Session 5 - Rejection & Unrequited Love

Transcription of session 5 – Unrequited Love, research interview conducted by Miss Sleeping Beauty. Interviewee: Princess Rapunzel

Sleeping Beauty (SB): “Morning Princess Rapunzel, please would you confirm that you are aware your session is being recorded for research purposes?”

Princess Rapunzel (PR): “Yes, Miss Beauty, we can.”

SB: “Thank-you. I understand that your last few years have been ones of great trial with regards to love.”

PR: “Yes, to say the least. Since my parents sent me here the counsellors have found me to have anxiety, post-traumatic stress and depression. It has been a hard road to walk with a lot to face.”

SB: “I’m sorry to hear that. It sounds more than challenging. How are you coping now? What has the journey been like for you?”

PR: “The ‘journey’, as you term it, has been most unpleasant. It has been riddled with self-doubt, low self-esteem and physical manifestations of distress and pain, along with what I have come to believe has been a process of intense grieving. It has, without a doubt, been a spiritual journey in which I have had to draw closer to my faith in order to get through each day. My options were: go on in faith, or ruin my life and my body in worse ways with smoking, alcohol, sex, drugs and all the other things I have noticed people using to try and cope with a lack of love in their lives. I sat back when I was at the edge of the cliff of self-hate due to rejection and I had to make a decision: Am I going to build myself up to heaven on faith, or am I going to let myself drop into the pit of this world? Thus, in order to cope, I chose to rise, to keep fighting and keep trying, to basically live and breathe on hope. So right now I’m finding hopeful to be the most helpful way to go about living.”

SB: “I’m sure that is taking a lot of courage. Many people prefer to fall into that pit of oblivion and pretend things aren’t happening like they are. It’s easier to use substances and physicality in all kinds of ways to try and pretend they are ‘high’, when actually each time their drop gets deeper and deeper into the ‘pit’, as you referred to it. How have you managed to keep yourself going in a positive direction?”

PR: “You must remember Miss Beauty, that I am no stranger to rejection. I was stolen from my family as a baby and stuck in a tower on my own for nearly 18 years. I grew up alone, and often I would fall into spells of rejection, hating that my father had died before I was born. Feeling like God had rejected me as a worthy subject for a home where I had a mother and father. Then I came to learn that the person who I thought was my mother wasn’t. In fact she was Evil beyond anyone’s comprehension. She was selfish, self-gratifying, abusive and manipulating. All the while bringing me up to make me feel guilty, make me feel I had to be where I was and live like I was, in a tower on my own, “for my own safety”. All of these lies were fed to me from before I could speak. All my formative years were based on lies. Still, I had a tower with a window. I saw the beauty of nature, the sounds and smells of something miraculous beyond my window, stretching out along a horizon that offered me incredible sunrises and skies that danced in radiant colours bouncing off incredible clouds. As if the clouds were the ultimate ball-gowns, swishing across the sky, and the sky so important and wealthy that every day brought a new outfit. The different designs and shapes that went past me all day held such magic, such hope and were such a wonder to behold each day.

I lived on hope in that tower. I got through the days of doubt and claustrophobia thanks to that window, to nature and to books, so many books and wonderful stories. Even though I wasn’t exposed to men, and I came to fear them thanks to the Evil one (Sorry, I refer to her as the Evil One, in order to depersonalise myself from the trauma that she caused me, and take away the impact of the hell of seeing her soul leave her body in agonising screams. I never ever want to know what she was seeing at that moment, I felt the power of Hades itself in her demise). I still, however, felt an intrigue and a possibility for love and romance and all that the ladies in those books were blessed to experience. The Evil One told me that it was just fiction and that it was not possible for the stories to be true because men were nasty creatures who took away our power and hurt us in ways beyond our imagining. I have now learnt that she was right in a way, indeed, I never ever imagined or conceived how much unrequited love would literally tear apart my soul and truly hurt me. Nowhere in the story books do the tales tell that Prince Charming was literally just ‘Charming’ and had no desires beyond fame and fortune. My reality was that he was a shallow being indeed, out for the chase, the hunt and then the release. He was simply ticking off all his boxes to charm a girl into giving up her heart and then leaving her for the next prize in his cap. If the story books had been honest, then maybe I could have prepared myself, maybe I would have been more aware of my destiny, and I would never have let him get to me as much as I did.

