And again

Every time without fail I fall for it and each time I know it will not be the last time.

A life built on sand will always fall apart, no matter how many times I try to rebuild.  It will happen again and again.

I am so closed and self protecting in some ways. In others I am too open – this I have read about, it’s common in those abused as kids.

Each time it hurts just as badly. But this time more so. I’ve opened up some of those closed and self protecting walls and the pain this time is so very much worse.

So now I face it again. For the first time clear that it is not my fault, the repeating pattern, though perhaps there is something I need to look at.

And I wonder – is there actually a way to fix the foundations to shore up the sand, to fill in the holes – because I do know that I can’t keep going through this.

I’ve had enough now.

Hiraeth

It’s that time of year. A time when I yearn for home – not the home I grew up in, but the home I never had.

Christmas is a difficult time. I love the idea of it, the reality was different. Christmas and Boxing days were two in the year when nothing too bad happened, there were too many other people around, but the fear of payback once the days were over was ever present. Ever present and usually accurate.

I don’t wish for those childhood times again, but I do yearn for the childhood I never had.

This year for the first time I am hosting Christmas with my husband and his family. I am excited to have the opportunity to begin some new traditions, to make our own Christmas.

I will never have the childhood I long for but maybe I can make a future that is everything I want it to be :-)

Pressure

It’s just too much right now, Christmas is coming and that’s hard enough. I feel like I’m in a pressure cooker the weight of it all is just too much. I can’t face writing cards, not that I don’t want too, but the ones I no longer write weigh heavy on my soul.

Estrangement was the only solution to allow me to deal with my past but at this time of year it hurts all over again.

The people who have passed on, those who were my family of choice, now also absent.

Memories of those fearfilled Christmases rise up again and I feel lost and alone.

For 25 years I have fought myself to keep going, to live in spite of the pain.

And today I wonder why, why as a 12 year old girl, I decided to keep going. And I wonder now if I can still keep going, if I have the energy and the will anymore.

If I could just get one day when it didn’t hurt, so I could think clearly, one day, is that too much to ask?

Closer

I don’t know where the summer went, busyness as a strategy for avoiding stuff is probably a reasonable assessment.

Therapy has been tough, not the content but the effort of avoiding stuff. It slipped out a few weeks ago, that I mostly think about what not to say in therapy. And now he has confronted that. I want to get better but to do that he says I ‘have to share more’, that I have to talk about the difficult stuff. I wonder if he knows already, those things I haven’t said yet? I think he might, but that doesn’t make it easier.

I need to let him closer, but I don’t think I can, I have always kept something back, always. Call it what you like, an exit route, a safety net, whatever.

I am scared, terrified – my choice then, as I see it,  is to work through it or to walk away.

He already knows more than anyone else, so how much of myself do I have to share, how much more? I can’t talk about this stuff, I need to be well enough and sane enough to manage – why can’t he understand that?

And all of it was their fault, they did this to me – so why do I have to struggle so much just because they couldn’t love me, because they couldn’t find a way to keep me safe, to help me grow? She attacked me, constantly, and he did nothing. And nothing will ever make up for that, nothing.

So why should I even try to get better?

I’m not ready

I’m not ready for this. Everything I thought is wrong – a career built on a belief that is wrong, a childhood misunderstood. I’m not ready for this it hurts too much.
I need it to have been my fault for it to have been me that is wrong, out of place, for it to be me that didn’t fit. I need that to be true. I’ve believed it for so long. Built my life and my career on it.
I’m not ready for this – for her to have been the crazy one, alcoholic yes, I can handle that she was that, who wouldn’t need something to take the edge of such a flawed child?
I’m not ready to feel this, this helplessness, this anger, this betrayal and sadness. Such deep, deep sadness.

I’m not ready – please make it go away…..

Maybe it’s not me…..

For a long time I have been trying to figure out what it is about me that is flawed. But then even if I am flawed she was supposed to love me. That’s what being a parent is.

She never tried, even when I finally got the courage to cut contact, she played a few games and then they just cut me out of everything. It is beginning to occur to me that that is not about my flaws and failures.

And if that is not about me then maybe all the rest of it – those years of being attacked – maybe that wasn’t about me either……

I’m not ready to accept that yet. Or to belive that how I am is ok. I should be able to cope, to be better, but maybe that doesn’t have to be about her.

I wish my craziness would go away, that I could managed these feelings, that just for one little moment I could be ok.

Formulations……

It’s been a while since I posted. My new job has changed things. Finally realising that much of what added to my stress and anxiety was not about me. In my new job I can be me and it’s welcomed. It’s a real joy to find that who I am is OK.

It’s changed therapy too, more time to think about the things from before, from when I was small. More energy to understand how things impacted on me, to begin to acknowledge the anger and sadness I feel deep inside.

I’m not ready to accept that there wasn’t something I could have done to change the things that happened. I’m not ready to accept that I’m not crazy.

My therapist suggested I try less diagnosis and more formulation in understanding myself, he may be right – in my work I avoid diagnosis with my clients, but for me it is different and it will always be that way until I understand what I should have done to fix things, to stop what happened, to make it so she would love me. I need to know what it is in me that is wrong, because then it will all make sense, and maybe it’s not to late to fix it………