Feeling childhood fear (TW)

[FreedomFromTrauma]

Hi everyone,

I'm not really sure what I'm going to write but I feel like whatever it is it'll help me to write it out and know you all are reading it.

The last few days have been challenging as I've been digging into long standing pains around childhood abuse and neglect and the impact this has had on me throughout my life.

It's a long story but it involves some flare ups of strong emotion (fear, anger, shame, hatred, blame) which have been overpowering me at times and lead me to project my childhood wounds onto my partner and get very moody/angry. It's not nice for her and I'm sorry for the hurt I cause her through that.

The memory that keeps coming back to me from childhood is of my sister being angry with me (I don't know why) and running out of the room, a spider running over my foot (I was too young to know it as a spider, I just remember registering it as a 'thing' and was curious about it) then my dad bursting in absolutely furious and hitting me to the ground. I have a vague memory of crying on the floor and that's all I remember.

That memory keeps coming up and though the sickness of our culture keeps telling me to "grow up and get over it" I can also feel that part of me crying out for help. So I've been going into it and really feeling him and talking to him. As I write I can feel these feelings. The feeling of terror, of a shaking inside, a contracted terror that I experience being triggered numerous times every day especially when I'm around people I don't know, or even thinking about people or seeing them on a screen, or, now that I think about it, even with people I know very well and who have never hurt me. And under the fear there is sadness. The sadness of what I've lost in life because of the suffocating impact of this fear. That I feel isolated and unable to connect with people and live in a very frequent state of worry/dread. I feel sad for myself that this has been my life and I wish for myself that this had never been the case. I can really feel this sadness, which is rare for me. The thick, tar of sadness morphed into hopelessness and despair where I feel like life has no meaning and I'm just waiting for the time to run out so I can leave this place (to allay any concerns I am not actively suicidal though I do go into suicidal ideation at times of severe stress). I rarely allow myself real time in this thick sadness and now that I do it feels sweet.

I'm sad that this has been my life. And sad that I had parents that were unable to love and projected their own wounds into me. I'm sad that we live in a culture so sick that it denies us our healthy emotional lives and forces us into desperate denial of our humanity. I'm sad and it feels good. I'm sad and I feel compassion for myself and for all who suffer this pain. I'm sad for my dad and the horror of his internal experience that led him to do these things to me, my mum and my siblings. I'm sad for his parents, who treated him so cruelly that my child self saw him as a monster. I'm sad for the pain they must have held for so long that they could be so sick.

I write this and I feel sad and I feel sweet relief and joy. Thank God that I am actually feeling how I feel. I feel alive within my pain and thank God for daring to feel. Thank God for my partner who encourages me to feel my way through all of this. Thank God for Pete Walker and the many great feeling people who our era who act as lighthouses to guide us sensitives as we dare to feel. Thank God my body hasn't forgotten this pain so that this day would come where I would finally look at it, feel it and know I am capable and worthy of truly feeling.

I'm breaking in my sadness and feel the pain of it and thank God I actually feel happy.

I'm smiling now, as if you were to look at me you would see a broken man yet inside I feel free and am rejoicing.

Good luck to you all on your journey into feeling.

[woodsgnome]

I feel very attuned to what you've spoken about here. It's a relief to finally own up and express the anger. At first it can seem so out of character, but diving right in can, as you say, bring some peace that seemed impossible to ever find.

It took me years to reach a place where I felt confident enough to do the same, and while the old stuff threatens to drift back in, I've been helped by my T to find ways to answer those awful 'voices' which haunted my nights for years.

It's a tad involved to fully describe here, but suffice to say that the work of accomplishing this response has resulted in some meaningful healing. Albeit it has to be continually worked on, as the old scenarios stemming from the abuse are very hard to break free of.

So it's good to hear you, too, have found a way with this, and that it's helping -- good for you