I have been on one of Karen’s Kingsbury’s special, ‘When joy came to say‘.

I don’t take a long time with reading novels as I do with inspirational and spiritual books, but this novel has taken quite some time, having me stop, think, reflect and relate with some of the characters of the book and frankly, it has been heart wrenching. Anyone who reads Karen on a regular knows how her writing touches always the deepest parts of you, without her even trying too hard.

A woman had a past of which she managed to completely clean before she got married, she didn’t bother so share this horrid past with new hubby because it was now what it was, the past and it didn’t matter any more. They were both leaders in church and parents to the most adorable twin baby boys and then several years into this beautiful family, flashbacks start coming to her. She can’t make much sense of the flashbacks but one thing she’s certain of is the affiliation this has to the past she closed several years ago.

So what does she do? she gets scared because the hallucinations start getting overbearing, shes now caught doing things that could jeopardise her career as a top class columnist as a result of the hallucinations.

Her husband notices these changes so he starts to probe like the caring and supportive husband he is, but she shuts him out completely, convinced that he does not deserve a woman like her because of her past and does not deserve also the shame he could face should whatever it is be brought to light.

So one day, as her husband is away at work, she packs up her bags, leaves a note saying where she’s going and she checks herself into a psychiatric home, convinced that her hallucinations had become hazardous to her and the people around her. She gave clear instructions that she wanted no call or visit from any family member, particularly her husband and just asked to be alone, attending her rehabilitation classes till she got better.

On the flip side, hubby gets home to a quiet house, cause his wife successfully managed to give their kids to social services under the disguise that she is mentally unstable and so, they took the children without much questioning. He finds her wardrobe cleaned out and the note she’s left him and his heart can’t take it so he sits there on that spot, cries out his heart and stays playing with thoughts of how his marriage went from 100 – 0 with no warning and no reasons why.

I’m still on the book so I don’t know yet the ending but this plot isn’t too far from the realities I’ve been hearing about and dealing with. On the side of ‘do I need to tell my partner everything about my past?’ and ‘what if I deal with pain silently?’. This blog post is more on the dealing with pain, than the revealing your past to your partner.

People around us always suffer when we decide to be selfish. I imagine the tragedy to come in this book because of the protagonists decision to withhold her past from the people who love her, including her husband. I imagine the plot twist of what he will be forced to do and think because his wife has left him to go a mental home with no explanation as to why and even refuses to see him.

No matter how private you are, you need to know that your behaviour and response to pain has domino effects on those closest to you however little, I think young people need to start learning more how best to deal with pain rather than just closing a chapter on it without dealing with it adequately.

Subsequently we’ll talk about the letting your partner in on every detail of your past that has a potential to resurface at any point in your life, however insignificant you think it is.

We’ve grown learning that pain goes with time, and that’s true to an extent, but not when we haven’t fully healed, if not, at the slightest pop up of something related, we’ll be overwhelmed by the flood of thoughts from what we once thought was dead and gone.

STOP HIDING YOUR PAIN, STOP DEALING WITH YOUR PAIN ALONE, STOP PRETENDING THAT A WOUND IS HEALED WHEN IT IS ONLY COVERED.

Heal first, then shift.