The Bloody Key
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This year I began rereading Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ seminal book, Women Who Run with the Wolves. It seems to take me a full year to read this book, which I think is correct; it takes time to sink in and process. I recommend this book to anyone who wishes to reclaim their wild, instinctual, feminine nature, but I find it particularly insightful and regenerative as a healing tool for survivors of abuse. I read it last in 2022; it’s hitting me differently even two short(long) years later. One motif has especially stuck with me this time: the bloody key.
In the story of Bluebeard, the eponymous husband leaves his new bride while he travels. He gives her a ring of keys that will open every door in the castle; she may explore all she likes, however—she must never open the door that the littlest key fits. Her sisters visit and they proceed to have great fun trying keys to doors and discovering the treasures within. Finally, having opened every door but the forbidden one, curiosity overtakes them, and they turn the last key…to be met with a scene of horror: the rotting corpses of all Bluebeard’s former wives. The little key begins to bleed. The bride tries to staunch the flow in many ways without success—finally, she puts it in her pocket, trying to hide it—but it stains through her gown.
The knowledge gained cannot be hidden; what is seen cannot be unseen. The bride cannot pretend she does not know what lies in the stinking room and naïvely return to the life filled with jewels and gold. The key is a truth-teller—whether we want to hear it or not.
Many people who have been in abusive relationships identify a moment where the key turned, and everything looked different. Perhaps it was an insightful observation from a friend, an unvarnished look in the mirror, cutting words that could not be unheard nor unsaid. Suddenly, the mist falls from our eyes and we are able to see what we had so nimbly hidden from ourselves: this is bad, actually. We are in danger. This situation is a threat to our life: either physically, spiritually, or both. I believe we carry this knowledge in our bodies for a long time before it becomes legible to us. In a culture that values academic knowledge above embodied knowledge, teaches us from a young age to endure discomfort perpetrated by authority figures, and frequently fails to protect basic human rights, it is no wonder that it can take months, years, or even decades for this knowledge to make itself heard. Dr. Jennifer Freyd developed the term “betrayal blindness,” which explains why people stay—and choose to not turn the key. She says betrayal blindness happens “when the people or institutions on which a person depends for survival significantly violate that person’s trust or well-being.” This internal conflict can be too terrifying to confront—our survival instincts pull us in two opposite directions, resulting in a freeze response.
Keys symbolize many things in different cultures and stories: portals, opportunities, protection, freedom, truth. In Palestine, keys symbolize the hope of one day returning to stolen homes.
I would not be the first to point out the connection between interpersonal abuse and macro systems of oppression. Lee Shevek has written eloquently and extensively on this topic, and says, “abuse is the form that systematic oppression takes on an interpersonal level.” Basically, as above, so below. The methods are the same, whatever the scale. Shevek outlines this connection explicitly in her zine “The Coercive Control of Israeli Settler Colonialism,” where she says, “an understanding of domestic violence can sharpen one’s political analysis of authoritarianism in other forms.” Many are refusing to turn the key on Israel, and this denial is coming at a very high cost.
The other day, I happened to catch a Hidden Brain episode with Norman Farb, a neuroscientist researching what part of our brains get turned on and off when we are in state of depression or stress. His research has discovered that we rely on the maps our brains made based on past experiences: this is an evolutionary time-saver; thinking quickly can be important for survival. The maps are updated to fit novel situations by taking in new information from our bodies and surroundings. However, when we are depressed or stressed, the part of the brain that handles new stimuli gets turned off. We are left with our outdated maps, using them over and over in situations where they will not work (and might even make the problem worse). It’s like using a paper atlas (remember those?) from 15 years ago to navigate a newly built highway. It might get you somewhere, but it’s probably not where you’re trying to go.
Once we see the room beyond the door (new information!), a choice must be made. We can succumb to our fate, or we can fight to get free. We can stay in the same situation, but every day, we will watch our lifeblood flowing down our garments as we insist that we are fine. Turning the key is an act of alchemy: “the process of transmutation by which to fuse or reunite with the divine or original form.” It’s the burning away of what is superfluous in order to reveal the true heart of something. All the comfort and gold and jewels mean nothing if we’re dead. Clinging to ideas of how the world was or should have been or any number of other mirages will be cold comfort in the midst of active destruction.
It is horrifically uncomfortable to confront truths that disrupt our understanding of ourselves, loved ones, or the world. It is destabilizing, dismantling, disorienting…it’s no wonder that most of the time, we would rather clutch our tattered old maps, insisting that they are correct. Turning the key means inviting chaos into our life—but our blindness has not allowed us to see that we are already living in a state of chaos, simply one that is more familiar to us. We go through it in a state of numbness—a valuable coping mechanism for a cruel world. But to turn the key requires willingness to feel emotional pain, something most of us go to great lengths to avoid. It means allowing ourselves to grieve.