Ice Queen

“People hide their truest nature. I understood that; I even applauded it. What sort of world would it be if people bled all over the sidewalks, if they wept under trees, smacked whomever they despised, kissed strangers, revealed themselves?”
― Alice Hoffman, The Ice Queen

We have seen them on the street, we have seen them on our step, we have seen them in our homes, we know them.  They are the women with personality that blocks you, pushes you away, even repulses you... and they are hurt women. They do not mean to push you away by their mere look.  They want connections, desperately, but their fear keeps them from looking and expressing peace, serenity and grace.

At one extreme they are Ego-centered.  They cannot have empathy because they have so much of it for self.  They may look steely and unattainable, but that is a cover for fear and anger.  They seldom, if ever, allow anyone in on their emotions.  Truly, at the extreme, they are lonely, fearful, and vulnerable and gut-hollow.

At mid-level, she can come across as bitchy, unfeeling, unreachable, and show contempt for those she perceives as weak as it is her greatest fear that others will find out she is too.  

At a low-level Ice Queen, she is very strictly in control of self, in body and mind and is careful never to show any vulnerability as she sees it, in self and others, as weakness, secretly.  

With any of the levels, she is more concerned about how she projects herself than being authentic.  

Aware people will know that truly she suffers.  Somewhere, she has been wounded and that inner wounding has never healed as she may not have the skills or determination to get help with those wounds.  They may have scabbed over, but in blocking the wound, she projects a cold expression no matter how she tries to soften it at times.

Sometimes we have friends who project barriers for others.  She can care about some, but she is very selective and once you have her as friend you are friends for life... or until you penetrate some of that deep hurt within her and then, she may walk away, run away, burst into everything negative to get you away.  What is it in you that attracts such?  What does she need that you have.  Share that, once you figure it out. If she ever allows you into her heart, she will be a great cheerleader for you.  You see, she knows what it is like not to have that, to allow others to give her that.  

Once she sets her sights on a personal, place or thing, she is a drill in getting to it.  She has blocked her emotions so well that she is mostly concerned about, truly, her own life and how to get the most out of it, but her skills of interpersonal relationships are so unskilled that she will spend most of her life battling her own walls.

That wall she is building, or has built, has her attract the exact opposite to what she needs.  She adds another brick to her wall.  Her avoidance and blocking gets stronger and stronger and, though she may think she is keeping others out, she is imprisoning herself behind those walls she has so diligently built.  

Sometimes she really does come across as a beotch.  Sometimes she means to, most times she did not.  She has moments of being intelligent, but her emotions get in the way of her words and actions and the Ice Queen shows up.  She may even be prideful of her ability to block others from her heart.  

Although she may project a kindness, sometimes, in the way she is honest as she can be, and as respectful as she can be, (it comes from knowing life can be hard), she can switch on a dime and become cold enough to sustain her walls.  And she is the canary for fake people.  She knows them.  She knows their walls as surely as she knows her own.  She keeps those walls well tended.  She knows how she can get what she wants, but the fear terrifies her every time.  And, do not ever cross her boundaries she has placed up, nor try to scale that wall.  She will shut you down, totally.  You need to understand her pretty well and respect her woundings and her walls until she is ready to let down a brick. 

Her love is implicit, when you earn it in her eyes.  She will defend you to the ends of time once you gain access into her circling walls.  She appears cold on the outside, frigid even, but her love, once she gives it is powerful.

She is ever aware of her walls, she will defend them too.  She wants her life to be comfortable so she feels she needs her walls to keep her from feeling vulnerable. She is detached but aching for connections.  This has her being avoided by others and so she pushes away what she needs most... connections.   She represents danger, although she think that is okay, it is not, her very soul aches and she is fighting her inner demons every moment of every day.  It is difficult for her to find peace.  

Ice Queens are blocking emotions; their own and yours.  Suppression is huge.  They are defensive and one has to walk on eggshells around them.  They are vulnerable so mask it through putting people off.  They self-induce their own loneliness and isolation until even friends can seem a threat.

Oh, let us be kind and understanding and give them gentleness for their stiffness, give them compassion where they refuse; give them eye-to-eye contact though they may avert theirs.  Love them.

Oh, sisters, so many are hurting and the more they say or show they are not.. just now...they need us to be gentle with them.

©Carol Desjarlais 3.21.19

references:  https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/4030673-the-ice-queen