Although I can’t be sure I would’ve proceeded with caution, because of that drug called hope, and I have decided that it really is a drug. What I lived and survived through amazes me, it really does, and all I was consuming was hope in the promise of nature and my faith and that there are plans for me, plans to prosper me and not to harm me, plans to give me a wonderful future. I have to live through what I have to live through to get to where I need to get to, and how the plan unfolded itself was for the Universe to decide, and that It has.

So here I sit in this institution, slowly rebuilding myself, my life and my destroyed self-esteem. I’m here because my Soul needs the time to explore and accept what it has lived through, without a world around me making me spiral down into its pit; the World of Man wants that, it really does. The more people in the pit moaning and being negative with each other, the happier the World of Man is. I don’t want that. I want elevated Joy, I want to be strong enough to go back to my Land and reign as a wise, stable, reliable, honest and energised Queen. I can’t be all I want to be until I have lived through this stage here in this institution. It is a blessing that, even though some days are harder than others to live through, I know I’m improving, I know that the turning point is a moment nearer, I know that I am proud of myself for keeping on keeping on, and it is good. I am sure when I am Queen there will be many difficult times and I will have to keep on keeping on, and I can prove to my Subjects that I speak and act with experience.”

SB: “Such powerful words and such a strong conviction through all your turmoil. Well done Princess, you are truly earning your Title in my opinion. With regards to the Evil One; do you blame her?”

PR: “Thanks Sleeping Beauty, I’m doing the best I can. Sitting here chatting to you is a bit out of the ordinary, and quite public, I’m sure if you caught me on a bad day you may not feel the same way laugh.”

SB: “Not at all Princess, it would only make you more human and approachable. Your empathy skills as a Queen are going to be incredible after all this.”

PR: “Ah, that’s so very kind of you, thanks again, I can only hope so. As far as the Evil One is concerned, I have had a lot of time to think about it, wrap my hate and anger around it, unleash my hate and anger, dwell in abject frustration and wallow in depression. I have lived with the fear that she is not dead, that she will return, that her influence on me is deeper than I realise and by the science of nurture I will in some ways become like her, in other ways I may already be like her, and it is so difficult. Each moment, each memory in my past, the safety I thought I had and the knowledge I thought was true was all fake. I wonder if there is anything real about me, if there is any truth in who I am.

I think about her with less anger now and more pity. She based her whole existence on appearances, she lied about everything, she lived a lie. The strain of that on her soul, if there was any decency left in that decrepitly vile creature, must have created a black hole within her that nothing could ever have satisfied. A helpless creature with no love in her life, except for herself. An existence warped with self-absorption and selfishness to the extreme, consumed with nothing but keeping alive that which has to die – her body. When the truth arrived at the moment of her death, so too did the reality. It was not her body that she needed to prepare for the afterlife, but her Soul. She paid no attention to her eternity and spent her life manipulating me and indulging in the false perception that she could be immortal in body. The sadness of it for me now sometimes brings me to tears, other times it catches on my need for revenge and justice, and then I stop myself, for if I seek revenge and desire such atrocity on a Soul, then I may as well go to the same place that she went in Death.

By being in this place, I have had the privilege of time to assess myself, time to speak to professionals, time to decide what my approach is going to be, and I have, after much deliberation, decided to step away from a role of power and control and into a role of love. In order for me to Love, truly Love, Mercy becomes more important than Justice. Forgiveness becomes more important than Anger, and Hope is my guiding light, not Hate. I need to live my life and act in a way that shows the people of My Land what is important and what is destructive, what will uplift and what will destroy. The Evil One showed me deceit, I have lived through that. Now I am trying out Love, and I will see how it turns out. Then I must decide which to pursue for my own eternity. Thus, even though the Evil One broke me, she also taught me through the experience, invaluable lessons that I never want to live through ever again.”

SB:  “That is a fascinating answer to me. The counter-part of Love. If we don’t choose Love, then what must fill its place? I like that angle and how it brings in a new perspective on Love. Speaking of not choosing Love, your unrequited love and Prince Charming’s absconding whilst still writing you poetry. People around the world are dying to get hold of this website I might add. Will you be giving it out?”

