NON-FICTION — AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Chapter Seventeen — CMC and Psychotherapy

Journey of Healing 17

I am approaching this story with a difference. If you have read the previous chapters, you will notice that I have switched to the first person. Hopefully, this will make my story read better for you. None of the facts from the past are changed. When I speak of what my wife thought, it is because she told me what was bothering her. With that said, the story continues below.

By 1994 I had shifted my focus from CMC and second-language teaching, to exploring the possibility of doing psychotherapy and counselling in cyberspace. It seemed to be the perfect environment for psychology and making a difference in the world. I was drawn into this alter-universe as I pushed myself to explore ideas in depth. I even wrote poetry in attempts to allow the truth of who I was to be set free. And surprisingly, there were responses to my words in cyberspace.

Without realising what had been taking place, the portal to the collective unconscious had been opened like some Pandora’s Box. What appeared in the poetry and in the dialogues in cyberspace were the voices of my soul projected upon others who heard echoes of their own soul.

I had cast my soul into the ether of cyberspace, similar to casting a handful of tiny hooks into an ocean with no real intention or expectation of catching any fish. The unconscious projections were cast out, and there were others in cyberspace who heard the voice behind the poems, others who believed they had found their missing soulmate, their Magical Other, reflected in those words.

With every resonance heard in the responses of others, My self-esteem blossomed. I began to think if stretched enough, I would find myself as a pure soul, a Buddha-like being, a wise saint-like presence.

In the world of cyberspace, projections fly freely, especially when all that is used to communicate are words, those spoken and others unheard. We each create our unique and personal version of the other voices that we hear. Each person in CMC dialogues creates an image of the Other who was responding to their words.

There were no scars, no imperfections that marked these Others.

I sensed, at least at the subconscious level, I was somehow cheating on my wife, not in a physical sense, but at a much deeper level. What had held our marriage together through all of the years, had been a unified commitment to our children, as well as a deep-rooted stubbornness that didn’t allow us to take the easy way out.

Both of us retreated into a silent truce while wearing forced smiles in public and in front of our children. We rarely admitted the truth to each other, even in the middle of our night storms. We fought about the surface conditions of life, quiet fights at night so that the children would not hear us.

Another trip to France took place during the 1995 Easter break. The trip in 1993, had gone well with our first child part of the group. She was in grade twelve, as were most of the other students. It was the perfect way to end her high school studies before heading off to college.

Our second daughter and her classmates were excited to go on their own France trip after watching the slide show, and the video of her sister’s trip. The time between these two trips was all about maintaining as normal a life as possible. Both my wife and I were aware of how most of our life together appeared to be an amazing and happy story in the eyes of our community.

However, beneath the surface I was suffering from something that had nothing to do with our present life together. My suffering began to manifest itself physically. Whatever was roiling below the surface had found its way into severe back and hip pain. I found himself struggling more than usual when I returned from the 1995 trip.

Because of the growing unrest in our marriage, and my addiction to the Internet, I struggled in keeping my head together, trying harder and harder to hold onto sanity.

A female teacher who had once been considered as a France trip replacement for my wife, began to appear in my dreams. Those dreams ridiculed me as a man, taunted me as being an impotent man. My wife heard me speak her name in his sleep.

‘What was going on? Is he having an affair? Is he going to leave me and the children for her?’ were thoughts that tortured her as much as the dreams tortured me. Whatever trust was left between us stretched almost to the breaking point.