On denial of hurt and abuse

I just went to get a pedicure and while the manicurist was cutting my big toe nail she cut too far in and got the skin… It didn’t hurt a lot and I didn’t fully notice as that toe was quite numb from the body trauma of my PTSD, but I clearly saw the toe bleeding and the manicurist (who didnt speak great English) said to me…. “It’s not bleeding!”   I am amazed even writing this and am on some level just flumoxed as it almost like a repeat pattern of those body injuries I had in childhood due to parental inattention, carelessness and neglect to the degree that I even feel I attracted this wound today as a result, after all it was the numb toe on the side of my body (right/masculine side) I have a lot of problems with…  Its a repeat of how I would be told something didnt happen or if it did I didnt have the right to express pain over it…

When my nephew visited just after my Mum died he shared this horror story with me.  When he was young he accidently walked over some coals that were still hot although not aglow and burned his feet.  He went round to our house and Mum while trying to help got angry with him for crying and raged at him.  “Be a man!”  Fuck I felt angry when I heard that but it made a lot of sense for I cannot fully remember how it was consciously to be subjected to this kind of denial but on a subconscious or unconscious level my body knows and remembers EVERYTHING….

While writing this blog one of the symptoms of Childhood Emotional Neglect came to my mind…. feeling that we are damaged or flawed in some way and that in time when people come to know this side of us we will be rejected but also if we are told what happened did not happen then arent we going to feel as though there is something wrong with us, after all we are being told we got it wrong when we didn’t?   Imagine the rage that gets buried with that kind of treatment, and is it any wonder later in life I was so accident prone and nearly died from a major crash at age 17?

Today I am glad I am not really upset about my big toe, because to feel angry about this now won’t help me feel better today and at a time I have been working hard to achieve a feeling of calm as well as feelings of being good enough!  As the pedicure progressed it was clear this woman was rough with her treatment and probably under the gun….. I got to thinking in such stressful times when there is so much pressure on so many, is it any wonder anxiety and disasters happen more and more…

I won’t go back to that place for a pedicure or if I do I wont allow that woman to work on my feet again…..that’s self protection.   But I know I saw what happened and didn’t “make a mistake” this time.   Thank God!