Loving My Inner Child

“We are weak whenever we are disconnected from our Inner Child, abdicating responsibility for ourselves and acting from the fears and beliefs of the ego.”  -Healing Your Aloneness

 

A Course in Miracles states that “The ego is particularly likely to attack you when you react lovingly, because it has evaluated you as unloving, and you are going against its judgement.”  This means that your ego believes that you are an unloving person and as long as you believe that, your ego has control over you.  If, however, you awaken to the fact that you are loving and lovable, the go will attack you because it fears the loss of power over you.  Your ego has spent your life convincing you that you must be hard to be powerful.  We’ve yet to learn that the most powerful defense is the defenselessness of softness and love.

I have been learning how to self-talk my ego, aka my Adult self.  Last week I released a lot of emotion by sharing a lot of stuff with my therapist that had been building up inside for awhile.  I finally let go and dug deep…I was able to let go because the feeling of keeping it all bottled up inside finally became more overwhelming than the belief that I could do it alone (ego).

So now, my Inner Child is ashamed.  She is cowering and she is scared because now someone knows some of her secrets.  I am having to make a conscious effort to lovingly accept her feelings and to acknowledge her fears.  I struggle to tell her it is okay to feel her own feelings, but that she doesn’t have to fear having a witness anymore. My usual Adult response would be to tell myself to get over it….which leads to anxiety and worry.  This was before I realized that fear inside of me was my Inner Child.  Now that I know who it is, I have compassion for her.  I am trying to tell her that as these walls of secrets get torn down, it’s okay.  The rawness is scary.  And she wants the walls to go back up…that’s what she knows.  But I keep telling her that maybe the walls will never have to go back up, and that by tearing them down everything will be better.  Hell, it’s all a brand new concept!

I am trying to react lovingly toward myself and so my ego is attacking this love.  The ego is so used to being in charge.  The ego has helped me through many traumatic times…and it was my ego protecting me because that’s all I knew what to do.  Now that I am learning new skills, well, it’s complicated!  🙂

Brief moments in time when I sit still and reflect inward I feel so very good about tearing down a wall.  It feels lighter.  I feel happier.  I am learning to love myself.  I am strong when I am connected with my Inner Child. My ego is no longer in the drivers seat.  My faulty wiring is being re-wired.

They Love Me for ME

Today I wrote a letter to a lady that is in one of my support groups.  Friendship is a very new concept for me.  I have only recently started to learn to love myself.  The more I love myself, the more I realize what parts of me I have squashed to fit what mold I think my ‘friends’ want me to fit.  The more I let go and trust this process of nurturing and loving myself, the more I have been drawing towards me the types of people I have always yearned for in my life.  The stable ones.  The trustworthy ones.  The ‘real’ ones.  The ones that are not afraid to be vulnerable.  The ones that embrace communication.  The ones that love me for me. 

These new found friendships are two fold.   They leave me with something deep and meaningful.  But they also ask of me truth, vulnerability and love. 

Below is the letter I wrote to my friend,

I want to take a moment and share with you my gratitude.  Today I feel as if I made my first major step to stop fighting this process. I realize that to share and to be vulnerable and to remove my layers of armor is to heal.  I finally understand what you mean when you say to sit in it.  To feel it.  To accept it. 

Each time I have a significant breakthrough, you have been a part of it.  Your words of wisdom guide me.  Your bravery pushes me.  Your belief in me lifts me up.   Your support gives me strength. And I am thankful for you.  Much of what I have learned in the short time I have been doing this work, I have learned from you. 

Thank you for opening my eyes to my inner child.  Your free expression of love and compassion toward your little girl has shown me that it is okay to be curious of her and has helped me on my path toward embracing my own inner child.  I chose this card with a Momma Meerkat and her baby on it because I feel it embodies where I am today with my little girl.  She isn’t hiding in fear behind me anymore.  She is standing confidently holding my hand as I look forward toward what lies ahead for the two of us.  I know now that I am strong enough to protect her.  Your friendship and guidance has helped show me the way, and I thank you for it.  Your thoughtful answers, your continued hard work on yourself, your openness of your struggles, and that inner goodness and peace you exude gives me hope.  Thank you for being my friend.  Thank you for showing me what friendship is. 

