It’s a strange thing to try and describe. For years I denied the abuse I lived through. I pushed it aside, minimised it, fort my way forward never standing still long enough for any of it to settle.
Some how as I did that I felt closer to those around me. Sure at times when my friends would mention their childhoods and I would feel a little out of place as I just didn’t have that shared experience to lean into. They would exclaim, you can’t ride a bike! you never watched this movie! I would just offer a generic reply like “I had a different upbringing.”
The truth is it was do different to any of theirs and when your primary goal is survival, there was never any time given to learning to ride a bike or watching a movie. Although I managed to prioritise the imprint at stuff like Star Trek! 😉
I mention this because one of the realisations which dawned on me last week is that the more I work through my past and integrate it or accept it, somehow the further I feel from my present. I feel more distant from my friends or family and alone in the world. The wonderful life I have now feels less fitting somehow. It almost feels like I cheated the system that the life I have should not be possible with the start and the two just don’t marry up. I have to deny one of them to allow the other to exist.
Having said that I was only today listening to a podcast which referenced the ability to hold multiple opposing truths in yourself at the same time. I need to find a way to accept it all.
This is definitely something I need to discuss with Chris. I am trying to build a stronger connection with Stephen and talk to him more but it feels like one thin thread which tethers me to the present.
Then if I take my usual step back, I know it is hard to work through some of this stuff but it won’t last forever and if I need to find connection to the world I am in, I am sure will.
What did we actually cover last session…
We talked again about the same flashback we had done in the previous session. It was useful to challenge myself and prove that talking about it a second time would not be as hard and it wasn’t. Chris did an amazing job of nudging me along and pushed me at times to say the thing I was struggling to say. It was definitely a love/hate moment. I am so grateful that Chris knows how to challenge me and it is also more than a little difficult to be challenged.
I hate some of the words I utter in those sessions. I hate that those words exist. I hate that I know them. I hate they happen to anyone. I hate that they happened to me.
Random nightmare. First in a while.
Total random side note. Had my first nightmare in ages last night. Not directly related to any of the past events but horrific none the less. There was a group of women buried in the sand up to their necks and the tide was coming in. It transpired they were all mothers taken from their children. My mother was there too. And so ensued a panicked action of trying to dig them each out of the sand one by one before they drowned in the rising waves. Have to say my sub conscious does a great job of taking my saviour complex to an extreme. Where on Earth it comes up with this material I have no idea. I feel like I should be a writer for criminal minds.
Fight 4 Happiness 
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