It was hard!

As much as I love you Mum, it was so hard when you tried to deny my pain was real.  There were times I came to you with things I needed comfort and support in the midst of.  I was told that I ‘just needed to go on.’ But without the trust and foundation of my true self accessible how could anything I build out of that place and space be real.

I know how much you had to deny you own pain.  When things go wrong sometimes it can be easier to look for someone to blame when really the door is trying to open on something deeper in your soul.  The soul is a living thing, it feels, it knows, it lives so deep within the body.  It will not be permanently forgotten, exiled or betrayed.  It will always try to send its message up to us through some channel.  And so we must be willing to hear it.  Emotional distress that is buried, later may manifest in disease of some kind.  It may come to us in dreams, it may occur in depression or thoughts of suicide, we may feel it through those inner voices we hear when we are not too busy.   Part of us always longs to awaken.

In the end if our mother’s or parents cannot hear us, we should still never have to sacrifice our emotional truth.  Yes it will hurt for a while and yes we may be very angry about it for a time, but the time comes too when we need to accept a hard and bitter reality we can never ‘like’.  So often our parents had to deny their own own pain, they were not allowed to answer back, so often they were not allowed to fight, and then that pain is passed on.

My therapist often says to me that anger is the final cry of the true self. If we continue to repress or deny it we may end up with body symptoms, we will be split and divided.  We need a place most of all to say “this hurt me a lot”, “it really affected me”, “I didnt deserve it”, “I deserve more.” And in the end it is we who must care for our own emotional truth and find a safe person with whom we can share our true self’s story as part of the critical healing journey of emotional recovery.

“FREQUENTLY, PHYSICAL ILLNESSES are the body’s response to permanent disregard of its vital functions. One of our most vital functions is an ability to listen to the true story of our own lives.”

“the effects the denial of our true and strong emotions have on our bodies. Such denial is demanded of us not least by morality and religion. On the basis of what I know about psychotherapy, both from personal experience and from accounts I have been given by very many people, I have come to the conclusion that individuals abused in childhood can attempt to obey the Fourth Commandment* only by recourse to a massive repression and detachment of their true emotions. They cannot love and honor their parents because unconsciously they still fear them. However much they may want to, they cannot build up a relaxed and trusting relationship. Instead, what usually materializes is a pathological attachment, a mixture of fear and dutiful obedience that hardly deserves the name of love in the genuine sense of the word. I call this a sham, a façade. In addition, people abused in childhood frequently hope all their lives that someday they will experience the love they have been denied. These expectations reinforce their attachment to their parents, an attachment that religious creeds refer to as love and praise as a virtue. Unfortunately, the same thing happens in most therapies, as most people are still dominated by traditional morality. There is a price to be paid for this morality, a price paid by the body. Individuals who believe that they feel what they ought to feel and constantly do their best not to feel what they forbid themselves to feel will ultimately fall ill—unless, that is, they leave it to their children to pick up the check by projecting onto them the emotions they cannot admit to themselves. ”

Alice Miller : The Body Never Lies : The Lingering Affects of Cruel Parenting