 My thoughts have been turning to certain people for whom starting and seeking to maintain a relationship is a monumental task, often seen as potentially impossible. I am thinking of different men and women who have come into my life, some of whom have also walked out of it through death's door or for some other reason, and some who have remained in friendships of varying intimacy and contact. Perhaps the reason for this special group of friends coming to mind while I lie here, is because of the time of year when certain dates associated with ritual abuse have occurred while I have been sick. Spring Solstice, Easter and other dates in between and after have not been occasions for rejoicing for these friends as they have for many in church circles and lovers of Nature, rather, they have brought memories conscious and unconscious, of unspeakable terror and torture in cult-related activities. For these folk, relationships are a nightmare, and those I have counted, and do, a privilege to have known and know, have told me in so many many ways just how seemingly hopeless it is for them to ever feel they can know what the general public would deem a "normal" friendship or relationship. Different ones have commented: " I have to tell you up front that being my friend can be dangerous. More than one I have been friends with died and their deaths could not be counted as natural or an accident". " I'm hopeless at friendships. I really don't know the first thing about what it means". " I don't know why you bother with me, I'll never be able to be like anybody else, you'll give up soon". "I'm not safe to be around I don't know what I might do. This is a huge fear of mine". "What do you see in me anyway ? If you really knew me you wouldn't want another thing to do with me. I'm telling you". The statements are raw in their desperation and anguish and as I have been pondering long and hard on our interactions. I am grasping more and more just how HUGE is the risk, the terror, the longing, the hope and hopelessness they experience in trying to stay a course with someone. As they battle their inner confusion, ingrained distrust of everyone and everything, the need to question words, actions and motives, the intensity of craving for a love they do not understand, have never known and do not believe they ever will or could. These folk traumatized beyond belief, human beings with a heart no different from anyone else's are willing to face the unfaceable where many a stout heart would tremble with the same self-confrontation - but such is the pull of relationships and friendship. It is rather mind blowing if one stops to really think deeply on the matter - it links, does it not with man's need for companionship, the concept that, " no man is an Island" - that complete and total isolation is not compatible with the nature we are born with. There needs a communing of mind with mind to keep a sense of belonging to homo sapiens, however superficial or deep the thought sharing might be. The well researched and documented data on the infant's seeking for its mother's warmth and comfort over hunger speaks to the need for touch, for physical closeness, and assurance of a mother's love. The studies done on the importance of role-modeling requires there be the presence of another to whom one can look for example how to act, what to do, how to problem-solve. Marriage requires two for the relationship, and there are few, if any businesses where people interaction is completely lacking. With the friends who stand out in my mind right now, their lives keep a semblance of normality in that they have their work, their families, their church gatherings, and need to shop in public places, intermingle with stranger and neighbour yet few, if any, of those contacts have ANY idea of the colossal effort needed to keep up the facade of this normality. Perhaps it is I who need to marvel that these special men and women wish to maintain a relationship and friendship with ME, rather than I with them. I do not know how many of them truly know how well I relate to their inward withdrawal in distrust and fear of being seen for who they truly are - that I know full well their fears. I have known rejection, abandonment, loss and misunderstanding that is the underpinning of their fragile vulnerability in the challenge of becoming a friend, or even more daunting - of being one. There are some I have discussed this with, but not all. We are such complicated creatures. This muse is follow up to my previous Muse on Friends because for some reason it has clarified even more, my understanding of certain friends, survivors of severe prolonged abuse who have been emailing recently and how, in revisiting my own childhood I am able to hear them more clearly and re-live my own isolated hells from which I was loved out by two true and loyal friends. It has made me so aware that these RA (ritual abuse) survivors have not known this miracle and that they still count me as a friend moves me to tears. I see so clearly the price they pay that once I paid, to keep up the possible hope that what society sees as a "normal" relationship or friendship, could ever be attained. This is not something one can ever assure survivors such as I am thinking of, that it will all turn out fine, that our friendship will be as I have known with others. There is NO assurance of this. There is NO assurance of how a person will heal, and in healing be able to escape the bondage and shackles fastened on them at so young an age. As I lie here and one by one, they pass in vivid pictures through my thoughts, I have such a DEEP DEEP longing that in their overwhelming frozen needs, their constant fear and aching void of love, that they will not give up their relationship with me. It is MY longing that somewhere far inside they can know that though our abuse histories are so different yet their longings, fears, grief, anger, and distrust is so WELL understood, for in these emotional moccasins I have walked for many miles. Friends who have not felt the same shoe fit will not understand what I am writing here, nor enter in to how I feel, but this does not diminish in ANY way, my love and care for them. However, tonight, I have a heart space open that embraces all those who reach me in a way no others can, and one amongst them all is keeping me fighting to fulfill a friendship and relationship in such a way there might be hope of Love at last becoming a many splendoured thing. If she reads this she will know I am writing of her, and if this ever gets printed then it will be known, but I am not sharing it for now. When a relationship becomes a friendship there is no better ending. It is like the butterfly emerging from confined coccoon to graceful wing-spread freedom - the finishing strokes painted deftly on a painting taken from its easel to be hung with others in ones Gallery of Treasures. It is the meeting of two hearts lost in loveless fear-based uncertainty now finding a Harbour where their storm-tossed vessels can finally weigh anchor in calm waters - peace and tranquility at last. Oh, my dear friends you will NEVER know how much this is my dream and wish for us. As I have always said, " If anyone walks away it won't be me". I have had two special role models for the constancy of true love and it is my vow to be to others what I have known. Goessoftly www.goessoftlyishere.com (permission for reprints is required)     | Normalizing and Demystifying DID | DID and Littles.(Child/Young Alters) | ISOLATION | Mono's Disbelief | Distortion: Good and Evil | ASPECTS OF BODY CHANGES | Relationships | Across The Board | Across The Board | FORGIVENESS | I am BAD | Headaches | LYING AND DECEPTION | LOST and LOSS | EYES | Controversy. Research projects. | Feeling is Healing | Alone and Aloneness | VICTIM or VICTOR ? | TEARS | Medication and DID | DID Emergency Room/Casualty and Crisis Center Guid | Acknowledging The Inside Community | The NO TALK Rule. 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