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Endlessnight

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Guest ASchwartz

Hi Endless,

You do not need to miss that girl because she is you and she is in yourself. You need to start believing that.

It is frightening for you to admit to anything good about yourself because its hard to give up old ways of thinking. You attack yourself, blame yourself, etc. But why? If you were abused then it would make sense because those who suffered abuse end up blaming themselves.

Again, that young person is within you. She is not lost. She is there, waiting to come out again.

Allan

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Hi,

It is frightening for you to admit to anything good about yourself because its hard to give up old ways of thinking.

yes, it is hard to give up a way of thinking that you have become used to for over 25 years. I know that to change the way I think about myself, I will need to have a lot of patience, it won't happen overnight. I hope I can one day learn to like myself.

Thanks guys for all the kind things you say. Though I may find them hard to believe, I still appreciate what is said.

Take care everyone.

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When I remember how much pain the girl was feeling, I want to reach out to her, but I don't know how to. It feels like she is in a cage, the bars made of hurt, anger, regret, bitterness and hate, and I don't have the key to open the door for her. :) She has been hurt and betrayed by those she loved and trusted; first her mother, then her father, and lastly her brother. She is in so much pain. How do I help her?

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When a part of you is exiled, you may have to do a little work to create an environment inside that is tolerable for the part to come back to. If all you feel inside is hurt, anger, regret, bitterness and hate, that is no place for a little girl. When I first learned this myself I was discouraged.... I didn't feel I could do a good enough job of making a home inside that would make my inner child want to come back and stay. In my case, I found another part inside that had a fighting spirit... she seemed like a teenager who had had enough of all the craziness and she was determined that life had to be livable.

Just as a footnote, this is a particular style of therapy called parts therapy or Internal Family Systems. It may sound a little crazy to speak in terms of parts of oneself, but for some people it is a way to get a dialog going and to organize the confusing dynamics inside.

I wish you well, Endless!

Edited by finding my way
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Hi,

I think expressing things we have tried to keep inside and deal with ourselves is very important. I think in many cases it lets us feel far less alone, because we find others can relate.

I agree with that because I know I have found a lot of relief from getting things out, things I had kept inside me for most of my life. Knowing that others related to what I revealed has helped me because I realised that I wasn't so alone after all. I think just knowing that someone has heard your cry of pain, your cry for help, is a huge thing, and I know being on here has helped me in so many different ways.

If all you feel inside is hurt, anger, regret, bitterness and hate, that is no place for a little girl.

Finding, I don't want to feel this way but I do! :) I want to unlock the door of the cage and let my younger self out to live again, free of all the emotions that have kept her in such pain. I remember that young girl, how much she loved life and what dreams she had. I remember how she would feel sometimes... that if she could only jump high enough she would be able to fly. I lost those good feelings a long time ago and now when I think of her I see her, crying, screaming for an escape from the pain and hurt. it's so so hard to not just give up.

I know i've been over this before, and sometimes it seems like i'm going round and round in circles, getting nowhere. It hurts so much still.

I just re-read what I wrote and realised that the second part of my post appears to contradict the first part so I want to explain that I feel I am a lot better and though I am not yet fully okay, it is a big improvement to where I was a couple of years ago.

Edited by Endlessnight
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(((EN)))

I have one idea, maybe wrong, maybe too naive... :) Could it help to think about some little things that this girl inside you would enjoy, and then search for these little things or do them, just to make her feel good? I mean really simple tasks, as for example buying an icecream, seeing a funny film, or going for a walk in a park, ... I know that these things can't "remove all the bad emotions stucked in you for years", but... I imagine that while you would do them with the idea "I'm doing it for the little girl, just to make her feel good for a while", they could become more important for you than they seem to be now. What do you think?

L.

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Dear EN, a few thoughts:

(This is from my own experience, not from some special knowledge or learning; it's just how it worked for me. But maybe some little thing in this will help you?):

I know i've been over this before, and sometimes it seems like i'm going round and round in circles, getting nowhere. It hurts so much still.

Many years ago, I would say the same thing in therapy and one day the therapist explained to me that yes, we do go in circles; we keep cycling back to things we have gone through before, but each time around the circle gets slightly smaller and the trend is towards greater awareness and being closer to your core or the core of the issue. So when the same issues come around again, it's not that you've got nowhere, you're simply coming around this way again, looking at it slightly differently. This kind of thing is circular, not linear. It also feels as if it is going nowhere because it happens incrementally, in ways that feel like nothing but which, bit by bit, add up to change.

I want to unlock the door of the cage and let my younger self out to live again, free of all the emotions that have kept her in such pain.

This happens incrementally, not so much by driving the anger and bitterness and grief out, as by allowing kindness and listening and compassion to soak in. The scales will get closer to tipping in favour of happiness, but this can only happen in baby steps. My first thought when i read this was that it sounded a bit like trying to eat an elephant. Of course you want to eat all of it, right now and get it done. Of course you would like a total transition, with all the negative emotions gone. But the transition has lots of little steps in it. Memories and negative emotions don't go away, but as you give more attention to compassion and moments of enjoyment, they recede. But you need to start tipping the scales in small manageable steps or you'll be overwhelmed by the task and feel you are getting nowhere and get frustrated and feel hopeless. (Even in therapy, this happens slowly.)

Can you try and plan one short time each day to do something that makes you happy? Make it a daily habit? What do you enjoy or what did you used to enjoy? Just a little bit, but every day. It's hard when that little bit of time ends and the girl has to be put aside again and it hurts when all you want is to be free of everything, but done every day, the moments add up. At least that is how it worked for me.

Oh, I hope this doesn't come across as me telling you what to do. I just know that place you speak of and that desperate wish to feel better and free of the pain.

Hugs ...

