I have everything I need even when life hurts.. Sunday reflections

it can be hard to feel it sometimes, that we are actually blessed even when things we long for fail to come to pass. For me the disappointment of longing to connect with someone over 4 years who repeatedly lets me down seems to take me ever deeper into a wound.. I was crying pretty uncontrollably on our long walk to day by the lake.. It is not easy to walk on a path with bike riders as they come so fast out of nowhere and if there is someone walking towards you they do not slow down.. Often some of them have a really angry steely expression and its very triggering for me, I actually cried out at one point when Jasper and I nearly got sideswipped today.

The song I was listening to today is Freeze by Kygo something of it reminds me of my stolen spring and first week of summer spent in skeletal traction in hospital when I was 17 and the walk near to the University bring up how Dad shut down my education when I was wanting to return to teaching after that year of struggling up north and feeling so out of depth with my boyfriend Mark who was a dope addict. Coming back in1982 I could not tell Dad any of this I just pleaded to go back to be with my friends at College and complete my teaching diploma but he said no and made me go to Secretarial College.. I loathed it and started to use drugs a lot as well as drink and ended up falling pregnant a few times.. I also chose a guy who was in love with his ex girlfriend and used every opportunity to remind me.. He left me stranded when we were away on holiday 1200 kms from home in 1984 and that was the year before my Dad finally died of cancer.. So I carry so much pain. It was therefore interesting to get home after that walk and the cry fest near a particularly beautiful spot close to the weeping willows to find someone liked this post of mine which speaks of being thwarted by emotional neglect.

https://emergingfromthedarknight.wordpress.com/2016/10/17/overwhelmed-by-trauma-or-thwarted-by-neglect-the-issue-of-age-regression-in-trauma-recovery/

As I walked that walk seeing students and running into a very together lady with a young American Blue Staffordshire puppy that was huge and full of energy and seeing Jasper cower and go into fawn after the engaged in a first short sharp circles of chasings a lot of emotion was stirred up for me.. And No one saw so listening to this version of Billie Eilish’s song back in the car really touched some deep issues about being unseen and unheld for me. That said its me that needs to see me, not other people and I was probably in a kind of flashback not being responded to at that time.. All my tears pass in time.. they really do.

My friend Corey and I too were having one of our very helpful chats about trauma and defenses yesterday too. I am so pleased he has finally found a therapist who sees both his strength and vulnerability.. To cope with pretty intense and paralysing Complex PTSD Corey often hides behind a fearful persona he calls The Grim Reaper, really it’s just a front and he is starting to recognize that but I feel glad that in witnessing the smaller more vulnerable part of him and accepting it that he finally found his way to someone who is able to mirror that to him as well and seems to be perfect to help him release some of it in a caring relationship. We all need that kind of emotional recognition and support coming out of trauma that takes so much of our sense of worth, value and power away with it..

Indeed we ARE STRONG TO SURVIVE OUR TRAUMA AND OTHERS WILL NEVER KNOW THE DEPTH OF IT. They will also often judge how we formed out of that as it is challenging to them.. What I love about Corey is that he does not apologize for what the trauma did to him, but he is also willing to look deeper. We sadly tend to live inside of our trauma and not understand the hidden messages of our body as that quote by Peter Levine shared in the above post shows.

Today I have accepted things will not work to bring Scott home. I have given all I could to help in a way that it was not my responsibility.. I really feel I may have needed to let go far earlier than this but i could not. I do not see anything that has happened now as wrong in any way, after all with the level of avoidant attachment and anxious attachment issues I carried due to the way I was treated as a child it makes sense, that said I do not want those defenses to rule for the rest of my life and I would like to step into a position of more power where I do not give so much of myself away just to be loved or out of a need to help in ways not really up to me.. Its okay to be kind but sometimes when we let it lead to our own neglect it is very destructive for us.

For me under the influence of this Saturn transit I spoke of in an earlier post that seems the best thing to do.. To finally say No I cannot help any more I have finally hit my limit of helping. I cried a lot about it but that is really all a process of releasing what may not be really good for me maturing psychologically and emotionally out of my own particular brand of childhood trauma and emotional neglect.