“Please do,” Iencouraged.
“I feel like something has shifted with me. Just since we started talking more. I mean, you know some pretty shitty things about me from our emails, but you’re still willing to teach me and be around me.” He shook his head and looked away. “I really liked the beating sessiontoo.”
“We shall continue with those in moderation then. We’ll revisit it in a fewdays.”
While I had some things to do for work after he left, my mind couldn’t focus. I leaned back in my desk chair and stared at theceiling.
Ryan’s starving soul grabbed hold of my heart. He had such simple needs, yet didn’t understand or know what they were yet. All he knew was that he ached and hungered forsomething.
I believed that I could kill his father just by looking at him, and his mother and brother for that matter. To instill in a child that if he weren’t a militant droid, he was a weak man, disgusted me. Ryan grew up terrified to show emotions, or express simple needs. He probably never sought out comfort after coming home from a baseball game with a scraped knee or even a game where they lost. That, in his father’s eyes, showed weakness. And god forbid that his father raised a boy who felt confident enough to share hisemotions.
The impact session had given him temporary comfort. He couldn’t cry on his own. He didn’t feel okay or safe in crying…unless there was pain involved. The pain gave him the permission to cry. He needed a firm hand to bring him pain so he could get rid of years’ worth of emotional pain. But he also needed that same hand to bring him comfort andpleasure.
It’s no wonder Ryan was scared to show a need. His parents stripped his soul; beat on it, scarred it, trapped it, starved it, and left it for a slow, painfuldeath.
No, not on mywatch.
