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. ❤️❤️❤️ 

[HannahOne]

Thank you Dalloway, NarcKiddo and SenseOrgan for reading and commenting. Thank you Dalloway, for honoring All of Me that got me through. I've really been doing that lately and it's important that we honor ourselves for what we did to get here. NK, thank you for mentioning Winnicott, that's very interesting, I never read that before! SO, thank you for reflecting back to me that you see me learning to love myself. That's my goal.

I haven't been able to keep up with other people's journals lately and I Feel a bit bad about that. I feel like I'm going through an intense birth process or something, I feel squeezed on all sides and tunnel vision lol. I feel so much pressure it's taking all my focus. Soon I'm sure I will see the light!

I continue to have these momentary crying spells. Again I notice the protectors. I never noticed this before. As soon as I feel a certain kind of sadness/anger, self-blame comes in: It's just me, I'm always miserable, I'm the problem... I should just not exist.

That self-blame is trying to prevent me from hurting others by making changes to a situation, or leaving a situation. It thinks I should sacrifice myself to preserve other's happiness. Why? It's trying to prevent me from losing love.

Of course, the original pain of sadness/anger that I was feeling was about not having love!

LOL.

I was noticing and feeling very unloved, unnoticed, uncared for, untracked, unseen, unvalued.

Then self-blame, shaming myself, telling myself this is just me, I'm always miserable. My parents used to often say this, that I was Eeyore, always miserable. Well, yeah. LOL. But they were blaming me. When the situation was the problem.

I'm feeling anxious because I don't know how to change my situation in a safe way, safe for me, safe for others. In a way that isn't too chaotic, that doesn't leave any of us worse off.

But that's going to be my goal. How to change the situation so I am getting more of what I need emotionally, with as little damage to others and to myself as possible. I'm a very caring person. And, I am not going to sacrifice myself.

I need love. I need attunement. I need to be treated with respect. I need to not be a slave to the needs of others. I need healthy relationships. I need give and take, and not just give.

I feel fearful, self doubt, what if I Can't find it, what if I am incapable of enacting it? I also feel fear, what if I don't have what I need?

Growing up the price of having a roof over my head and food, sometimes, LOL... the price was myself, my body and soul too.

That's not the case now. I'm not financially independent right now. And, I could become so. I'm putting it off till I finish this medical stuff. I think that's the right decision. And, I need to remember I'm an adult, with a long resume, credit to my name, savings, some connections still, I'm not in the middle of nowhere, Midwest and I'm not 18 with no adult life and knowledge. And, it's entirely possible I can make the changes I need to make without shaking my financial situation too hard. I have to think creatively. I also know that if I were financially independent right now, it wouldn't change a thing... the real hangup is the protector thinking that I have to pay this price and sacrifice myself, and the protector not wanting me to cause anyone else any pain at all, instead of saying this situation is too painful and not feeding me it wants me to keep serving others. And that was really useful at the time. When I was two. And four. And twelve.

It's just very outdated. And not necessary in the same way now. These are EFs. My situation does need a tuneup. And my situation is not the same as when I was a child. This is in part a run of the mill adult midlife crisis.

I think the first thing continues to be to leave my house and meet people. It worked so well, I found the wildlife rehab, the poetry group, exercise classes. I didn't make a close friend, but I built a structure of belonging. I just haven't gotten back to that project and now I'm traveling for a few weeks. I will get back to it. I will find more of my people. I want to try out new relationships, learn how to get to know people, learn how to be known. It doesn't seem that hard. I just have to put myself in those situations a lot more. I think it will bring me much more clarity about just how "off" my situation really is. I can't tell in isolation, I need more data. And it will bring me more clarity about what I need emotionally. What is an Ef, what is old feelings of being unloved, unseen, unvalued? And what is now, what of those feelings are related to now? I honestly can't tell right now. It's a confused swirled up mess.

