renate’s revelation of Anaïs’s adult incest with her father broke through my willed amnesia. I had convinced myself that it had just been Renate’s drunkenness, but Anaïs’s desperate cry and her emotional collapse in front of my eyes gave it credence. Was I witnessing the Oedipal curse that Anaïs had escaped until then? I recalled the terror and awe at the end of Sophocles’s tragedy, where King Oedipus is cursed for his violation of the ultimate taboo—along with all his supporters. Indeed, seeing Anaïs quaking with despair cursed me as well. It made me question her whole philosophy of self-healing through creativity. Anaïs had assured me, and proclaimed publicly, that diary writing and psychoanalysis had healed her from the wound of her father’s abandonment. She credited her analysis with Dr. Bogner for enabling her to move beyond her obsession with her father and write about other subjects. She’d even claimed to have forgiven her father! I had trusted that if I followed faithfully in Anaïs’s footsteps, I would eventually outpace the effects of father abandonment: the crippling insecurity, the need for approval in a man’s world, the abiding fear of loss, the attacks of anxiety and hyper-vigilance. I had believed myself blessed in one way: my intimacy with Anaïs, the person who shared my particular wound and had healed herself. She had gone on from an unhappy childhood like mine to a big life, savoring love, adventure, literary success, travel, and friendships. In maturity, she seemed to dwell not only on stage, but in life, in her wise and centered persona of Djuna. Her achievement of happiness had given me hope. Now it appeared that I had been deluded. For here was Anaïs near the end of her life, hunched in a fetal position, sobbing about her father, the wound he’d inflicted still not healed, and she had let a bunch of pimply faced, eighteen-year-old white light zealots do it to her. If this could happen to Anaïs, after all the maturity she’d worked for, after her thousands of hours of psychoanalysis, after her tens of thousands of journal pages, what hope was there for me? The leader of the white light group timidly leaned down to Rupert, who was holding Anaïs in his arms, her head buried in his chest, her hunched shoulders shaking as if palsied. “We’d like to try something we think might help.” Desperate, Rupert readily agreed, and the timorous young man told Anaïs to breathe with him as he counted. “Breathe in. One omm, Two omm …” Jamie and I saw Rupert nod that we could leave, and we tiptoed out. The next day when I told Renate about Anaïs’s tearful collapse she said, “Anaïs neglected her spiritual life all those years, and now when she needs it, it isn’t there.” It sounded harsh, but I knew Renate was saying it as a warning to me.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  seldom and unobtrusively), had now been brought home to the feeble-minded as well, but the scale of the calamity caused them to regard it with indifference. Such was the multitude of corpses (of which further consignments were arriving every day and almost by the hour at each of the churches), that there was not sufficient consecrated ground for them to be buried in, especially if each was to have its own plot in accordance with long-established custom. So when all the graves were full, huge trenches were excavated in the churchyards, into which new arrivals were placed in their hundreds, stowed tier upon tier like ships’ cargo, each layer of corpses being covered over with a thin layer of soil till the trench was filled to the top. But rather than describe in elaborate detail the calamities we experienced in the city at that time, I must mention that, whilst an ill wind was blowing through Florence itself, the surrounding region was no less badly affected. In the fortified towns, conditions were similar to those in the city itself on a minor scale; but in the scattered hamlets and the countryside proper, the poor unfortunate peasants and their families had no physicians or servants whatever to assist them, and collapsed by the wayside, in their fields, and in their cottages at all hours of the day and night, dying more like animals than human beings. Like the townspeople, they too grew apathetic in their ways, disregarded their affairs, and neglected their possessions. Moreover they all behaved as though each day was to be their last, and far from making provision for the future by tilling their lands, tending their flocks, and adding to their previous labours, they tried in every way they could think of to squander the assets already in their possession. Thus it came about that oxen, asses, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, and even dogs (for all their deep fidelity to man) were driven away and allowed to roam freely through the fields, where the crops lay abandoned and had not even been reaped, let alone gathered in. And after a whole day’s feasting, many of these animals, as though possessing the power of reason, would return glutted in the evening to their own quarters, without any shepherd to guide them. But let us leave the countryside and return to the city. What more remains to be said, except that the cruelty of heaven (and possibly, in some measure, also that of man) was so immense and so devastating that between March and July of the year in question, what with the fury of the pestilence and the fact that so many of the sick were inadequately cared for or abandoned in their hour of need because the healthy were too terrified to approach them, it is reliably thought that over a hundred thousand human lives were extinguished within the walls of the city of Florence?