What Does all this MEAN?

Today I came home and hit the punching bag. Only after I physically exhausted myself and caused myself some pain from hitting the bag was I able to release like…2 micro sized tears. When all I FUCKING WANT TO DO IS RELEASE THIS EMOTIONAL FLOOD THAT IS RAGING INSIDE. I have been conditioned to not show emotions. I have been conditioned so that tears is a sign of weakness and ridicule. I have been conditioned to feel shame for crying. So I learned to not feel. I used my power over my feelings to believe I was winning. It was all I had. It was all I had control over.

Now that I am in therapy working on ‘feeling’, I can feel it inside. I can feel it in my shoulders. I can feel it in my chest, in my jaw, in the way my body will tense and sweat during meditation exercises. I can feel a bubble, a wave of ‘something’ that is churning inside. And God, all I really want is to let it out. I want to be awash with ‘whatever this is’. I don’t want it to be a story anymore. I’ve told the story. Now I want to feel the story so I can heal fro the story.

How do I start to heal from this? I want to own my baggage…not it own me.

So much inner conflicting emotions churning inside as I work toward allowing myself to feel my past pain. Growing up feelings were not meant to be felt. Mom was the only one allowed to feel emotions and hers were extremely volatile. I was a child that was seen and not heard. I was a child that was emotionally berated during daylight and sexually abused during the night. With my mother I grew up feeling whatever emotion allowed me the quickest and safest exit. If I thought crying was what would help, I would cry. If I was supposed to act happy, I would act happy. Her emotions called for strict adherence and nothing else would be tolerated. She ruled the roost. She was borderline. One second she would be lying on the ground in the middle of the yard telling me she hated me and wished I had never been born. Another minute she would be walking the perimeter of the yard stating she was trying to go home. Another minute she would be chugging bleach or swallowing a full bottle of medication. Yet another she would be sobbing into my arms and wailing she needed me more than anything else in life. That if she didn’t have me she would be already dead. All this by the age of 9 or 10. Previous years I don’t have real memories of..they are just fuzzy.

Here steps in the hero, my pedophile father. Shhhh, be quiet and go to your room and be a good girl so mommy doesn’t get mad. I’ll be there as soon as I can. I played with my toys, read my books, colored and drew into the dark hours of the night. Sometimes he would come and other nights I would tuck myself into bed. When he did come he would sit next to my bed with a chair from the dining table and tell me wonderful fantastical stories about Michael and Marcy, two almost Harry Potter like characters that he had made up. Sometimes he would tell me bible stories and other times he would sing bible songs to me. Sometimes he would comfort me if I were crying because I “had done something wrong” in mommy’s eyes. As he rubbed my back he would touch me. And he’d rub my front. And the young years are fuzzy. I really only remember when I would start to clinch my legs shut as hard as I could and tuck my arms in at my sides. I must have been around 12-14 at this point. I think it was only then that I started to realize something wasn’t right. I don’t remember much before that. I remember the one time mom was gone (I was 15 or 16?) and I was taking a Sunday nap in bed with my father and he touched my breast and I instinctively turned away from him. I think that’s when I started to keep from being in situations with him. And I think that’s when he stopped. He was never a man for confrontation.

I was such a confused little kid. Not only did I have an emotionally fucked up mother, a pedophile father, but I was so confused sexually as I was gay and living in the Bible Belt of the Deep South. I was different from every other kid I knew in so many ways. I went through my childhood living in the clouds of dissociation. I don’t think I was ever present. I used sports as an outlet. And I was good at them because I was so immune to pain I could run and play through anything. My parents never came to my games or meets. The few times my mother did, she would get angry at me saying I didn’t spend enough time with her and I’d end up bawling in the car on the ride home. This even happened while I was in college at rowing regattas.