PR: “No. I gave him my word I would not use anything he has personally created for public criticism. There is also no need to call him a “Prince”, he has not earned that Title, so please stick to the depersonalisation of Charming; thank-you. ”

SB: “Right, well, I just thought I’d ask, for research purposes, you understand. Cough. Ok, so my question was, speaking of his lack of love in the form of unrequited love, how are you working through the whole situation to heal?”

PR: “As I have already said, I read a lot. One such book is called “Choosing to SEE” by MB Chapman and in the book she deals with the death of her five year old daughter. It was through reading this book that I discovered that the process I have been going through with regards to Charming, and working through the whole situation, has been one of grieving. I see him in places, I anticipate him to be there, I have conversations, arguments and interactions with him, as if he is still there. These are all common attributes of grieving the loss of a loved one. Chapman writes: “Did I want more years? You better believe I did…” It would seem that my imagination is creating those years to appease what my Soul desired and his Soul did not.

I have also been through E. Kubler-Ross’s stages of dealing with death: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. The stages have come in various waves, at various strengths and lasted for varying amounts of time, yet all are revolving and slowly diminishing as time wears on. I cannot deny that the process has been hell, and unfortunately it unleashed once more my deep-set feelings of rejection, and questions as to why my real parents were never able to find me, why this fake Prince was the one to break me free of my tower, why I must carry on living when nothing is as beautiful as it was when I was with him? Which then reignites my feelings of self-doubt and low self-esteem. Why didn’t I know he was just a Charmer, why didn’t I sense the Evil One for who she was, why do I have to see good in things that are so bad, why didn’t he love me back, why aren’t I good enough, attractive enough, worth the while of him or my parents? The cycle goes round and round in my head and I am I learning to catch it when it begins. I’m learning to stop denying that he has gone, stop being angry at how things are and work with them to make things better. I have stopped bargaining with God, which has been wonderful and I have moved from demanding, begging and asking to praying: ‘Your Will Be Done’ and sitting in peaceful silence knowing the power of faith and trust. I take many long walks, simply counting my steps and/or breathing deeply. I’m back to embracing nature and the hopefulness of sunrises and my clouds in their new shapes and radiant colours, along with listening to the birds that sing to me and feeling the breeze that hugs me and touching the river that runs along jubilantly giving water and life without a request or demand for anything in return. Nature just gives unconditionally; it is truly our most wonderful example of genuine, unconditional love.

With regards to the depression, it is ongoing. It is a part of my melancholy disposition that I need to embrace and allow it space to be. It’s depressing that he did love me and doesn’t anymore. Indeed, I am unwaveringly convinced that he did and even though his poetry may be for someone else now, though I hardly believe the Wicked Witch deserves it, in the beginning, it was all for me, and it was real and blossoming in love in the most beautiful ways I have ever encountered. My Soul moved up and then into depression, because his love was all in word and not in deed. It saddened me deeply with every poem and every read. Maybe I have it all wrong and I am really, quite simply, a muse, and there was no genuine love involved at all, and the fact of the matter is that it was all unrequited love. Still, whatever the case may be and I may never know the truth as I am only living on ‘if’s, I can’t change another human being, I can’t demand anything of another, that is not my right. I don’t know his story or his insecurities, (there must be many from what I have known of him) and I don’t know where his Soul is at, but what I do know is that I am forever altered, I am working through a ridiculously heart-sore, confusing and extremely frustrating stage of my life right now, driven purely on the drug of hope. Hope that I won’t be in here much longer. Hope that I am evolving to a higher spiritual level. Hope that I never forget the amazing Joy or Sadness that has made me so much more of a real human being. Chapman has in her concluding chapters written, and this is what I would like to conclude with as I am very tired after all this emotional talking: “I want you all to know that I am making progress. The waves roll in a little less frequently, but they still roll in. And as far as getting over it, I won’t. I’ll get through it, not over it. There is a part of me that will be and is forever changed and different…It’s really okay! In fact, God trusted me with it. Why? Trust ‘me’? I don’t even want to talk about the ‘why’ question. But ultimately, God wanted to use … {me}… to live out this story here on earth. I only pray that people will see … {me}… battling it out and crying …{my}… guts out and loving till it hurts, and that they know…{I}… am doing …{my}… best to honour the one who blessed…{me}. ”

SB: “Thanks Princess, personally I am seeing amazing things through you. Take care and I know it will all come right for you and you will be an amazing Queen.”