The Gatekeeper

Part III Love Child Chapter 14

14

OUT WE WENT, INTO THE frigid night air. Memories from past Canadian winters, adventures in the woods running from bears and stargazing, were pleasantly relived by Lauren as she found some deer tracks on our property. She showed me how to understand what the deer were doing by looking at their hoof prints. 

When we got back inside she was strangely sweaty and wanted to take a shower.

Her body was beset with unrelenting extreme shifts in temperature. Overheated from our walk, an extended cold shower left her chilled and unable to warm back up. 

Child abuse victims often feel claustrophobic taking a warm-water shower which also made her feel faint, dropped her blood pressure, and made her heart unsteady. Her condition quickly degenerated to a medical crisis. 

"Erik, you've got to do something. I can't cope with what's happening to me. I want to die, please, help me to die!" Lauren pleaded in anguish, tears streaming down her ivory cheeks. 

Having been through a number of her near-death episodes, I suspected, I hoped a flashback was gathering strength like a thunderhead about to explode into a major storm.

Trying to remember what the therapist told me, "Lauren, what you're experiencing is just a memory, you're not really dying."

"Help me, Erik, please help me get through this," the beleaguered Lauren begged.

"Let's go visit Carmen and play with your puppy a while," I suggested, but with no apparent affect as the episode continued to escalate.

Lauren's suffering child alter was not responsive and may have been unconscious or even near death. 

In past co-consciousness sessions Lauren had told stories of being cold and still, with chains around her wrists. She was three years old and had passed out on a cement floor. Her dog had been locked in a work room. Someone's hands were around her throat, causing her to black out. 

As I continued to strategize, Lauren started to respond. Her child alter was terrified and feared for her life. 

The situation was getting critical and I had to think of something that could turn things around.

Using the concept that the child alter's mind was receptive to suggestion and would accept literal statements, I handed her one of my keys.

"Take this key and unlock the chains around your wrists. That's right . . . now, I'm going to pull those hands off of your neck and I want you to put the handcuffs around the hands that were on your neck. Are you ready? Okay, let's do that right now." 

The strategy was working. I’d engaged the child's distraught, panicked mind in a process that gave her control over the threatening events unfolding in this deadly revived memory. The perpetrator was now in chains.

"You have the only key to those chains. Put that key in this strong box. Now close and lock the door with the key inside." 

With that final act of reassurance she became calm and relaxed. 

"Please, can I get my puppy and go out to play in the field?" the child alter pleaded.

"Certainly, go right over to the shed and open up the door," I said.

The calmed child now went to release her dog from captivity and together they entered a beautiful meadow, warm with a sun that was always shining, colored with flowers that were always in bloom. 

The event passed and another necrotic memory had been excised. With her inner child safe, Lauren faded slowly to sleep.