“All of a sudden, Heather snapped into gear and I saw a forceful side to her I had never seen before. We had known each other about a year, during which time she played a major part in helping my understanding of Bambs’s condition. Having seen her own Mother consumed by similar problems, her knowledge of Psychology and Family Dynamics often made me feel very uncomfortable.
Although outwardly soft and gentle, her quiet conviction that Bambs might just drown in a sea of Other People’s beliefs about her, including my own, was definitely not what I wanted to hear. She could also see me struggling with Thoughts of pulling Bambs back into the comparative safety of my own somewhat water-logged environment.
In my endeavours
to sort all this out,
both Women
had become invisible.”
“Leading psychologist Alice Miller speaks about the need for all children to have an adult witness to the hurts or injustices of their lives. Without this support, the unbearable loneliness compels us to put a lid on our feelings, repress all memory of the trauma and idealise those who inflicted the abuse; like all children, we need to look up to and have the respect of those who care for us. Thus dissociated from the original cause, feelings of anger, helplessness and despair eventually find expression in destructive acts against others (Dr Miller cites criminal behaviour, mass murder and rape as typical), or against themselves (alcoholism, drug addiction, prostitution, psychic disorders and suicide).
She then goes on to say that if mistreated children are not to become like this, it is essential that at least once in their life they come in contact with someone who knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the environment - not the helpless child - is at fault.
'In this regard,' she said, 'knowledge or ignorance on the part of Society can be instrumental in either saving or destroying a life.’”
“Over the months, there had been a number of occasions when I seriously considered shelving the whole book idea; it was proving far too painful at times. But after the somewhat unusual encouragement that concluded the last chapter, I no longer had any real choice. I had to continue. It had also occurred to me that either Betty or Herbie could be the real source of such a message, but it didn't really matter : living or dead, I was being given genuine encouragement by people who cared.
Well, the book, like many aspects of this strange journey, took a long time to find its present form and the light of day. I now stand as a very different person to the one who walked out of Betty's house towards a murder trial. And like the book, which has existed in numerous forms, I have gone through many transitions since then. I had also reached a point in the journey where I was to discover there were many different tunnels to explore, all of them in my own psyche; tunnels that interlinked in strange and diverse ways.
But like Theseus with Ariadne's 'magical thread', there was still only one route to follow : the one which led to the centre of the Labyrinth, to the monster that lurked therein; to my own Shadow, as Carl Jung described it. I didn't know, then, where I was heading, but something in me knew that if I didn't go in to meet that unknown creature, 'It' would eventually come out to find me.
This was brought to the fore, I realise now, by my impending confrontation with Jeremy at his trial - not that I was required to speak to him, but I still had no wish to see him.
I was afraid of the feelings it might bring up in me. I was still very much in denial on very many levels: denial about the deaths and the brutal reality of them, but also of my own murderous feelings, especially towards Jeremy. As 'a nice guy' this did not sit too well with my own self-image: he, Jeremy, did things like that, not me!
In Chetwynd's Dictionary of Symbols, The Shadow, which is the opposite unconscious counterpart of the Ego (what I have described as 'my own self-image), is defined as the 'modern psychological name for an ancient symbolic figure, the embodiment and epitome of all that is most vicious, brutal and vile in the human character. It is also made up of all those parts of ourselves that we would much rather not know about, or indeed want others to see; all those parts that cause us to feel embarrassed, uncomfortable or ashamed. In that sense The Shadow is not necessarily bad. It only gets in the way if it is ignored.
For example, the very serious person, who has never been allowed to have fun or be reckless, may have a very joyful Shadow; one which, if ignored, might come out as The Trickster another Shadow character) and tip that person into situations where they suffer an attack of uncontrollable giggles when absolute seriousness is required. That is The Shadow at work. Another symbolic example might be the fairy-tale queen who is no longer considered the most beautiful and becomes, instead, the witch. Snow White comes to mind as a perfect metaphor for the drama between Bambs and her adoptive mother. They seemed to be a direct manifestation of each other's Shadow.
In its more dangerous aspect, the Shadow might become manifest in the gentle person who has never been allowed to show their anger, has been shamed by any display of it; the person who, pushed or prodded once too often, loses control and explodes with terrible consequences. Prisons, I have since discovered, are full of them. That was the danger with me.
In Jeremy's case, there was something else in action, something slightly different, connected to morality - or rather, to its negative counterpart - as well as anger. His justifiable hatred of moralistic chastisement, amongst other things, had gone so deep it would seem to have invoked the very embodiment of Darkness-Itself. From his perspective, The Family would represent to him everything alien to his survival; his own Shadow.”
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