Living As All of Me

[HannahOne]

Today I had an obvious but profound realization.

I survived. Without a mother.

Part of me is so tired. I've been complaining for months I'm so tired, so tired. Looking for a new therapist made me beyond weary. I felt 10 million years old, an ancient tortoise. So tired. I can't go through this again, can't create another relationship, can't try again to rescue myself, I'm so tired.

Part of me has been holding on, trying harder and harder, searching, thinking I can't survive without a mother.

But I already did.

I even mothered without a mother.

I don't know how I did it.

I impress myself.

I survived without a mother.

In that sense, the search is over. The constant struggle, the stress of not knowing if I can make it, or how. The attempts to heal. All the work, the hard labor, picking at the rocks of my broken memories for years, dragging my chains around under the hot sun. All that's done. I already survived. My survival itself is in the past!

I did it.

Lately I've been having brief intense storms of tears. Letting myself go all the way down, the bottom is a trampoline and I'm right back up. It doesn't last. I can withstand it. I stay with myself. Poor baby. Poor thing. You poor little thing. I'm so sorry. So sorry.

Protector parts come in and tell me I failed, that I'm so sad means I did it all wrong, I should have zigged when I zagged, should have studied science and not literature, or should have studied literature and not religion, or should have not married/married differently/left a long time ago/stayed in a better way... Recognizing these protective parts, I assure them I'm ok, I can tolerate the grief. They quiet. And then it's not long, just some caring, and it passes.

I can see that these intense feelings, these tears, are old feelings. They literally feel old, old and tired, and very very young. I know what they are about. And that it is over.

With this new realization, the sadness is even lighter to tolerate. I did it. I survived without a mother. It seemed impossible, inconceivable. but I did it.

Breathing in, I experience myself in a new way, I can feel myself solid all the way through, my chest rising feels like mine, my ribs collapsing feel like me, my head feels connected to my lungs, All of Me is in here, we all survived.

It's like they didn't know. They are starting to see, know, believe that they survived. They are coming out of the past and into the present. They are no longer frozen and stuck in horrible scenes.

I was reading today in _Mother Hunger_ that love is not enough. The love has to be translated into attunement. It's all well and good for a parent to love a child, but that does nothing for a child unless it is translated into care. I will no longer accept declarations of "love." I will only accept care and good faith attempts at attunement. If I can't have that, I will attune to myself, like the little red hen. Better attuned to myself and alone than with someone who is not capable or interested in basic attunement.

Attuning to myself means slowing down. Noticing the specific edges and seams of things, noticing what came just before, what comes after. It's not enough to say, "I'm sad" and "aw, I'm sorry." The sadness has nuance, it reflects and refracts the light in a specific way. Taking the time to actually pick up what the parts of me are putting down matters. It's how I can translate a theoretical love for myself into something All of Me can actually use.

I'm grateful for the protectors who got me to this point. They too were young, and did the best they could. I'm grateful to those the protectors were trying to shelter. They were young, and they didn't give up. They waited for me all these years. I'm grateful I'm alive. Parts of me are still scared. Scared of uncertainty, and scared of blame and self hatred that still hangs around. Over time, these inner conflicts will get resolved. I will keep helping all parts of me coexist, have mutual understanding and respect, have productive conflicts, and learn to listen.

It's much less lonely with All of Me here. In that sense, I am the one I was looking for.

[NarcKiddo]

This is a profound realisation.

It reminds me of something I read recently, though I have not found the actual paper. It was written by Donald Winnicot, who is the man who presented the concept of the 'good enough mother', which I think is a vitally important concept. He apparently also wrote of his theory that what you fear has already happened to you. It speaks to abandonment suffered as an infant that cannot be fully remembered both logically and emotionally because the logical processing was not yet online. His argument is that we fear abandonment (or whatever) because we have already been through it and we know what it feels like. We never want to feel like that again. But because we are not consciously aware of having survived it once we cannot comfort ourselves with the fact that it is survivable.

I am happy to read that All of You survived and is there together. Indeed, you did it.   

[Dalloway]

It is, indeed, very profound and it touched my heart deeply. Grieving something that was never present, the shadow of something that should have been, is one of the hardest things to do. I´m glad you had all your "buddies" there, the protectors that tried (and are still trying) their best to keep it together and survive. And all of you DID survive. Realizing and cherishing that victory is a huge bow to the system that kept all of you alive. I´m happy for you. 

[SenseOrgan]

What a beautiful realization. What I like most about this post is the love and respect for All of You that runs through it. Not the the lip service, but the lived experience. In your bones. You would't feel that if you didn't know you deserve it. Embodied. I'm happy for you dear HannahOne. Thanks for making my day. ❤️❤️❤️