Is Purging Helpful?
Many of us have had to deal with the death of a family member or close friend or even a favourite pet. These times are not easy to bear, and we appreciate the support of friends and family during our period of grieving. But no matter how comforting everybody is, we still have to live with the realization that family gatherings just won’t be the same without Aunt Peggy’s sense of humour, that Roger will no longer be talking our ears off about sports, and that the easy chair in the den looks empty without Macavity the cat curled up in it.
And after the friends and family have gone home, always leaving us with the admonition, "If you need anything, just call," we’re left to deal with our loss as best we can. We do need, and we want to call, and we know what we want to ask for: we want Aunt Peggy back, we want Roger back, and we want Macavity back. However, we know that’s impossible. So we don’t call, and we suffer.
But if it was possible, would you call them back?
Before you consider this subject to be a little macabre, let me put it into perspective: the purges that many of us go through are just what I’ve been talking about. We try to kill our female selves, and we go through the grieving period with much sadness. Then we realize that it is possible to call them back--that our other selves never really died--and we bring them back.
I’m going to ignore the obvious fact--that we cannot kill a part of ourselves while we continue to live--and concentrate instead on the implications. It is taxing enough to suffer the death of a loved one; it is even more emotionally taxing to accept the fact that we cannot kill part of ourselves so easily. But it may be necessary if we are to eventually accept ourselves.
Many people mention that after a purge, their female self wants to return; that they don’t really have anything to do with it. In spite of all their efforts, the female self refuses to stay down, and continues to try to resurface. Whether we allow them back or they force their way back doesn’t really matter. Eventually, the person attempting a purge gives up--almost in a "I-bash-my-head-against-a- brick-wall-because-it-feels-so-good-when-I-stop" attitude--and the other is there, just like before.
Well, not quite. Because the female self has no clothes, no makeup, none of the accoutrements that she had previously. They disappeared in the purge, donated to charitable organizations or just plain thrown out. And that’s when the grieving begins.
"I wish I had my navy skirt, or my print dress, or those nice black shoes back." Isn’t that the feeling? And isn’t it followed by the memories that come flooding back--the feeling of contentment at the party at which the dress was worn, the feeling of relief at finding an understanding salesgirl in the skirt shop, the feeling of euphoria at finding just the right pair of shoes in just the right size?
The grief comes, not just from a sense of loss, but also from the feelings we have attached to the objects themselves. Attaching feelings to people is common enough, thus our devastation at the deaths of others, but women also tend to attach feelings to objects. This attaching of feelings to objects has been noted before--Melanie Anne Phillips has written a number of times on this topic--and if we believe Melanie, then we recognize this as one of the characteristics that define women, and by extension, us.
I choose to believe Melanie. Based on my own experience, and the experiences of others as they have been related to me, the idea that women attach feelings to objects is valid. But while women seem to understand this easily enough, it is something that we seem to fail to realize. Thus the idea that we can purge, it will work, and we will finally be "normal."
In some ways, it can be argued that at least one purge is required. That it is a painful but necessary lesson designed to teach us just who we are and how we are different from "normal" society.
What about those who have never purged? They seem to be in the minority in our community, but they are there nonetheless. But this is where we have to define just what constitutes a purge. Yes, it involves dumping all the things belonging to the other self, but the female self doesn’t just own tangible things. She also owns a name, she owns memories, and--surprise!--she own feelings.
And how are they purged? Some might say that they are not purged at all; that the person is simply, "in denial." But what is denial if not a discarding of certain facts? Looked at that way, denial of one’s name, memories, and feelings is indeed purging, and is just as difficult to deal with as the discarding of actual objects.
Let’s look at the discarding of these things. It’s true that with a great deal of effort, we can refuse to allow memories to arise, but it is hard to avoid one’s name. Even meeting a woman with the same name brings back some memories. As for the feelings, they come back at various times and for various reasons, just as we all know too well. Eventually, the so-called non-purger finds that it feels good to stop bashing her head into a wall, and she begins her own acceptance also.
Acceptance is the goal, and all of us who have accepted ourselves have in some way gone through a purge. Perhaps it involved discarding tangible objects like our clothes and shoes; perhaps it was an attempt to discard our name and our memories. In most cases, it was unsuccessful--we cannot kill a part of ourselves; the grief is just too intense. Just was we want Aunt Peggy and Roger and Macavity back, we want our female selves back. We miss them; we don’t want to deal with life if they are not there. We feel incomplete without them.
And when the feelings associated with the female self and her belongings are added, we feel even more incomplete. We realize that we cannot be without her; she is as much a part of us as ever. The exercise taught us a lesson, however: we are still who we were before, but with a better understanding of who we are, and how we are different.
Purging is painful, but it is something we all need to do at some point. Once we realize just how different we are, and that we cannot change, we are much more open to the idea of self-acceptance and closer to being able to fully enjoy the gift we have been given.
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