Loving all of us, even our dark and messy shadow parts really is a major work in this culture.. Self rejection can be so subtle and we may often judge ourselves by imposed standards. I was enlightening to me about four years ago to read a book on emotional neglect called Running on Empty that showed how the emotionally neglected often do not know why they so often feel empty and ashamed or suicidal, often its down to parts of us being rejected or left alone, uncontained, unmirrored and unheld. This means we do not get to make a good relationship with emotions and inner powers we may also have been mocked or disparaged by family for emotional livelieness or self expression which is also a kind of abuse..
As therapist Nancy Van Dyken points out in her book on narcissism and narcissistic injury Everyday Narcissism to expect a child to be grown up in terms of emotional and mental development when they have not yet reached that stage or been given the right type of help through mirroring, empathy and attunement as well as emotional regulation is a kind of abuse in itself if the person then comes to feel falsely at fault. This kind of thing also sets us up to be people pleasers. We give ourselves away to be loved and we may attract those who repeat the shame and blame patterns, and when we expect the automatic fulfillment of emotional needs with partners without learning how to communicate clearly and in healthy ways later relationships are so often doomed to fail.
Slowly I am learning to love who I am. I am trying harder to accept my ‘messy’ self.. its a big thing in our family that we are supposed to have a good well dressed and presented ‘front’ and that we must work extra hard, harder than others. When this pattern began to collapse for me a little around 8 years into sobriety and I took the chance to be real at work I did get support from colleagues to step it back but my husband did not like this. In the end I see we broke up as I struggled to get the right help and he found it hard to face his own wounds.. I got a great relief a year ago when he told me via email he thought my pursuing of therapy was a good idea now, even if he resisted it in the past.. That said he did try to reach out to my therapist when I went back to the UK for those 6 months in 2002.
Learning not to try too hard and take on other’s burdens does not come naturally to me but it can be done. I am seeing that now.. I know I crossed the line a lot in this 3 year debacle with Scott. I should have cut the cord on help way before this. I honestly have hit my limit and that dream of the wounded man I had on Sunday well I think my therapist Kat was on the money when she said it seemed to relate to Scott as well.
My maternal great great grandfather’s spirit is around me a lot lately.. I usually start to get that build up of anxiety around 3 to 7 pm.. Its not happening as much today but I got it yesterday its like a spinning out energy and it circles up my left leg for some reason which is the one that got pinned through the upper lower leg bones for 3 months when I was in skeletal traction with sandbags from 16 September to 24 December 1979. The spinning can be acute and relates not only to me but to ancestral traumas also. This was the time of day he would come home drunk and rage at family and I get extra fearful around meal times, its something I am able to connect back more and more lately and so I can talk myself out of the anxiety if I am very very mindful. I also try to do a late walk around this time of day too as that helps the energy to externalize and not build up inwardly as much.
In a way I feel blessed that at critical stages in my sobriety angels or higher power has put me close to people who had information to help me in my emotional recovery.. It happened in the last job I had before getting sober where I befriended the sales rep for an imprint called Health Communications, a US based company that published a lot of recovery literature by authors like John Bradshaw and Charles Whitfield. That connection helped me to find a new job in a bookshop after I got sober and there have been times books or people were just placed in my path to help me heal.. and then even though I have had a lot of therapeutic failures with therapists I have been blessed to have four really good therapists to help me at critical phases.. My last therapist came to me when the former therapist went on leave and our attunement was so much better so I made that change around the time I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2016.
Kat always reminds me when my inner critic is hammering me.. She just raises her eyes at some of the things that come out of my mouth at times.. But lately I have been feeling more like I am finding what she calls my sea legs.. Lately when the emotional tides are high I am feeling just a little more capable of harnessing their energy and I am letting myself rest too, relaxing with my high wired PTSD was always difficult.. We were not allowed to relax as kids or be comforted or cuddled.. we were hit and hurt, my sister who is suffering so much now included..I no longer want to be beating myself up as much, or treating myself in unloving ways.. there has been far too much hurt from myself in the past.. and it really is time to be as loving as I can possibly be to me.
Emerging From The Dark Night 