Edited by Luna-
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LaLa,

"I'm doing it for the little girl, just to make her feel good for a while", they could become more important for you than they seem to be now. What do you think?

it's not naive at all LaLa. Thank you for suggesting it to me, I think it's a good idea and I will try to do that. (((((hugs)))))

Luna, thank you for your thoughtful and kind reply to my post:

This happens incrementally, not so much by driving the anger and bitterness and grief out, as by allowing kindness and listening and compassion to soak in. The scales will get closer to tipping in favour of happiness, but this can only happen in baby steps.

I think I understand what you are saying, and it makes a lot of sense. I guess i do have unrealistic hopes - wishing that everything would just go away like magic. That isn't how life works, is it? We have to work hard to get where we want to go.

But you need to start tipping the scales in small manageable steps or you'll be overwhelmed by the task and feel you are getting nowhere and get frustrated and feel hopeless

that's exactly how I have been feeling lately - that i've gotten nowhere and feel so frustrated Luna. I feel so sorry for the girl I was, when I think of how she would scream out loud sometimes, from the hurt she was feeling. I want to comfort her, to help her, to find a way to bring her to be okay with the me I am now; to step out of the cage.

Oh, I hope this doesn't come across as me telling you what to do. I just know that place you speak of and that desperate wish to feel better and free of the pain.

no, it doesn't come across as you telling me what to do. It comes across as being compassionate, thoughtful and kind.

Thank you both for reaching out to help me. I hope that I can take the advice you have given me and go on from there.

(((((hugs)))))

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I also wondered, for those struggling to re-connect to a childish part of them ...

What would you think about setting some time aside, just to play the games you did as a child, or to talk to a stuffed animal, or just generally behave like a happy six-year-old?

Would there be any harm in that? Would your child self just possibly thank you for it? :-)

{Personally, I talk to Bobo the stuffed panda, and occasionally do the "happy butt dance" ...}

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I got my first stuffed animal, a teddy bear, just over a year ago when I was given my first birthday party ever. I slept with it every night. :)I bought myself another stuffed animal, a panda, a few months after that.

I would love to have a pet to cherish. I especially love cats, and wish I could have one as a pet, but it would be impossible.

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I was lying in bed, in that state that is somewhere between being asleep and being awake, and I had what I felt was a moment of great clarity about myself. I don't know if I will be able to express clearly what that was, but i'm going to try.

Sometimes I feel I am being paranoid about my privacy, but then I remember how my father and later, my brother, read any letters sent to me from friends and relatives in England, and took those they didn't want me to see, went through my diary, my poetry, (my brother even went through my photo album and removed any pictures that he was in, and especially of his wedding, that's how much he hates me), so I stopped writing completely.

I realised I have no sense of self. I was stripped of that, knowing that they had read my innermost thoughts and feelings, made fun of them - it made me feel as though I were standing naked in a street full of people. My feelings of shame, helplessness, frustration and hurt were overwhelming, It broke me.

I had no way to express what I was going through, I lost my sense of 'self'.

I don't know yet what my realisation of this will mean to me, but at least I have acknowledged it, and maybe it's a start to finding out who I really am.

Edited by Endlessnight
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If I have no sense of 'self' right now, I just realised that I can make myself into something I like, someone I can live with, someone that has no baggage, none of the negative feelings that have kept me in chains for most of my life. It's a startling realisation, and one I will need to think about a lot.

I love this realisation, EN!!! :(

And to your previous post: Yes, it's exactly what they have done to you :mad:! But my point of view is, that you started to "create your self" here, when you became a member of this community. This is exactly the environment that can support this process and I can tell you that I see "your SELF" in your post very clearly, you are there, you created on these pages (blogs, threads) the world that they have stolen from you when they read your diary and poetry, ...! And this world is in your hands, you can transform it to the "shape/form" you'd like, you can change your world to the one you would feel homely/cozy in! :(

Good luck on your way to your self, to your better world!!! :(

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Hi LaLa, I love this realisation too. :(

And this world is in your hands, you can transform it to the "shape/form" you'd like, you can change your world to the one you would feel homely/cozy in!

I don't believe it has taken me 30+ years to come to understand this. It is a huge step I think, and scary for me, but I hope that with the support and advice from friends here on this forum, I can take it step by step and build a new me, if not on the outside, then at least on the inside. That's where it counts, right?:(

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Maybe it isn't so much building a new you, Endless, as it would be discovering and understanding your true self...a self that has been held back by fear and pain. You could think of it as starting over. Maybe you could begin by getting to know the little girl and taking care of her.

A stuffed panda? That sounds cute. :( The animals might be a way of helping you stay connected with the little girl.

Wishing you well today, M.

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Hi IrmaJean.

Maybe you could begin by getting to know the little girl and taking care of her.

I don't know how to get to know her IrmaJean, it's as though she's a separate person from me. I feel her pain but don't really know what to do about it.

Maybe it isn't so much building a new you, Endless, as it would be discovering and understanding your true self...a self that has been held back by fear and pain. You could think of it as starting over.

I don't really know who my true self is, that's why it's scary I guess. But I feel a sense of adventure and somewhat exhilirated at the thought that I can re-make myself perhaps, into someone I can like. :)

I feel like this:

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
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I want to share with you, Endless, something that a good friend of mine once shared with me. I don't think he'd mind my passing it along. I found it to be very powerful and enlightening.

Apparently it was written by Marianne Williamson but has been attributed to Nelson Mandela? :confused: Anyhow, the message is a positive one that struck a chord with me.

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light' date=' not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."[/quote']

Still gives me the chills just reading it. I believe in this and need to remind myself of it at times.

I think perhaps you already have achieved some of the goals on your list, but now you might allow yourself to see these traits in yourself. You're an inspiration, M. Sending serene, healing vibes your way.

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