What I want to remember from today is the importance of just leaving my house. Even if I just go sit in a parking lot. It's better than lying in bed. And I want to remember that today sitting by a river I struck up conversation with a man. It was easy and went great. And I wasn't even scared. Then he went on his way. I want to remember that I have the social skills, I can read people a lot better than I used to. I can keep myself safe. I don't need to isolate. I can be a person among people. He saw me as a person. We commiserated on the beautiful weather. He had a patch on his arm, he must be diabetic. I admired his long bike riding ability. He was happy to be outside and getting exercise. I was happy to sit in the shade at the table he was momentarily occupying. He was happy to have me sit there. It was a brief moment of acknowledgement that's hard to find (I am old!!) these days.. LOL nowadays the young people don't connect with strangers like they used to... It was a brief moment of two strangers acknowledging something together and I am interested in more of that. That's not even attunement, love, or sharing. That's just being a person among people. Isolating triggers so much pain, so much grief, it triggers the EFs. It feels safer to isolate. What I want to remember about today is that isolation triggers me very badly and the best medicine is to go out and make conversation with random strangers. I find my humanity in the shared humanity of others. I won't find it in the recesses of my own mind. Frank is much more of a rabbit around other rabbits. His speed-dating is not going well, I think he's been without a rabbit friend for too many years. But we will persevere. It's not good for rabbit/HannahOne to be alone.

[sanmagic7]

I need love. I need attunement. I need to be treated with respect. I need to not be a slave to the needs of others. I need healthy relationships. I need give and take, and not just give.

profound, indeed, hannah1.  something that's always good for me to hear as well.  i've been eliminating some actions i've done, like always being the one to reach out to others on holidays, just to see what would happen.  this past mother's day was an example.  i did not reach out to anyone first, and lo and behold, no one reached out to me, except my daughter's friends, some of whom i was a second mom to when they were growing up.  it was a good experiment for me, and another round of elimination on my part has now taken place.  whittling all the way.

i'm so glad All of You has been stepping up to the plate for you, and you're being able to be more in tune w/ yourself as a result.  this is some real progress.  keep up the good work!  love and hugs
 

[HannahOne]

SanMagic7, what you said is important to highlight. Growing up we were in uneven relationships, with the love and care going one direction. We had to be the parents, the caregivers, we had to initiate if any connection was going to happen, we had to please, perform, tap dance... By choosing to do something different, we gain awareness and maybe more choices. You didn't reach out, and you saw something, a loss, and also, one of your values, that you mothered those who were motherless and they valued that. I certainly feel mothering energy from you as part of you here, so happy belated Mother's Day! And taking care of yourself is the first job of the mother.

[Marcine]

Hi Hannah,
"How to change the situation so I am getting more of what I need emotionally, with as little damage to others and to myself as possible. I'm a very caring person. And, I am not going to sacrifice myself."

Yes. Just, yes.

[sanmagic7]

thanks, hannah1.

and    what marcine said.    keep going!  love and hugs

[Hope67]

I'm glad you're not going to sacrifice yourself Hannah.  I am also sending you a hug 

[zen_racer]

SanMagic7, what you said is important to highlight. Growing up we were in uneven relationships, with the love and care going one direction. We had to be the parents, the caregivers, we had to initiate if any connection was going to happen, we had to please, perform, tap dance... By choosing to do something different, we gain awareness and maybe more choices. You didn't reach out, and you saw something, a loss, and also, one of your values, that you mothered those who were motherless and they valued that. I certainly feel mothering energy from you as part of you here, so happy belated Mother's Day! And taking care of yourself is the first job of the mother.

Hannah, I relate to this so much.  So, so much.  One of the two boundaries I've been telling my family for the last 4.5 years since I've moved back to this area is that I don't do one sided relationships anymore.

It's been good to see that you're doing well.  I'm sorry that I haven't really responded to any of your recent and longer posts.  I just haven't really been in a place to be able to process them and properly respond, and I didn't want to disrupt your flow.  Those posts have had a different writing style, and seem really nice.   

[TheBigBlue]