Challenges containing my feelings

For me, coming out of a difficult emotional family background of neglect many of you know how I struggle. I am noticing lately my struggle comes up when I feel insecure or uncertain or a reassuring presence is absent. I just read a passage in one of my 12 Step recovery books and the person spoke of her need to fill the silence with noise due to her own anxiety or being challenged both to recognize as well as ‘hold’ what she feels.. perhaps one of the reasons I find nature and silence so refreshing is that it gives me peace but in relationships when feel anxious I can and do talk on and on, its something i am noticing as well as when my abandonment ‘schema’ or fears of being left come up I revert to being that small child left all alone in a place I could not manage my feelings.

I know the solution at such times comes from being more grounded in a loving inner parent than in the inner critic. The later could shame and mock me for feeling or struggling, just as outside forces did to me when young, or I could dig deep to recognize when my inner self or child is anxious and ‘hold’ her by speaking lovingly and telling her its okay NOT TO TAKE ACTION to instead just pause, take a deep breath and ride through the feeling or anxiety. I didn’t do this on Thursday when i had not heard back from Scott as I thought he would be on the plane that evening and so I lashed out again with accusations and now the these fees for landing and parking the plane have been brought up from the Nigerian government to land a U S military plane at the airport he got angry with me saying it was hard enough to tell me even more money was being needed and he was hurting once again from my name calling and lack of trust.. This just got me angrier.. its such a tough situation I have been put in for over 2 and a half years now.. I am only human…. I also felt guilt and shame.

I also read this passage in the same book Living With Sobriety : Another Beginning earlier

I am letting go of the past, trying to live one day at a time with an open receptive attitude. There were great spaces in me, areas where resentment and fear had lived and I try to fill them with warm and positive thoughts. I remind myself to reach out and hug my children. I ask them to hug me back.

That passage really resonated for me and it made me see how my own grief and resentment over what I did not get in childhood : time with an open and responsive emotionally available parents, has wounded me and made me vulnerable and even got me into this situation as Scott really has been there for me when he can even if its only two times a day for a hour or so before patrol and training. After Mum died, and my sister shut down there was no one there.. no one called to see how I was, not even my sister.. and because our family mostly avoid emotions they either withdrew or gave me a ‘moving on’ lecture.

My grief is not as deep as it used to be these days.. I do find ways to hold that in my heart and express it.. I have therapy too which is an essential ‘holding’ place for me, a space to be understood, attuned to, mirrored back, made real and helps me to see where my own reactions may come out of past pain. but I still get those anxiety ‘storms’ at certain times of day.. Neither of my parents rested much and Mum was forever ‘on the go’, Dad worked and then just retreated to the garden. on holidays we went out on his boat and I hated that and then they went to the club and when they did I was just left in the car for a couple of hours.. So yes there have been great spaces in me where loneliness and longing and resentment lived. One day (less than a year after my Mum died) my brother said this to me when he found out about Scott and told me to cut all contact “we all know you are lonely” WTF as usual no one reached out and I do not remember him once ever validating a single emotion any of us felt.. and he doesn’t even contact my sister in hospital..

Anyway this is going on a resentful pathway so I wont babble on about that.he is doing the best he can coming out of that avoidant emotional background… .but this all makes so much sense to me.. Writing thank God helps me to stop and settle down, it gives me a pathway in to things and understanding.. reading recovery inspired literature keeps me sane and grounded….. I still struggle with containment.. and I am still trying as hard as I can to reach out in emotional authenticity.. its just maybe I have not done as well with holding my feelings and abandonment anxiety as I could have in this situation.. and yet even as I write this a wiser inner voice is saying to me “Deborah, considering all you have gone through in your life you really were doing the best you could do at the time, at that level of emotional recovery.”