However hard it is at times, to respond and cope, the key thing that ive discovered is that is helpful to know.
When you just know.
When its more than panic
more than a feeling. More that knowing that it feels wrong.
When your mind says this is wrong.
When you can try and say it
out loud
to someone else.
It gets it out from under the rock that holds the pain down.
Its like your voice is enough to start lifting the weight.
Its felt like being squashed. And you didn’t know it, just felt it.
Looking up at it, like I did at Malham Cove recently , its daunting.
But when you know
When you don’t just know the weight of the rock
You stand and see the rock from above.
Its not crushing you anymore, as much. Your head is above it,
it might be your foot below it. And its still painful. And that still hurts your whole body.
But it feels different.
Head is above. Just.
Heart is out of the firing line. Just
It still hurts.
Sometimes you’ve just got to say things out loud. Trust someone.
Honestly, there isnt someone who can’t listen.
First step is to let the rock be seen by others.
To admit how the rock is affecting you
To squeeze yourself from under it.
It can be done.
It really can.
No need to be ashamed of the rock that is squashing you.
Thats what the rock wants you to feel.
But when you know
You can see it
and start to see the rock from a different angle
Until you get to be above it…
from above.
Then you have power again
Your power
even when it still hurts.
Knowing the rock from above gives it a whole different angle.
From there it can be drilled into with less risk of damage to yourself
From there you are seeing it.
Seeing its patterns, as the water cascades over it.
And not just that, its knowing it, because you’ve had to conquer it, and you have, and you will.
That knowledge.
Knowledge of the rock.
Knowledge of you, the survivor. The climber. The one trying to make yourself free.
Knowing yourself. Knowing the rock.
you climbed
you fought
you began
to make
the rock
look and feel different.
Time to stand
on
it.
Free yourself.
James Ballantyne 
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