Tommy's Story by Mark Sanford

Tommy is a newborn. He misses the warmth of his mothers womb. But no loving arms have picked him up to cradle and rock him. He wriggles, but no one laughs. He coos, but no one coos back. Eventually, he stops cooing. He lies rigidly in his crib, detached. He will grow up with a feeling his life makes no impact, as if he weren't real. He will come to feel hollow, empty, vacant, like something is missing.
Tommy is an infant. He needs to bond, heart to heart. He needs to melt into someones chest. His spirit yearns for that and only that. It is the sum and focus of his life. But mom doesn't hold him. She does not sing to him. She only feeds him, changes his diapers, bathes him, as necessity demands. Tommy no longer cries, nor does he yet have words to express his rage. He has but one weapon- simply to vow, even without words, not to bond with her. Others come who do hug and sing, Grandparents. Babysitters. But Tommy does not melt into their breasts. He is putting up the shield of isolation.
A spirit friend comes to live with Tommy. His name is " Isolation". Tommy can't see him or hear him. But he is there, drawing strength from Tommy's armor. He helps Tommy use it to shield himself from bonding heart to heart. Isolation easily gets past Tommy's parents, for they have placed no protection around Tommy. In fact, they have unknowingly invited him into their home. And isolation brings another invisible friend to Tommy, a friend named " Distrust". If Tommy was aware that he was with him, he would think Distrust was helping him to hold up his faulty shield. In reality, he is shooting poisoned arrows through it.
Tommy will later describe this shield as a sheet of Plexiglas placed between him and the world. It dulls colours. It shuts out beauty and quenches passion. It deadens loving touches. It wraps itself around Tommy like a warm womb which was his first and surest place of refuge. And just as an unborn child hears noises indistinctly, Tommy in times of stress actually hears sounds and voices as muffled and far away.
As he grows through childhood, Tommy is more susceptible than other children to the harshness of the games people play. He takes nothing in stride. If his little friend, Jeffy, spends time with someone else, Tommy won't join them to make a threesome-he must have Jeffy all to himself. In order to stave off abandonment, Tommy takes up the sword of Possessiveness. But it staves off only Jeffy. Now, another invisible friend, " Envy", lays hold of the sword, and he and Tommy wield it together.
As a teenager, when his girlfriend chooses to date someone else, Tommy vows he will never trust a girl. His old friend, Distrust, draws more power from his vow, and begins to whisper in his ear about the traits of women. Tommy thinks these are his own thoughts: " Look at that one; what a gossip she is! And that one- she's so stuck on herself....."
With each choice to withdraw, Tommy's "friends" gain more strength and grow in numbers, until they reach their goal- that Tommy becomes a loner and they his only companions.
Tommy might change his mind. He might one day decide he's unhappy he can't talk with his wife, that a hug is nothing more to him than two bodies making contact, that he is compulsively critical, that he feels deeply alone, way off somewhere, even in the middle of a crowd. But by then his invisible friends, empowered by the arsenal of weapons in his flesh, will be stronger than his feeble resolve to resist them. By then, he will not be able by his own choice to feel some one's heart close to his. He will be completely captive. He cannot escape. He will need someone to carry him out of his prison.
Tommy didn't just walk into that prison- he built it around himself, bar by bar, stone by stone. And in the same way it must be taken down, bar by bar, stone by stone. His counselor must build the trust which his parents did not, and bond him to God in a way Tommy alone cannot. Through the process, he will be led to forgive parents who did not bond with him, friends who rejected him and girlfriends who dumped him.
It may be a cliche, but is very apt, that the layers of the onion must be peeled. Between those layers, Tommy's "friends" will be hiding. As he dismantles his defenses, and the layers are stripped away, those friends will become visable. James 4:7 says, " Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." Because Tommy resists, some will flee on their own. Others, more stubborn, will have to be commanded to leave. When Tommy repents of his vow never to trust a girl, Distrust will flee. Isolation will be cast out as Tommy breaks the vow not to bond. He'll repent of possessiveness, forgive those who didn't claim him, and Envy's root will be severed. When at last Tommy is out of prison, he may see colors brighter, hear sounds more clearly, feel for the first time his wife's spirit melt into his. But that is only the fruit of his healing. His counselor must understand the process which leads to it.