Detail from book cover of No Visible Injuries, by Sylvia Clare
No Visible Injuries, by Sylvia Clare
Author: Sylvia Clare. Review by Daniel Clarke Flynn
The longer I live, the less I consider ‘growing up’ limited to childhood. This memoir by Sylvia Clare, of Isle of Wight Meeting, reminds me that the ‘growing up’ of our consciousness continues throughout life. This can happen in unexpected awakenings, when long-buried childhood shock bursts out, or in fond memories that yield a sense of love and gratitude.
Sylvia’s book details her brutal start to life, and her long efforts to free herself from emotional damage. While she felt ‘unique’, as we all do at times, we can all learn from her story. She describes the darkness in which she ‘grew up’, and the Light she now embraces with husband David.
The memoir is evidence for me that Something Greater than us cures our spirit when we adopt spiritual practices that enable healing. Woodbrooke was an important part of Sylvia’s recovery, where she was able to extend her spiritual journey and learn about Vietnamese Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh.
Sylvia came to Quakers because she wanted to find a spiritual home that would allow her to be ‘different’. She found that Quaker membership allows her her own spiritual journey, and feels great affinity to many she has met. Her journey has not been linear, but it has been rich and healing and powerful.
Here is a most touching passage, which I happened to read on Valentine’s Day. It is a wish list Sylvia composed well before meeting David, who came to represent the ‘someone’ in the list. ‘I want someone’, she says:
• who will love me for who I am and not for what they can get from me. I will do the same for them.
• who is on a conscious journey of spiritual and personal development.
• who is able and available to commit fully so that I can commit fully in return.
• who is interested in music, the arts generally, travel, and the politics of social justice and equality.
• tall and slim, and honestly likes loving tender sex.
• who will embrace my sons as I might embrace any child they may have.
• for whom equality in a relationship is an intentional goal.
The list is an example of using intuitive power, our most human and neglected power. It was recorded after she began to deal with problems from the past, starting with her deeply dysfunctional parent-child relationships.
What are the primary problems Sylvia discovers and addresses? The Narcissistic Personality Disorder of her mother, and her own undiagnosed childhood Attention Deficiency/Hyperactivity Disorder – plus the subsequent Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome that led to this memoir. As George Fox wrote: ‘And I cried to the Lord, “Why should I be thus?”… the Lord answered that it was needful [to] have a sense of all conditions… and in this I saw the infinite love of God.’