Then she finally did end up succeeding and taking her own life. I wasn’t able to get their in enough time to save her. Here I was, the daughter who when visiting home for christmas break she would send away in tears saying she was disowning me and that I would never hear from her again…and here I was the daughter who felt she couldn’t get their in enough time to save her. I was pulled to both extremes my whole life.

SO WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?? WHERE DO I GO NOW THAT I AM ACKNOWLEDGING IT?? What do I do with it all?! How do I make sense of the un-sensible? What do I do now? How am I supposed to feel? What am I supposed to feel?

Struggling

I am really struggling here. My feelings are here. They are telling me that they want to be heard. They need to come out. I need to feel the tears and the pain and the fear of that little girl. Except I have been programmed for so long to not show emotion or to feel it. I am ASHAMED to have a feeling.

This morning I meditated. I wanted to get in touch with my little girl. She has been so sad and she needs me. I meditated in the bathroom which is where whenever I am feeling scared or heightened with feelings from the past, it’s where I hide. I took my stuffed animal too. And I laid their and worked on clearing my mind and just asking her what is going on. She told me she is so confused because she liked what daddy did. she’s ashamed of wanting him to rub her back at night. She doesn’t understand anything because growing up that’s what she thought was okay. No one told her otherwise. She is confused about what her feelings should be. How to make sense of them. Lying their getting in touch with my little girl I could feel what her body would feel. How he would rub my back with me lying on my stomach first. Then I’d flip over and he’d rub the top. When I got to that part my whole body physically curled into a ball. Everything got scared. Everything shut down. How did she feel as a child with this? Is this the feeling she wanted to have but couldn’t? Did she want to curl up into a ball and tell him to stop? But she didn’t. I think she somehow shut everything down. No feelings, no thoughts, She turned her body and mind off. Even typing this stuff makes me physically nauseous.

With mom she had to emotionally shut down. For some reason mom played a sick mind fuck game. She would berate the little girl. She would tell the little girl that if she wanted to go out and play with her friends then that was fine. But it meant she didn’t love her mom. Or the little girl would come home from school and mom would be crying and telling her she was all she had. That if she didn’t have that little girl she would have killed herself long ago. That that little girl was all that was keeping her alive. I remember being a little girl and just standing beside mommy. I remember that I would hug her. And tell her I love her. But then I remember her being angry. She would talk about how her life was shit and that she would be better off dead. And if my room wasn’t clean then wait til daddy got home. Then I’d have to pull my pants down to my ankles and grab my ankles with my hands and be spanked until I cried. Even as a little kid I can remember not knowing what I did wrong so not crying. Because I had nothing to cry or feel sorry about! I would draw mom pictures. I would do all I could as a child to keep her happy. I would write her letters. I would make her breakfast in bed. I cooked dinner and I cleaned. Dad would tell me that I needed to be a good little girl and stay out of the way when mom was in one of her episodes. Then dad would put mom to bed then come put me to bed. I remember on Saturdays I didn’t do what I think most kids would do when they woke up…I would sneak to the bathroom and sneak back to my room and read a book or draw until they got up. If I ever did sneak into the living room to watch cartoons I would keep the volume down so low and I would be scared that I would wake one of them up. I never made a noise. One time I took one of our kittens outside to show my friend and it ran away under the trailer. Then I was crying and I went inside to tell mom she got so angry at me she railed back to slap me and I flinched and then she just yelled at me.

Everything was so volatile. I feel it at an adult. For example yesterday a friend asked me what was going on because she saw I was picking my skin. I felt blank inside. Like I knew I needed to say something but didn’t know what was the right thing to say! What to say…what to say? What am I SUPPOSED to say? What’s the right thing to say? Mom was such a mind fuck because sometimes she would sit me down and actually tell me she was sorry for getting mad at me and I would be able to share with her how it made me feel. So I would get to be honest. Then she would take what I said later and turn it into fuel against me.

