On finding myself : post Christmas reflections.

I have never had strong inter and intra personal boundaries. As many who have followed this blog for a while know I have struggled with my own sense of self worth in life. Early ancestrally carried emotional neglect left me very vulnerable and hungry for connection, and in a family where I did not feel fully seen and known I began to turn in other directions, mostly towards addiction, self abandonment and co-dependency. Being subject to criticism and the projected ‘improvements’ of my mother as a youngster made me feel I most certainly was not okay as I was. For one thing with my Dutch background I was unusually tall with very big feet, I suffered a lot of name calling in teenage years due to this and struggled to find school uniforms and shoes, often a shoe shopping expedition would end in tears, as a result I learned to stoop and make myself smaller. I was also subjected to gruelling orthodontic work and then crashed losing my two front teeth and nearly dying at 17.

I see all of this more clearly now with the benefit of hindsight. I see where I got erased and found it difficult to find my way back home to myself. By the time I got sober in 1993 I was already in a marriage that was less than validating. We had some happy times but when my unprocessed grief began to emerge around 2000 – 2003 it was not really welcome either with my husband or in my family. The point of view often shared indirectly was that I should somehow be able to ‘put it all behind me’ and my sadness was not to be tolerated. So I tried for a long time and pretended and when my true feelings burst through was made to feel so weird or unwelcome the battle with my repressed emotions and to be real began to badly affect my body.

I ended up sustaining a bad head injury overseas a few years later, as the family I lodged with had lost a friend to active addiction and I was in recovery and sad a lot due to my marriage having ended just a year before because my ex husband would not support me through my necessary grief work. The family I was lodging with said my sadness was triggering theirs too much and so I crashed on my bike and then took myself off to an ashram even further away. Sadly in the years previous I had also put therapy on hold to come home to be close to a sister in 2001 who was very progressively disabled due to her own issues.

Much of this trauma comes up for me at this time of year as it coincides with my father’s death in 1985, something I only began to fully process with help in therapy fully in the past three years. Actually, it was my 6th anniversary of starting this blog a few days ago and this happened after a Christmas where I underwent a painful sinus issues due to my suppressed emotions and my second sister’s suicide attempt had occurred 8 months before in 2013, while we were both trying to support our ailing Mum through a number of health emergencies. Nearly 6 years of almost daily blogging as well as finally finding an excellent therapist in 2016, just prior to being diagnosed with breast cancer around my 44th birthday that year sees me at this stage a lot more fully conscious and far less riddled with self blame than I was in the past and hopefully beginning to make some progress with my emotional and boundary lessons.

I managed Christmas fairly well this year. I didn’t hear from my brother until the day after, even though I called him. Sad to say I didn’t return the boxing day call, I was just a bit hurt he could not extend himself to be present on the day. I nearly reached out to him today to ask him for a walk but in the end a friend texted and I know he is leaving today for his home because in 3 days he flies out of the country for 5 or so months. Maybe family grief is never to be shared or acknowledged and I do accept that now. I haven’t cried as much this year. I had good contact with the genuine ones in my family. I have stayed solitary for most of the time. Yesterday was a tough one with my body being alone but I made it through. I find my comfort best with my doggie buddy Jasper and one or two other people.

To be honest on a break from therapy Word Press becomes my source of inner support on most days. Just to know that I can share here honestly from the heart with other like minded souls helps me. And in the end I guess I am realising that really when it comes to my emotions, its really up to me to validate and affirm myself first, as an adult and I wont connect with everyone. If others ‘get’ the relevance then that is a gift for me, and neither am I really interested in the superfcial, having lived the degree of trauma I have. And yet I also long for love and fun, but within the boundaries of what I can cope with. Sometimes I worry that past restrictions and trauma have limited my ability to be spontaneous and trust fully and have fun, but my therapist says she sees growing signs of the happy and healthy child I once was before getting lost.

And just sometimes I get precious glimpses of potential freedom. I find my true self when I least expect it, some days I find my heart dancing in hope and no longer as weighted or ground down my pain and the ghost of traumatic recall. On those days my soul does a leap of joy and I feel blessed even deep inside the aloneness. And when I truly and authentically ‘meet’ another. That is truly magical! And yet I still sense a part of me that holds back from fully opening my heart no matter what the weather, but maybe that is what we need to do when it comes to the soul and authentic expression. Just seek the places where we can feel free enough to open our lungs and breathe the air!