"The Grief of the Tame Woman" and the key that keeps bleeding.

The story of Bluebeard released me from a toxic relationship.

In the classic book, Women Who Run With the Wolves, the tale of Bluebeard frees women from the lies of what Mame Gena calls the PWO (patriarchal world order). Here is my attempt at a brief synopsis:

It is the story of a woman who, against the guidance of her intuition, marries a man with a beard that is blue. There is “nothing wrong” with him except a feeling that she has inside of her body (well, and his beard is blue). He promises her a castle and a love she has only dreamt of. One day he says to his new wife “I’m leaving on a trip, here are the keys to all the rooms in the castle. You can go everywhere except this room.” She and her sisters fly around the castle opening all the doors- naturally they say to their youngest sister, “c’mon, let’s see what’s in the one room he said we couldn’t go in!” The new wife protests, briefly, but then agrees and opens the door. Inside, she discovers a room full of rotting corpses. And then the key starts bleeding. She tries to get it to stop as she doesn’t want her husband to see, but the key won’t stop no matter what she does. He comes home, sees the bleeding key, and says, “I’m throwing you in that room with all my other wives who wouldn’t listen to me!” She begs him for time to say goodbye and prepare for her death- and then plots her escape. She “calls to her brothers and sisters” who come to her aid and eventually kill Bluebeard, putting an end to his reign of death.

The tale of Bluebeard resonates deeply with most women: he represents the predator, the toxic masculine that wishes to kill (or possess) the healthy feminine instead of protect and love her.

Last night my fiance and I watched Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan on Amazon Prime. There was a scene that haunts me: a young wife running away in the middle of the night away with her two daughters with only the clothes on her back and all the jewelry she could pile on. She was the wife of the primary terrorist mastermind. Dark and evil men had begun entering her home and her instincts were alerted. The men began looking at her teenage daughter with hunger and domination. She walked into rooms with men plotting terrorist attacks.

She told her husband, “you’ve changed.” He said, “I’m doing this for you.” But she had already seen the corpses and the key was bleeding.

She plotted her escape. Not knowing if it was going to be okay, but her fate (and her childrens’ was even more certain if she stayed).

We’ve all been taught to be tame.

 To marry someone because they checked the boxes, to take the job we hate, to go to PTA, to over-extend ourselves, to volunteer, to have 2.4 kids, have a perfect house perfect body don’t be too much of anything to do-do-do-do-do-OMG this shit is going to kill me. And it does. Women’s depression is 2-3 times what it is in men. Women are murdered by their significant others. Teenagers are killing themselves because it is just all too much. And mommies are drinking wine and taking xanax at the playground.

 There comes a moment in every woman’s life where something clicks and she finally, defiantly, valiantly, says, “NO.” Or she ignores that moment and slowly but surely dies a slow death in allegiance to the patriarchal world that needs her to be a domestic ghost and pretend she likes it like that.

 Today in my class at S factor (which is an unexplainable and miraculous movement practice that empowers and unleashes a woman’s power from deep within her bones), one of my siSters was sharing about a recent experience and described the grief she felt as “the grief of the tame woman.”

 Chills ran up my entire body.

 Because I know that grief.

You do too if you are quiet enough.

 I was once that tame woman.

 Until I wasn’t- and I had to grieve the wreckage and the losses and the complexes living as a tame woman had created.

 The magic of S factor is that we tap into our wildness and when the wild woman is awakened most women are quite surprised at how “un-ladylike” she is.

 Oh but she is GOOD. She channels her anger to defend her pups and her mate, she allows sadness to move through and deepen all of her connections, she lusts after her man with a desire that makes him feel like a King, and when she does serve and nurture it is with wholeness and congruence.

 How are you tame? In what areas are you too domestic? When did you learn that your body was un-safe? When did you start turning your lights off? Where are you betraying yourself?

 Come home to yourself. It is more safe than you even know.

"To The Bone" Review

“To The Bone”   

There is nothing new about the depiction of mental illness through film or television.  “Mental illness” is a part of the human condition.  The history of any person’s individual struggle with mental illness is as varied and complex as our fingerprints.

Anorexia, a subset of eating disorders, is no exception.

The film “To The Bone” featuring Lily Collins and Keanu Reeves, depicts one young woman’s struggle with anorexia and one doctor’s unconventional approach to treatment.

