“Sunita Merriman’s book Stripping-My Fight to Find Me is of great importance to the future of dynamic psychotherapy and humanity.”
— Habib Davanloo, MD, Emeritus Professor-McGill University, Montreal, Canada
There are parts of this book that are hard to read. Not because of what she went through but because of what we each have gone through. Reading Stripping will twist your heart in a knot. And then it becomes untied and beats stronger. Sunita is your inner child, your therapists, your conscience and your best friend. She’s you. She’s me. Read the book and then pass it on to help someone else.
— Michael B. Reader
“ Through a series of gripping poems Sunita Merriman delves into the very root of pain, struggle and ultimately recovery in her book. Normally when reading a collection of poems you may flip through a few pages and read a few poems. But this book makes it hard to put down. So many of these poems felt like they were my own thoughts.
— Laurie W. Reader
“Sunita Merriman demonstrates in this book what is at the heart of healing- Courage. Whether you are a clinician or a client, this book can serve as a guide to the healing process.”
— Kristin A.R. Osborn, Author of Paraverbal Communication in Psychotherapy: Beyond the Words
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Why?
I picture someone broken and alone, thinking they are crazy for feeling the way they do. thinking that no one would understand their pain and aloneness. thinking that there is no way out of the entrapment of their darkness, thinking that no one cares about them and their misery. I think of that person because I was that person. I believed I was helpless and that no one could or would help me. That despair. That desperation. That dead end.
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How?
I share my poetry so that one person can know they are not alone. That I understand how they feel. That my words describe and give language to the places they have been living in. That I know their plight. That I shared their hopelessness but was able to fight through it and find who I really was. I share my poems so that one person may believe that there is hope for them. I publish my poems so that one person in the dark will find it in themselves to refuse to continue to live in darkness and start to fight till the end- towards their light, love and joy. To connect with Divine Love.
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RELACING PAIN AND SHAME WITH LOVE
I bare my pain and my shame. Both were not mine. I was forced to take them in. I was forced to live with them. After a while, I couldn’t help but choose to keep them. And after that, I just didn’t know that I could turn them loose.
I share my poems to say to that one person in the dark, you don’t have to continue to live with pain and shame because they don’t belong with you. They never did.
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THIS STORY IS OURS
I share my poems because I realized that they were never really mine. The words are mine. But the story is ours. So, it must be shared. I did what I was supposed to do.
- Sunita
Stripping was just the beginning.
After Stripping came Permission, Freedom, Delight, Radiance and Ecstasy. Stay tuned for ‘The Way Back Home, An Anthology’ by Sunita
FAMILIAR
As I make my way To meet up with you I find myself not needing you To open the door To let me into the
Dark recesses of your troubled mind I walk right in Once there I find myself Not having to wait for you
To assign words to your pain I can feel The shards of broken glass Lodged in your heart In the poor excuses for breath
That I struggle to exhale From my airless chest The pitch-black gloom In the smoke-filled rooms Does not stop me
From readily finding your trembling body As I navigate this burning building With an easy remembrance
The shroud of hopelessness And the sour smell of fear That permeates the still air Does not bring me to my knees
Or punch me in my gut As I warm you up with my body And give you a piece of my soul
— Sunita Merriman
#9 in the 2nd collection called ‘PERMISSION- For Me to Fall in Love’
