Don't Drink Bleach
I was talking with someone who works in helping people get off of serious drugs.
Great fun. My eyes lit up like Christmas trees when the topic of trauma came up in the chat.
He told me about how he’s seen a guy attempt to cleanse his soul by drinking bleach, twice.
And my desire is to talk to the part of him that wants to drink bleach.
What’s it trying to solve by doing it?
What is it saving him from that’s even worse? (Usually this falls into some category of being overwhelmed, of feeling more pain, or of not being able to handle something).
I’m endlessly curious to speak with the things that inspire us to do or say things we don’t want to, and extreme examples just make me even more curious.
OK. You wanna drink bleach. Or maybe that part is separate from the part that wants to cleanse his soul. Maybe the bleach drinker is actually saving him from killing himself more overtly in another way. The bleach drinker could have been saving his life compared to what else was in store for him.
Everything can be understood about a person’s experience with an attempt to understand it and a willingness to listen.
But hey, we can interview the part that isn’t willing to listen, too.