It was engrained into me at such an early age to not have a feeling. I didn’t even get to figure out what feelings were to be able to know what feelings I was ignoring. I lived in constant fear of what was to come next. I lived in constant fear that my mother was going to die. I lived with my father being my friend. But also being my abuser. I don’t remember everything. Certain times in my life are completely blocked. I notice most of the blocked memories have to do with when mom would be in a hospital or in a treatment center and it was just dad and I at home together. If I remember the lesser things, him doing things with his hands…what am I blocking out that is more?

Why Do I Sabotage My Healing?

I feel like I sabotage myself. I am starting to notice a cycle. I do good intense work in therapy and on my own. Then I struggle to stay present and mindful and not dissociate. Then I beat myself up about taking time off from working the program. Then I binge drink for a night. Then I spend the whole next day and week counter acting the voice inside that is trying to beat me up for my actions. The voice tells me I suck. That I am horrible. That I am better than getting drunk. That I am weak. That I am a failure. And I have to spend an extensive amount of energy to combat the voice. And so my cycle continues. I know I subconsciously drank yesterday because I first was extremely anxious. Secondly because my cousin met me for dinner. And thirdly because I have been doing so much good work, but the more I delve into my past to understand my present, the harder it is.

I come from an extremely dysfunctional family. I’ve only met my cousin a handful of times and the last time I saw her it was for dinner over a year ago. She’s 11 years younger than I am, and from the handful of times I’ve spoken with her or seen her, I see some of me in her. I see our family and the pain it has caused. I see someone who has been given an extremely tough life and has made it the best she could. I see someone who loves her mom despite the pressure she puts on her. I see a young woman who had to learn as a child to be the strongest one in the family. The rock. I see a mom who is putting too much responsibility on her daughter. I know deep down I don’t know the full story and I don’t know why each does what each does. But what I do know is that I feel extreme empathy towards my cousin and I feel a fierce protection for her. And I am sad for what she has had to go through in her life. I see her and I see me, and when i step back and look at how I feel about her, about protecting her…I can then say, well, this is your life too. You went through many of the same ordeals…different story but same outcome. A child that was not allowed to be a child. The parallelism causes me pain inside. And with emotions being such a new thing for me, I am confused. And the emotions are painful. The thoughts and memories are painful. So I drank last night as a way of not dealing with my thoughts and feelings. By drinking I only postponed my feelings and emotions and added more on top! I checked out from the world for a day and now am beating myself up about it.

I went to my first Coda meeting today. Their were about 15 people in the room. I didn’t say anything. I went because I needed to go somewhere and I needed to not feel alone. I didn’t speak to anyone. I just needed to be around people who were struggling too. People who at least were attempting to become better versions of themselves.

Last week at Together We Heal support group, one of the members said she thinks I am ready to tackle the real hard stuff. I was asking them how did they get over the fear of sharing the hard stuff with their therapist. I’m so afraid of trusting her with ME. One of the things she said was that you can never plan. You can think you can, but you can’t. You can do all the homework all the journaling and all the prepping, but bottom line is when it comes to taking the plunge and sharing what’s inside, the feelings and pain, you just have to do it. My thoughts and feelings are coming faster and faster and I can’t ignore them anymore. I tried last night by drinking. But they are still here. I’m sad. I am not happy. I am depressed. I have more anxiety. I’m blindly going down this road hoping that at some point it will get better. I think I’m starting to realize that each time I sabotage myself and each time I drink I am standing still on my road. I am not moving forward. And this depression and sadness will last longer. So if I don’t drink and if I take a look at why I have urges to drink, then I can get to the other side of the road faster.

I went to the beach after the coda meeting. It was nice sitting at the beach. I realized that I was at the beach to prolong coming home and having to be in my house by myself. But i realized that that is okay. I realized that sitting at the beach isn’t wasting time. It’s healthy. I am being alone with myself and with my thoughts. And I’m not drinking. Or eating. Or doing anything addictive that keeps me from processing. So I have the beach in my toolbox…I just need to make it more of a priority.

