Bearing witness

I read my letter to my ex husband to my therapist today. It was so good to read it and be able to really really cry to the depths of myself. At certain points in reading the letter my therapist just said, “that is so very very sad.” And she also said to me after I finished reading it, “it feels as if there is a lot of self forgiveness opening up for you.”

I go through struggles with trusting the love and empathy and support of others. I have read that social anxiety often comes from being hurt or bullied by others. There is a deep soul in is which is of our essence which I truly feel needs to be attuned to and expressed in this life, but so often we learn we have to put on a pretence or try to kid outselves that things don’t hurt so much or we deny we may have damaged others.

But there is such a freedom in emotional honesty. I can only breathe a free breath when I am living in an honest way and last year I got pulled into helping this man I met on Tinder in such a way that he was asking me not to tell the entire truth to my bank. The long and the short of it was the my bank ended up freezing my accounts and when I told them the truth I got punished for it. I told him the other day that it is just making me feel too sad to keep giving my money in hopes he will finally come to Australia. I know he is real and trying his hardest but at one point I met someone else who would have been emotionally available to me and because of my connection with Scott I could not continue on with this guy but today I was really missing him. I think I may have spend many years either denying my true need for real connection with someone or just going to the wrong sources I don’t know but I have also had this fear of opening my heart and trusting.

My heart was broken by my ex when he asked me to be happy and not sad when I was hitting the pain I buried for years under addiction. I ended up taking myself off for 6 months and leaving him behind, but he got frustrated I could not leave my Mum and sister so it ended in the end. Today as I read my letter to Kat I realised the love I had for my family meant I killed of my new start in Cambridge. I still grieve for the meadows and the town centre, my heart felt attuned to that place in England possibly due to my Cornish and Dutch ancestry, anyway I loved cycling through the fields there, its so cosy and soft. I remember Jonathan saying to me that in England you feel covered over by a cosy blanket.

When I got back to Australia again after those 6 months away at the end of 2002 I remember how harsh I felt the brightness here, how loud some of ,the birds were, my heart ached with missing the UK but I was with my family but the truth is my family was never very warm. Never the less I came back two times to be here with them. Each time I try to call my sister and my call goes unanswered I find it hard. I try not to wallow in it and just get on with my day. How can I reach someone who doesn’t want to be reached or is just in so much pain herself she cannot realise I AM REACHING OUT? Its not her fault but she is all I have here now and I feel so sad sometimes for past years where I lived in such a wilderness hitching my star to others lives or dreams. I was able to talk all of this through in therapy today. Who knows maybe I will go back to the UK for a trip soon and combine it with one to the United States as well. I have a dream of making a get together for my blogging community. I imagine us meeting up in the flesh after these years of reading each others poems and blogs. We all need our dreams.

I took myself to town after therapy. I shouted myself some lunch and bought an jumper on sale. I am at home now and I feel relatively peaceful. In therapy I get to own and express the emotional truth of things I have lived with and had to bury or that did not have a witness before. I honestly don’t know what I would have done without my therapist Kat. Despite this my inner critic is always trying to kill off my therapy, there is a force in me that does not love me and actively wants me cut off, I don’t know where it comes from, I see this kind of force in the culture at large sometimes but maybe things are changing slowly. Apparently it is also very strong in other addicts and recovering people.

I was so tired yesterday I could not blog. I rested in the silence for part of the day and let my body relax. I have a fear of letting go and leaning into support and love and this was something I was exploring in therapy today. I was not supported when young and no one was around much so now I can push away or fight rather than lean in at times. I just long for the day when I can finally trust in love and the full goodness of life, a night when I can peacefully drop off to sleep without struggling with my body for up to 2 hours. I long for a day the killer in me does not try to destroy things.. I guess it is coming slowly, I keep hoping and doing my best to put one foot in front of the other, I will never be free of my trauma history but lately I am finding longer moments of self acceptance and peace. For that I am grateful.