Friday, November 23, 2012

Facing and feeling the repressed emotions of the child we once were --- Part 1

Hi X,


Thank you for writing sharing your heartbreaking story, no child should have to go through a nightmare like yours all alone like you did. I am so sorry you were born into a home of extreme horrors. I am glad to hear you found the Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice and helped you to start facing your own history. I would recommend you read also all her other books, because in every book she shows in a different context and perspective how different forms of child mistreatment affects us for the rest of our lives and helped me see more clear myself and those around me and go deeper, giving me the freedom to feel the whole range of my feelings responsibly, understand them and find resolution and eventually freedom.


I am glad to hear you have a therapist that has liberated himself and is accompanying you in your liberation. Finding a therapist that has liberated himself first is very rare, but I am sorry to hear you are going through intense excruciating feelings right now and your therapist is on vacation and not available to help you navigate through your feelings, sometimes even the best therapist can be a distraction from feeling the whole range of our repressed excruciating feelings of the child we once were. Being so afraid of our feelings is normal and wanting to kill ourselves to save ourselves from having to experience our excruciating feelings of the child we once were is very understandable, but feelings alone don’t kill, only actions kill, just be patient with yourself, once you understand these fears and put them within the context of your childhood they will start to subside and we start to see clear of the best steps to take to take care of ourselves in the present moment.


I am sorry your boyfriend left and is contributing to triggering the repressed feelings of the child you once were, but it could be a blessing in disguise because is forcing you to face and feel your feelings and no one to distract yourself with it might contribute to your true liberation.


While you were talking with your ex on the phone and you felt a kind of dependency on him is because the repressed wounded child in you has fallen into the illusion of this person becoming the substitute mother figure and make it all better and when you felt his distance started bursting this illusion and started triggering the pain of being abandoned as small child, but now no one in the external world can make up for the love you need as a child, but did not get. Now only the adult in you can find the courage to consciously feel what the child you once were had to endure at the hands of ignorant adults and mourn this loss. Allow yourself to feel this rage at your parents, just tell yourself this rage is of the child you once were at your parents for putting you through these horrors and injustice and you will not become a prisoner of it but will liberate you. We only become prisoners of our hate when directed at scapegoats, but once it is felt directed at the real culprits will start to subside and eventually free of hate. Sometimes we might become in contact with people that remind us of our childhood abusers and we get annoyed by them, but we will never again feel intense hate like that again, because now we are mature conscious and autonomous adults and no longer at the mercy of ignorant adults like we were as defenseless little children and if necessary we can walk away from any person that treats us badly.


Separation and independence from the family is the first step to our liberation, so we can have the freedom to feel all of our feelings and we only make contact with the family if we ever come into a place that we feel strong to be around them and know our limits of how much we can take of their ignorance, in some cases the abuse is so extreme like it seems to be in your case that any contact with the family might always be destructive to the person’s wellbeing, is a decision that each person has to make from themselves.


When I was going through the rage of the child I once was, was very hard to feel and at first I was directing it all at my triggers, my boyfriend and his new girlfriend for betraying me and not caring how they were affecting my life, but the moment I realize with the help of Alice Miller’s books that this intense rage was at my parents for bringing me into their crazy world without thinking what kind of life they were giving me and at my older brothers and sisters for blaming me for everything wrong in the family and for all their problems; once I made this connection that the intense hate was caused by my parents and my older sisters and brothers’ betrayal, my hate started to subside and understanding that everyone and my boyfriend were in the same boat as me that they too were reenacting their own childhood drama of being abandoned as small children. My boyfriend abandoning me when I was in need of his help with my trip, that I was planning at the time to Portugal, was triggering his own fears of abandonment and in order not to face and feel his own fears he run with a woman to distract himself from his own fears.


I hope that answers your question and helps you clarify your own feelings and move through them faster. Alice Miller believed that some painful feelings might be too agonizing to feel and endure alone and we need an enlightened witness present to help us clarify our feelings within the context of own childhood and for some people might be the case, everybody is different. I tried to find a therapist to accompany me, but I was not able to find one that truly understood me. Alice Miller books were my only enlightened witness and were enough for me, at moments was near unbearable to handle alone and I wished I had someone present that understood and helped me navigate through my feelings, probably I would have been able to liberate myself sooner, but I was able to endure it alone and eventually break through and liberate myself. You went through a very extreme case of child abuse that the feelings of the child you once were might be too unbearable to endure alone and you might need a sympathetic enlightened witness present to help you through it.


I am so sorry you had to live with the secret of being homosexual all by yourself for so many years. I am happy for you now that you feel safe to share yourself with people and no longer have to live alone with this secret.


I congratulate you for your courage to face and share your story and wish you much-continued courage and strength to get through the nightmare of your childhood and find resolution and freedom from it someday.


Sylvie

P.S. To read part 2 and 3 click on the links below:
Facing and feeling the repressed emotions of the child we once were --- Part 2
http://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2012/11/facing-and-feeling-repressed-emotions_29.html

Facing and feeling the repressed emotions of the child we once were --- Part 3
http://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2012/12/facing-and-feeling-repressed-emotions.html

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