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  The manager had a piece of paper in his hand. “Here is the present balance in that account.” She saw only zeros. “Can you withdraw from any of your husband’s other accounts?” the girl said, trying to be helpful. The manager glared at her. “I don’t believe so,” Anaïs said. She thought she might faint in the First National City Bank lobby. The bank president, George Moore, would be informed that Mrs. Hugo Guiler had caused a scene downstairs because her husband had covertly emptied her account. That would not make a good impression in advance of their crucial dinner. “I’m sure there’s some confusion.” Anaïs smiled weakly. “I’ll talk with Hugo about it.” She walked, slowly and with great dignity, out of the bank lobby. [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] At 5 a.m. the day of the important dinner, she didn’t need an alarm clock; her exhausted body was on constant alarm. Through the window of Rupert’s hotel room, it looked as if the hotel were under a waterfall. Get up, dress, take an umbrella for the downpour. By the time she rounded the corner of the park where the chess tables were, her pumps and nylons were soaked and her expensive hairdo ruined. The little bearded Russian and his chess partner rose and bowed in unison, holding their umbrellas like Tweedledee and Tweedledum. She heard the little Russian shout through the downpour, “Not a good day for the game, your majesty.” Just then she realized that she’d forgotten Hugo’s suit. The dry cleaning was still in the hotel linen closet where she’d stashed it. She did a 180-degree turn and hurried back in the direction she’d come. She was running now, into the hotel lobby, up the elevator, to the linen closet. Thank God Hugo’s dry cleaning was still there. She plunged out the hotel door into the rain, her umbrella protecting the paper-wrapped suit and shirts. Now she was behind schedule. Even though she would have to pass the junkies sleeping on the park benches, it would be faster to cut through the park. She ran under the arch with her umbrella angled to shield Hugo’s dry cleaning from the downpour. Large muddy ponds had formed in the potholes around the fountain, so she skirted them. All of a sudden the heel of her left pump hit the ground at a sharp angle and she skated forward on it until she splashed bottom-first into a huge puddle, muddy water up to her waist. Hugo’s dry cleaned shirts and suit floated in their paper wrappers on the puddle’s surface, beginning to sink. Her wet hair plastered to her face, she moved through the muck to gather up Hugo’s soaked dry cleaning. She carried it clutched to her chest, holding her broken umbrella, and stumbled on toward the apartment. Then she stopped dead in her tracks, dropping the umbrella, the rain pouring down on her drenched hair, muddy clothes, and Hugo’s ruined dry cleaning.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  This, then, was how matters stood in Pavia with the lady when one day, about a week before she was due to be married, Messer Torello chanced to catch sight in Alexandria of a man he had seen embarking with the Genoese emissaries on the galley that was leaving for Genoa. He therefore sent for him, and asked him what sort of a voyage they had had, and when they had arrived at Genoa. ‘My lord,’ said the man, ‘I left the galley in Crete, where I later heard that her voyage ended in disaster; for as she was approaching Sicily, she ran into a northerly gale which drove her on to the Barbary reefs, and everyone aboard was drowned, including two of my brothers.’ Messer Torello believed every word of this account, which happened to be all too accurate, and when he recalled that less than a week remained of the period he had asked his wife to await his return, and realized that nothing had been heard of him in Pavia, he was convinced that she was by now betrothed to another. So deep was the despair into which he was cast that he lost the desire to eat, took to his bed, and resolved to die. When Saladin, who greatly loved Messer Torello, heard news of this, he came in person to see him. And having, by dint of earnest and repeated entreaties, discovered the reason for his sorrow and his malady, he censured him severely for not confiding in him earlier, then begged him to take heart, declaring that if Torello would cheer up he would arrange for him to be in Pavia on the date he had prescribed. And he explained how it was to be accomplished. Messer Torello took Saladin at his word, and since he had frequently heard that this sort of thing was possible and had often been done before, he began to feel more optimistic and to urge Saladin that he should attend to it at once. Saladin therefore enjoined one of his magicians,8 with whose skill he was already well acquainted, to seek out a way of transporting Messer Torello on a bed to Pavia, in the space of a single night. The magician replied that this would be done, but that for Torello’s own good he must first of all put him to sleep. This arranged, Saladin returned to Messer Torello, and finding him still entirely resolved to be in Pavia by the date agreed if this were possible, and to die if it were not, he addressed him as follows:

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  And now there crept into Stephen’s brain the worst torment of all, a doubt of her father. He had known and knowing he had not told her; he had pitied and pitying had not protected; he had feared and fearing had saved only himself. Had she had a coward for a father? She sprang up and began to pace the room. Not this—she could not face this new torment. She had stained her love, the love of the lover—she dared not stain this one thing that remained, the love of the child for the father. If this light went out the engulfing darkness would consume her, destroying her entirely. Man could not live by darkness alone, one point of light he must have for salvation—one point of light. The most perfect Being of all had cried out for light in His darkness—even He, the most perfect Being of all. And then as though in answer to prayer, to some prayer that her trembling lips had not uttered, came the memory of a patient, protective back, bowed as though bearing another’s burden. Came the memory of horrible, soul-sickening pain: ‘No—not that—something urgent—I want—to say. No drugs—I know I’m—dying—Evans.’ And again an heroic and tortured effort: ‘Anna—it’s Stephen—listen.’ Stephen suddenly held out her arms to this man who, though dead, was still her father. But even in this blessèd moment of easement, her heart hardened again at the thought of her mother. A fresh wave of bitterness flooded her soul so that the light seemed all but extinguished; very faintly it gleamed like the little lantern on a buoy that is tossed by tempest. Sitting down at her desk she found pen and paper.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  The journey back to health and vitality is anything but immediate. Any step, however small, is significant and noteworthy. Unlike so many of the other journeys we undertake in the course of our growth and development, this journey has a finish — a resolution that leaves us richer and fuller for having accomplished it. Life is difficult enough when we are healthy and vital. When we are fragmented by trauma, it can be unbearable. As you will see in later chapters, each small step toward wholeness becomes a resource that can be used to enhance and support the healing that will unfold when we align with our natural selves. There is a way to take back the control of our bodies that is lost when traumatic aftereffects become chronic. It is possible to deliberately stimulate the nervous system into becoming aroused and then to gently discharge the arousal. Remember, hyperarousal and its allied mechanisms are a direct result of the energy involuntarily mobilized by the nervous system specifically in response to threat. These mechanisms originate in the nervous system; you experience them in your body. It is in your bod y with the nervous system fully engaged and accessed through the felt sens e- that you will be successful in working with them. 12. A Traumatized Person’s Reality The premise of this book is that trauma is part of a natural physiological process that simply has not been allowed to be completed. It is not primarily a derivative of the individual’s personalit y— at least not initially. In Chapter Ten we discussed how the four basic symptoms of traum a hyperarousal, constriction, dissociation, and helplessnes s are directly attributable to the physiological changes that occur when we are overwhelmed while responding to a life-threatening event. In this chapter, we will track the experience of these symptoms. The Threat That Can’t Be Found Few symptoms provide more insight into a traumatic experience than hypervigilance. Hypervigilance is a direct and immediate manifestation of hyperarousal, which is the initial response to threat. Its effect on the orienting response is particularly debilitating, setting the traumatized individual up for an ongoing experience of fear, paralysis, and victimization. Hypervigilance occurs when the hyperarousal that accompanies the initial response to danger activates an amplified, compulsive version of the orienting response. This distorted orienting response is so compelling that the individual feels utterly driven to identify the source of the threat even though it is a response to internal arousal rather than anything sensed in the external environment.