There are many different and interesting lizards in Tenerife. A lizard with a broken tail seems to me to be a very accurate symbol of divorce, because divorce is also a loss and an injury that can leave a serious mark on the soul.
I have seen that after a breakup, people no longer feel the same as they did before. This is because the Anima and Animus archetypes are activated during this process, leaving deep and lasting marks on the psyche. This is also what the path of individuation entails. Lately, I have noticed a synchronicity in that the goal of client therapy is to break away from abusive relationships. And this is indeed a very difficult task, which I described in my article on trauma bond. Based on the descriptions of feelings, it seems to me that Patrick Melrose, struggling with his addictions, is a very similar image. We can safely compare trauma bonding to heroin addiction, as we will not be far from the truth of the dopamine and other hormone cycle. Overcoming trauma bonding is as difficult as overcoming addiction, because something has to be sacrificed. And that is why a lizard with a severed tail seems to me to be one of the most accurate reflections of this experience in images, because for a lizard it is an instinct that saves its life. Similarly, when a person leaves an abusive relationship, they are also saving their own life.
In nature, a lizard sheds its tail when in danger. This way, it stays alive, and only the tail remains with the predator.
Psychologically, this corresponds to what happens in relationships that have become threatening, because a person has to give up a part of themselves in order to survive. This symbolic tail can be an illusion of security, hope for the other person, self-love, closeness, tenderness, as well as the ability to trust completely, and perhaps most painful of all is the dentity “we” and the associated attachment and emotional regulation that comes with the other’s presence on good days and in good times. When a relationship ends, especially after a long emotional attachment, this part does not disappear on its own. It is torn away with pain. And , the lizard’s tail will grow back. But it will not be the same. It will be thicker, stumpier, less sensitive, and perhaps less attractive to the eye, but it will be functional. And looking through Jung’s prism, the soul does not return to innocence after experiencing injury. It integrates the painful and traumatic experience it has gained. In Jung’s analytical psychology, the emphasis is not on the path of individuation as becoming better, but on becoming healthier, even if it means giving up former beauty. After a breakup, people often mourn not only their partner, but also the part of themselves that will never return. A lizard with a regrown tail is still alive, even though it is different from other lizards.
A breakup is often the moment when a person encounters themselves for the first time without the mirror of a relationship. It is an empty, frightening, and at the same time truthful field. With the loss of a relationship and love, with an encounter with oneself, with peace, with sorrow, and with tears. The lizard with a severed tail has chosen life. And a person after a breakup, who feels easily replaced, with another who feels ugly or no longer the same as before, is often at this point, like a lizard that has just escaped the claws of a predator, alive, wounded, but on the way to a new form of existence. And strong enough to live on. And a bit of a cliché—because everything that doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. I would love to add a picture of the giant lizard with a stubby tail that I encountered today, but it turned out to be more agile than me and disappeared among the rocks…
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