I thank my lucky stars to have found my therapist Kat. She is so reliable, never late for a session, ever, always calling me right on time during lockdown periods where we cannot meet. She always reminds me how well I am doing and how pervasive the inner critic/persecutor is in me due to my own high level of emotional abandonment experienced in childhood. In fact talking things over today with her today made me see I did a backward slide since Monday in terms of taking on the projection of ‘bad’ one for speaking up about what was going down with my sister. There may have been a ‘kinder’ less confronting way to go about it too that took in the reality of the powerful defenses and lack of a clue or deep level of emotional insight that my family display.. After all I only know what I know due to the amount of reading and inner work I have done on my own emotional recovery over the past 20 years or more and that is considerable.. No one else is sober and no one even really acknowledges the true roots that gave rise to the existence of the family dis-ease.
Reading some things today too in a book about feelings and emotional unavailability as well as feeling the impact of what I had to bury inside my body has been, both painful and instructive.. There was a lot about others trying to shut down my heart knowing and voice, in the absence of emotionally attuned, attentive and engaged parents Kat reminded me today that as a child I had nowhere to go, so I sought my refuge in writing and reading and being inside my head.. Having feelings felt too dangerous for me in the family and often dysfunctional families ruled by emotional neglect portray a high level of alexithymia (or confusion around emotions.) Often the more sensitive emotional members end up bearing the brunt of this ignorance and misunderstanding, they may also have to contain a lot and struggle for a lot of their adult lives to make sense of what was really going down in their families of origin where a lot was hidden under the veneer of okayness or ‘success’.
Having no one present for you or attuned to you as a child is so tough.. Having no one show an iota of interest in what interests you, and even sometimes denigrating it is painful too. It may mean you end up turning against yourself.. this was happening to me again this morning as I tried to ‘tidy’ things up and make them more perfect.. I read a reading from Hope For Today to Kat this afternoon and it was about how perfectionism and an over developed sense of responsibility hid in the life of an adult child of neglect and addiction a massive fear of abandonment.. We fear if we are not ‘perfect’ enough in whatever way our parents lay down for us we will be abandoned..But if this goes on into adulthood we forget it is not really OUR TRUE SELVES SETTING THE AGENDA.. WE OVER COMPENSATE AND END UP TRYING EXTRA HARD IN WAYS IT IS NOT REALLY NECESSARY TO DO.
This also sets us up later on in life for vulnerability to abuse by those who are more concerned with their own needs. Kat was thrilled today I had found the strength to block Scott she said it showed a level of self love and self care as well as a willingness to be a loving adult to the part of me that may feel vulnerable to the flooding of earlier abandonment feelings him being out of touch may bring.. In the end I am and adult and MY CHILD NEEDS ME MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE TO CARE FOR AND ABOUT HER.. I can not pass this responsibility onto any other adult in my life and if I do end up being in another relationship I want it to be with someone healthy who is willing to carry their own responsibilities or pain and not try to pass them onto me by grooming me and saying I am their ‘angel’ or ‘saviour’ in the end that is just not my job.. it is a set up.
Emerging From The Dark Night 