II’m also sad today because my friend had to put her dog Endie down today. Endie was my favorite dog. I’ve known Endie for like 6 years. I went and was with my friend for a little while. I gave her hugs. Told her I loved her. I can feel my heart and body shutting down. It has no feelings about Endie even though it does want to have feelings. It wants to be sad. It wants to cry. it wants to be emotional. I’m going to go do a mindful meditation focusing on curiously looking in at what the body is feeling. And I know I continue to ramble here because I am afraid of my own thoughts as i attempt to fall asleep.

Mindful Meditation

While doing my mindfulness meditation over the past few days, I have noticed an almost acute painful ball of panic/anxiety sitting deep inside my chest. I work on acknowledging it, I work on using a ray of light to have that anxiety leave my body, I have even put it on a conveyor belt and dropped off into space because it is not needed. But it still persists. What does this persistence mean? I have been having nightmares that are very vivid almost every evening. I am having trouble falling asleep. I ask my inner child if it is her, what she is feeling. I kind of wonder if it will take many meditations to get to the bottom of the anxiety and panic. The more I focus and gently probe, the more I understand that the panic is my inner childs. She lived night and day with it and didn’t have a name for it. It became her normal. Now that I am trying to get in touch with her, and as she slowly learns to trust me, her repressed feelings are pretty overwhelming. I use my distress tolerance skills to distract myself during working hours and do my best to use my DBT skills at home so as not to use alcohol as a numbing technique. That only takes me farther from the truth. I’m thinking I am finally in that limbo place of change and healing. I don’t know how long it will last. I am choosing not to resign myself to it, but choosing to know this is where I am at, and it may last awhile, but it won’t last forever. I want to feel happy again.

What ’tis this feeling I am feeling?

I think I’m depressed. Why? Let’s list the signs

I have not been riding my bike.
I have been sleeping in.
I have been drinking more.
I do not feel happy.
My anxiety is higher.
My self confidence has decreased.
I am worrying more.
I do not want to do my mindfulness exercises.
I do not want to exercise.
I am having nightmares.
I was triggered and had a panic attack in group therapy on Thursday when someone brought up suicide.
I often feel on the verge of tears, except I can’t cry or let it out.
I am having flashbacks.

Why am I feeling this way? I think
Because Moms 57th birthday would have been last Tuesday. Since Monday I have been unhappy.
For the first time I attempted to use my DBT skills to allow myself to feel feelings and not dissociate or stuff them back into a box. I cried. I tried to sit with the feeling of sadness and ask my little girl what she needed and what she felt. She felt extremely sad. She was sad that Mommy never played with her. That Mommy was scary and volatile. The more I ask my little girl what she is feeling, the more I feel…well, I guess the more I FEEL. I’m realizing that as a child I was not allowed to feel feelings or process them, and now my wiring is all messed up when it comes to feelings. I feel like I am stuck in limbo…I’m able to kind of skim the surface of feelings, but I can’t seem to get to the bottom of them. Or to let them go. My body still instinctively shuts down the brain and body when a feeling emerges. Because that’s all it knows how to do. But I am working so hard to re-wire this pathway! My brain knows my body is feeling sadness, but my body won’t release the sadness.

What do I do now that I am feeling this way?
So I’m stuck. And I don’t know what to do…I don’t know what my next step should be. I don’t know what tools I am supposed to use here. Am I supposed to use distress tolerance skills to distract? Or does that mean I’m ignoring and not processing the feelings? Do I use mindfulness skills to work on calming the brain? I have been using meditative exercises and breathing exercises and they do help with the panic and worry, but the feeling of deep sadness is still their. I want it out of my body so much! At least a little bit of it…just a really good sob fest and I think I would feel some relief. I read a mindfulness exercise last night that spoke about sitting in the feeling and saying what if this feeling lasted forever. What if this feeling of sadness was with me for the rest of my life. Would I be able to tolerate it? And yes, I know I could. But I’d prefer not too. I think it was talking about realizing that a feeling can’t hurt you. It’s just a feeling. And it was about radical acceptance. To radically accept the feeling and let it go. Let it be. I don’t know. I’m just a confused lil girl at the moment. Though I feel good about this…I took time before work to journal and try to get some of whatever it is inside out. So now I get to distract and go to work. Here we (me and my lil girl) go!