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  “Anaïs, I told Hugo that someone from Warner Brothers phoned for you.” I lowered my voice and added rapidly, “The real reason is because a guy named Bruce gave Rupert your phone number there!” “The studio already contacted me here!” She gave an artificial laugh. She didn’t sound like herself. “Are you okay?” I asked. “No, that film is a disaster!” Her voice was a violin squeak. I assumed Hugo was right there. “Too bad your information came too late.” Rupert had beaten me to the call. She continued in her high scratch, “If you learn anything more, be sure to let me know. Au revoir.” I hung up the receiver as if lowering my own casket. If I had interpreted her code correctly Rupert had already phoned, the consequences had been disastrous, and I should watch Rupert to warn Anaïs of his next step. It was only 4:12 a.m., but there was no point in trying to sleep. I percolated a pot of Folgers and planned what to say to Rupert when I phoned him: How are you doing? Did you call that silly phone number? What happened? When I dialed Rupert’s number at six, it just rang. Maybe he was still sleeping it off. Maybe he’d gone out for breakfast. Maybe he’d gone to visit a girlfriend! I was exhausted but made myself do my Canadian Air Force calisthenics. As soon as I finished my sit-ups I dialed Rupert’s number again. Still no answer. This went on for two days. I phoned Rupert and Renate. Neither of them answered. I imagined terrible things. Rupert taking up with a woman. Rupert on a drinking binge somewhere in Hollywood. Rupert attempting suicide over the wickedness of Anaïs’s lies. I wanted to find out what had happened when Rupert phoned Anaïs at Hugo’s, but I didn’t dare call her without new information. Finally, I decided I’d better drive over to the Hollywood apartment to see if Rupert was refusing to answer the phone or unable to. I parked in the driveway, ran to the Tudorbethan door, and banged the knocker. I walked around and peered through the stained-glass windows. There was no sign of Rupert anywhere. Then I walked to the garage and saw through a dusty window that the Thunderbird wasn’t there. I drove back downtown in the smoggy winter gloom, feeling helpless. As soon as I entered my disheveled room I threw myself on my single bed, resigned to a full-blown depression. I would lose Anaïs again. She had put her trust in me, and I had failed her. Renate’s curse would come down on my head, and there would be no second chance this time. CHAPTER 19 Los Angeles, California, 1965 TRISTINE January 17, 1965 We are in the shower. The warm water running over our bodies. We can’t keep our hands off each other. The flesh is warm, wet. We grab each other, squeeze each other’s haunches, lick, explore with our fingers.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  His own wife Prisca his daughter Valeria, and most of his eunuchs and court officers, besides many of the most prominent public functionaries, were Christians, or at least favorable to the Christian religion. He himself was a superstitious heathen and an oriental despot. Like Aurelian and Domitian before him, he claimed divine honors, as the vicar of Jupiter Capitolinus. He was called, as the Lord and Master of the world, Sacratissimus Dominus Noster; he guarded his Sacred Majesty with many circles of soldiers and eunuchs, and allowed no one to approach him except on bended knees, and with the forehead touching the ground, while he was seated on the throne in rich vestments from the far East. "Ostentation," says Gibbon, "was the first principle of the new system instituted by Diocletian." As a practical statesman, he must have seen that his work of the political restoration and consolidation of the empire would lack a firm and permanent basis without the restoration of the old religion of the state. Although he long postponed the religious question, he had to meet it at last. It could not be expected, in the nature of the case, that paganism should surrender to its dangerous rival without a last desperate effort to save itself. But the chief instigator of the renewal of hostility, according to the account of Lactantius, was Diocletian’s co-regent and son-in-law, Galerius, a cruel and fanatical heathen.46 He prevailed at last on Diocletian in his old age to authorize the persecution which gave to his glorious reign a disgraceful end. In 303 Diocletian issued in rapid succession three edicts, each more severe than its predecessor. Maximian issued the fourth, the worst of all, April 30, 304. Christian churches were to be destroyed; all copies of the Bible were to be burned; all Christians were to be deprived of public office and civil rights; and at last all, without exception, were to sacrifice to the gods upon pain of death. Pretext for this severity was afforded by the occurrence of fire twice in the palace of Nicomedia in Bithynia, where Diocletian resided 47. It was strengthened by the tearing down of the first edict by an imprudent Christian (celebrated in the Greek church under the name of John), who vented in that way his abhorrence of such "godless and tyrannical rulers," and was gradually roasted to death with every species of cruelty. But the conjecture that the edicts were occasioned by a conspiracy of the Christians who, feeling their rising power, were for putting the government at once into Christian hands, by a stroke of state, is without any foundation in history. It is inconsistent with the political passivity of the church during the first three centuries, which furnish no example of rebellion and revolution.