First, let me play amateur film critic: I was disappointed in the lack of depth and artistry.  The content provides any writer or artist a rich palette of emotions, relationships, Self, and healing practices to draw from—but it fell flat for me—surface level. In many ways, the film felt anorexic—starved of deep feeling. I was hungry for more.

Other people’s critique of the film is that it re-enforces dangerous stereotypes of what an anorexic “looks like.” I concur.  There is a popular image of the bony, attractive, and sullen Caucasian female that most people imagine when they think of an “anorexic.” Most clients I have treated, even the ones who are entering into ketosis (when the kidneys begin failing) or brady-chardia (dangerously low heart rate), wouldn’t be recognizable by any of these outward measures. Sometimes, they are the “most attractive” person in the room. This is especially true here in Orange County, CA—where the practices of “eating clean” and exercise are part of the rituals of the new religious paradigm—the Religion of Thinness (Michelle Lelwica). I saw anex-client of mine the other day at a concert—she is stunning and does not appear “bony”—she often models for high fashion photography spreads.  Her struggle in therapy was her fear that if she began to eat what her body wanted, her body would likely change. She was in quite a catch-22 when it came to letting go of her eating disorder.  It’s never about food.

One thing the film gets right: it is very educational.  It demonstrates the basics of eating disorder behaviors—from rituals at the table, eating strange foods, exercise compulsion, and the absolute terror of eating.  Most family members that I have worked with are genuinely confused about what is going on and often overlook behaviors simply because they don’t know what to look for. They are lost.

The doctor’s approach to treatment was beneficial—he did not use the conventional “meal plan” approach. He gave patients total control over their food intake but gave consequences for not reaching weight goals. A critique I have of most eating disorder treatment centers is that they feel very controlling.  Unwittingly, most centers re-create a negative interaction between client and food by “punishing” certain behaviors and rewarding others—specifically at the table.  Most centers are not psycho-dynamically oriented; they do not see that their approach re-enforces the problematic schema in the patient’s mind.  Conversely, I have found that a warm, connected, attachment oriented approach to most ED clients is highly beneficial.  A calm, non-judgmental attitude does wonders for the highly anxious client.  When the treatment provider stops being anxious about the client’s eating disorder, the client can begin to get curious about their behaviors and sometimes symptoms abate spontaneously. The trouble is that this process happens on the clients’ timeline—not the therapists’ or the family’s. I have had many a family member terminate treatment or demand treatment to be different because it’s not “happening fast enough” so therefore, something must be wrong. But as we saw in the film, Ellen only got better when she decided to get better.  This is usually because at the heart of an eating disorder is the assertion that “my body is mine.”

I would have loved to have this theme explored more in the film—it was touched on briefly by Luke, when he asked Ellen if she was ever “touched wrong.” In my experience, even if a client was never sexually abused, most of my female clients have internalized the patriarchal attitude towards the feminine—which is to diminish its existence—to control it—to subdue it—to minimize its wildness—and, her sexuality.  The “mother/whore” complex is thriving. I see it everyday in my practice.

The history of Western civilization for the past two thousand years has been vicious towards the female body because of its association with sex, blood, and childbirth. It is connected to nature and Her ways and cannot be thwarted or controlled.  The female body changes with every week, every month, every year—it has many moods and seasons—and is constantly in flux. The female body has been maligned for its ever-changing ways. The body—both male and female—has been subject to Hellenistic dualism and has suffered the consequences of elevating the “mind” over the body.

Fortunately, thanks to science and an evolving theological landscape, Western thought is moving towards a synchrony of mind and body—those of us that study the body and mind are now saying it is more accurate to say we have a body/mind—because the neural networks that extend throughout the body, transmit messages to the brain. Most of our neurotransmitters are made in the gut—which is why when we are “emotional.” our ability to eat normally is impaired.

There was a scene that brought me to tears. The scene captured the complex and at times uncomfortable aspects of treatment: the scene where Ellen’s mother asks if she would like to be bottle fed. Initially, Ellen bristles—but then softens at her mother’s offering. Her mother cradles her twenty year old daughter like an infant and begins to feed her. And Ellen receives nourishment from her mother.  After this scene, Ellen decides to return to treatment. Although the movie depicted this important psychological move too swiftly for reality, it demonstrated a key principle: which is that we learn how to care for ourselves by the way others care for us.  Ellen decided to begin feeding herself after being fed. It really is that simple.