Acknowledging It Really Did Happen

I realize the stuff inside is wanting to come out. This week has been off. My sleep is ass backward, my mindfulness and meditation is off. The rain has kept me from riding my bicycle which has taken me away from nature and means I am not as present or aware. I have dissociated much more this week. My level of anxiety is much higher. Yesterday I feel I was in a state of a panic attack for most of the day. Shaky and brain was on high alert. When sleeping, if I can fall asleep I wake up frequently. Lately the only thing that feels safe is if I make a make shift bed in the bathroom and sleep there. It’s small, dark and is not exposed. I use my safe place diligently to try to fall asleep. I cried literally 2 tears yesterday, and it felt good. I was only able to cry when I was speaking with someone from my support group who is a survivor and someone who I deeply respect. She told me that it sounds like my story is ready to be heard. I don’t really know what that means. I told my therapist yesterday that I feel like regular day to day stuff is too much for me. Like someone has a poker stick and keeps poking with it while it’s blazing hot causing me to jump backward, causing me to be afraid, causing me anxiety. I had someone respectfully hit on me Monday, and I’ve been a wreck ever since. It brought up such extreme flashbacks. It makes me feel nauseous, disgusted. My therapist and I have spoken about having a plan. How you do something calming, then do a little bit of this ‘work’, then you have a distraction afterward to help with it. I get the idea, but I also know it’s going to be extremely hard to trust the process. I guess by being up and taking this time to blog before I go cycling is following my new protocol. I am acknowledging that the child sexual abuse did happen, that it is causing me emotional pain and that I am struggling with the rawness of my emotions. I am struggling with the confusion of the type of relationships I had with both my father and my mother. I was telling my therapist yesterday that I feel as if the ground that I have built underneath myself, the one that has become the platform that I stand on, is crumbling. All that I believed, all that I’ve built as levels of protection…they are being blown away. I thought I was okay. The more work I do in therapy and the more I become aware of my own feelings and live in the present moment, the more I realize I am NOT okay and that I have been living my life in a state of dissociation. I had built my ground using dissociation. Now it’s not working anymore. My father sexually abused me. He would go rub my moms back at night and then come and rub mine. As a child I had no clue that something was wrong. I cannot blame that little girl. I can’t try to use my adult mind to rationalize the unthinkable. I need to realize that it is okay to try to understand why he did what he did, but I need to not ignore and try to understand how it made ME FEEL. How I WAS INVALIDATED. My healing is now about ME. I deserve to be understood. That little girl deserves to be heard. She deserves to be rescued and loved and cared for. My triggers are high. I am going to go get my bike ride in, and see how it helps.

TGIF-Mindful Lunch Break

I’ve been trying to be more mindful each day. I’ve been trying to do a meditation or guided meditation each morning before work, and I’ve been trying to be more aware and present. Today, instead of working thru lunch and eating at my desk, I left the office and I’m sitting at a restaurant at the beach. I don’t have to force myself to have a half-smile…I’m already smiling. 🙂

I Made A Mistake…I Am Not The Mistake

I can’t seem to make all the puzzles fit yet. I can see what the image is supposed to look like…just the pieces haven’t all fallen into place. I got reprimanded at work and was sent home for the day. My boss asked me to reflect on my responsibilities and see if I want them. I do, I know I made a mistake, and I will need to tell him on Tuesday when I go back to work that I’m sorry and it won’t happen again. The reprimand isn’t the issue here. It was the prompting event. The catalyst. But that’s it. The rest that issued forth was an emotional roller coaster that I haven’t quite gotten the pieces to fit yet.

