Читать книгу Close to the Bone - Jean Shinoda Bolen - Страница 21

The underworld can also be a state of mind that resembles the realm of Hades in which abducted Persephone was an imprisoned captive. It was a dim world inhabited by the shades of the dead, which were recognizable but without substance, bloodless images like holograms or like memories devoid of emotion. This is the realm of depression when we are cut off from our feelings, which illness and the effort to repress all feelings and fears can bring us into. We then act as if we were inanimate, obedient, cooperative objects. The diagnosis of a life-threatening illness and the need to respond immediately to medical advice about what to do invites us to dissociate from our feelings. Whether from depression or from dissociation, the result is often the same. Detached from emotions, a person can then be the picture of the good patient who enters the hospital as if it were a body repair shop.