The Boy in the Well

The view from down here

Not long ago I was reflecting on those very old wounds I still carry around the  judgments I made when I was little that I was incompletely accepted--and indeed was reviled, rejected, and abandoned--for being who I was.

According to Young Doug's perceptions of the messages he got from various sources, I was "weird" and "too dramatic" and "a brain" and "not manly enough" and "unfashionably dressed" and "bad at sports"  and a host of other things that--at least to my perception at the time--made classmates, family members, etc. unsure of how to deal with me and unwilling to try. Was I being overly sensitive? Quite possibly, but that's no longer relevant. The point is that these are the messages that Young Doug took in.

Some of the things that made me "odd" I tried to suppress, and others I tried to embrace. Neither method really prevented those messages from hurting.

Anyway, as I reflected on all those old messages, I likened how it felt to consider myself so unaccepted, rejected, and abandoned in that way to being dropped down a well. It was dark and dank and cold and very, very alone. And it sucked out loud.

So these were hurts that happened when I was a kid, and I'm a grown man now. Indeed I have been for quite a while. Why are these things still getting in my way? It hit me that the metaphor of the well is exactly the reason. 

When Young Doug got dropped down that well, he had the core of me--the part that wants and gives and receives full, open-hearted, unconditional love with him. And it's been down there with him ever since.

At first all he could focus on was the pain and fear and shame and loneliness of being stuck down there in the "dungeon" of that well. Over time, though, he realized that the stone walls of the well were also a fortress. As long as my heart was down there with him, it was relatively safe from further hurt. It was also kept isolated from any type of healing, but that didn't matter to Young Doug. All he knew was that what first seemed like a dungeon was also a fortress that protected him from further hurt. 

He got used to the dark and the dank, and to the hurts he already had. He actually grew attached to the "safety" he felt down there. He didn't notice or care that the old wounds were festering.

So now, Adult Doug could really use that heart, but my access to it is limited because it's down at the bottom of that well with Young Doug. What Young Doug sees as a dungeon turned fortress, Adult Doug sees as a prison for our heart. As you can see from the picture above, sometimes that loving heart can peek out--and sometimes hurt can get in. But it's difficult to get either to happen through that distant, narrow opening.

The other problem is that after so many years stuck (Adult Doug's perspective)/safe (Young Doug's perspective) down there, Young Doug has turned into a feral child. Anyone or anything who peers over the edge of the well appears as a dark and menacing figure. Any attempt to reach him--even to offer him comfort and healing, even by me--is met with vicious backlash. He's grown so acclimated to the well and so wild that he will do almost anything to "protect" his "safe" position down there.

But it does NOT work for me to have him down there, clutching so tightly to our heart in which all those old wounds are still festering. This was recently brought home to me yet again in rather spectacular fashion.

In order to live as I want, it is important to get him, and our heart, up from that well and to heal and integrate them both. It's the only way I see that I'll be able to give and receive the kind of love I want. It's the only way I see that I can stop having Young Doug sneak up out of the hole on his little commando missions, slip past my awareness, and lash out at anyone who gets too close. 

As long as he is down there, neither of us gets what we really want--even if he's forgotten that he wants it, and thinks he wants just to be left alone down there.

His dungeon/fortress/prison is strong, and he thoroughly protects himself even from me. He's very good at keeping everyone, including me, out (maybe especially me, since I'm the only one who can really bring him up out of there and he knows that--making me the greatest "threat" of all to the "safety" of his "fortress"). Nevertheless, there is nothing for it: I must find a way to get down there, bring him up out of that well and into the light, heal those festering hurts to our heart, and show him that he can trust that he doesn't have to lash out at me or at anyone who might actually love me--people he sees as a threat to his "security" down there. 

I'm not yet sure exactly how I'll reach him. What I suspect is that I'll be more successful in reaching him by coming at him with love than by trying to wrestle him to the ground. What I know is that there is no longer any workable option.  I must reach him, free him, and heal him. Damn it, I need my heart back, and I need it healed of all those festering, infantile wounds. I need an adult, workable, functioning, open heart. Not having that, especially at my age and with the trail of wreckage that lies behind me, is really, really getting in my way. And it's hurting other people. And neither of those is acceptable anymore.

So into the well I go. I'm probably going to get bitten and kicked and shoved and blocked. Even so, I have to persevere. Young Doug, my heart, and I are going up through that far off, tiny, bright hole up into the wide, bright world of the surface. The three of us--Young Doug, Adult Doug, and my heart--who start at the bottom of the well will be one when we reach the surface. There is no other acceptable result.