The reprimand brought up extreme anxiety, a flood of tears, body shakes and nausea. My brain was one big whirlwind of thoughts. I curled up in a ball on my couch at home and bawled. What for? Why? Why did I feel so sick? Why was I shaking? Why did it feel like my world was about to end?

Thoughts:
My boss hates me
I’m going to get fired
I’m no good
I’m a horrible employee
What are my coworkers going to think about me?
How can I show my face at work again?
I failed
I let someone I respect down
I’m worthless
I don’t deserve this job
I’m a nothing
How do I fix this?
How can I make it better?
I’m weak
I’m a mistake

My brain kept berating me. My body was in total crazy mode. I wanted someone to make the feelings go away. I was crying. But didn’t know what I was crying for. I felt shamed. I felt I was nothing.

After a good sob fest, I was able to work on bringing my mind back to wise mind as best I could. I knew I was in full fledge emotional mind. I knew I needed to speak to someone. This was one I didn’t think I could figure out in a healthy mind alone. I called one of the women from my CSA support group. Even calling was a ten minute ordeal…reaching out for help made me feel shameful. I felt weak. I felt vulnerable. I was shaking. I didn’t want someone to see or know I was crying. I was weak.

S was able to help me. She did a good job helping me connect the dots between my raging emotions and my mom. She said that it sounded as if my brain was telling me I was the mistake. Not that I had made a mistake. The huge overwhelming feeling to fix the situation…it’s what I had to do my whole life. When mom would start going on an episode I knew, that if not fixed right then, it would end with her trying to kill herself. I would manipulate, lie, grovel, cry, attach, every friggin thing you can imagine I somehow knew how to do. I was her lifeline and I couldn’t fail.

I am able to recognize that the pattern that was so engrained into me growing up is not useful and is broken in my adult life. It’s okay that I made a mistake. I am NOT the mistake.

My boss isn’t going to try to kill himself. My mistake is not going to blow the roof off of the building. I don’t need to write a 2 page letter sobbing and telling him how sorry I am and that I love him and that I won’t do anything wrong ever again in my life. I don’t need to stay in from going out with friends because if I go out he said he would be dead when I got back. These patterns of really having to deal with life or death around every bend…wow. They are affecting me a lot. Today with this prompting event I really get to see the effects of what I grew up with and how I maladaptive my skills were as a kid…and are as an adult.

I’m going to have to trust the process. I’ve been doing DBT skills to keep myself in the present and in wise mind. I very easily want to slip into emotional mind and then my emotion regulation goes downhill. I spent the afternoon relaxing in the backyard (beautiful weather) with my cat. I did some journaling. I made a list about my thoughts. I learned in DBT instead of saying I am stupid, I am worthless. You say, my thoughts say I am stupid. My thoughts say I am worthless. This one has been a good one for me today. I chose a color and then found it in my surroundings. I did the imagery of a ray of light scanning, going up and down my body. Bringing me into it. I ran a couple errands and did some chores. I cooked dinner. I watched a couple episodes of Mad Men. Now I am writing this. If I can distract my mind long enough from going into emotional de-regulation, I do well. If I let it wander at all…I go downhill. I will get caught up in the feelings, but at some point I do a pretty well job of catching myself and work on bringing myself back to the present.

I realize the overwhelming feelings of guilt, shame and blame….the overwhelming feelings of fear, doom and anxiety…are all from my past. I am present. I am here. My little girl is scared. She is screaming at me to fix the situation. What I need to do is hug her and let her know I acknowledge her fears. She doesnt’ have to be fearful anymore. I will comfort her. I will keep her safe. It’s okay to not fix this one.

I am extremely afraid to not fix this. But wise mind is telling me there isn’t anything to fix. I am a strong woman. I have been doing my work diligently so when I do have a moment like this, I can pull out my DBT skills. I am okay. I am a good person. Time will tell how this will turn out. All I can do is work on taking care of me and my little girl.