Hope's Journal: Still Befriending My Parts.

[Hope67]

I've been reading Cathy Glass's book called 'The Saddest Girl in the World' over the past few days, and I am at the point in this book where Cathy is helping her fostered girl (the sad girl) to transition to living with a permanent carer, and the care and kindness with which they handle the transition and all the changes, it is really making me realise just how callous my own FOO were - with their constant moving me around, and never explaining anything.   It really shows me how much they didn't respect my boundaries, my feelings, my thoughts, anything.

I've also remembered that I had some intense feelings of pure anger this morning - I've struggled to feel anger much - about most things, but I really felt an intensity of anger earlier today.  Really intense.

I don't feel it now, but I wanted to remember that it had happened and note it here in my Journal.

I think it was good that some emotions are surfacing, even though they feel intense, I am glad to be feeling them.

Hope 

[sanmagic7]

i agree with you, hope, that it's ok to do something different than originally planned. 

also wanted to share that as i've been processing certain things, while i don't necessarily feel anger in the moment, i've had several dreams where i was really angry at someone for messing with my stuff or ignoring my boundaries.  i think that as long as those feelings emerge in some way, shape, or form, it's a good thing.  at least we're getting them out.

funny/weird, tho, that after i wake up, i can remember the dream, my reactions and emotions, and even that i felt the anger in the dream, but didn't/couldn't feel it while i was awake.  maybe it's the alexithymia thing.  don't know.  love and hugs to you, my dear.

[Not Alone]

 

[Snowdrop]

I see being able to feel anger as a good thing too.

I went for years without consciously feeling anger. It's only really been since I started working with parts that I've been able to acknowledge and feel it.

I recognise now that the anger was always there, but I pushed it down, probably because it didn't feel safe. I think abnormal, traumatic events being normalised had something to do with this too. At the time, I didn't realise that I had every right to feel angry.

[Hope67]

Hi SanMagic, Notalone and Snowdrop,
Thank you all so much for what you wrote here.   

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15th October 2020
I've read something in another thread, which was one that Gromit had done about Obsessional fantasties, and a new member had put a link to Limerance, which I'd not heard of before, but I read the information and it was interesting.  What came up for me was that I remembered how I had become quite interested in Elvis Presley when I was a child, and liked to watch his films, and listen to his music, and how I decided that he was an elder brother, in my mind.  I was quite young at the time, I can't work out how old I was - but I know that when he died, I was thrown into a grief. 

It felt like a family member had died.

I just wanted to note this here - because it felt significant.

For some reason that feels quite difficult that I've written about that.  It leaves me feeling some disquiet within myself, as if parts of me aren't happy, but I want to leave it there, as I wanted to remember it and write about it.

I was sorting through my wardrobe today - and I can't find my M's skirt - the one that I had previously kept (for fear of getting rid of it) - but this makes me wonder - where is it?  What did I do with it, and why can't I remember what I did with it...?  But part of me is relieved that it wasn't there anymore. 

In Cathy Glass's book about the fostered children, she is speaking quite a bit about the care and attention that is given to the bedtime routine of one of her fostered children by his M, and it makes me think how lucky that child was to be cared for in that way, and I feel the contrast with my own experiences. 

I'm reading the third book now in the hardback book by Cathy Glass that contains 3 books - they are 'Damaged'; 'The Saddest Girl in the World' and 'The Silent Cry' and I'm onto the third book now.  I've found all of these books really helpful in that my inner children are reading as I do, and taking in the details and thinking back to my own childhood experiences.  Comparing and learning from the contents of the books.  I find it therapeutic - and I find that I feel many emotions as I read it.

I think it's helping me to process things.  I've paused in the courses I was doing with Carolyn (her surname escapes me right now) - I was doing one about 'Shame' but I think it was too challenging for me to keep going - I needed a pause, and so I've taken one.  I will go back to it though.  I want to finish the course and I feel sure I'll learn things, but I think I fear what I might 'feel' - and that feels tough.

I have got a headache today - so I'm going to try to have an early night tonight.

Hope 

[Hope67]

17th October 2020
I've been having more dreams at night.  I should write them down, but I haven't, and so I've lost some of the content/themes.  But maybe I've not written about them on purpose - I don't know.

I really want to ask a couple of things in the forum, so I might do that later.  There's resistance amongst my parts about doing that, but I really feel like I want to seek others' thoughts about a couple of things, and so I will hope to write something later. 

Hope 

[Blueberry]

You're working hard and taking many steps. I think it's no wonder there's some resistance sometimes and/or you don't do everything you intended to. 

[Hope67]

Thank you Blueberry 

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18th October 2020
I managed to put a query in the part of the forum called Inner Children, and I feel glad to have done that.  It is about wondering how people are journalling to enable communications from inner children, i.e. on paper.

I'm getting towards the end of the third Cathy Glass book, and I already fear the fact it's an 'ending' - I really get triggered by endings or goodbyes, but I know that I am managing to process some of the reasons for that now, and therefore I'm not 'as bad' as I was previously regarding handling endings.

I've found it so therapeutic to read some of Cathy Glass's book each day, as I've imagined that me and my inner children are all there, and Cathy's writing includes details that really engage parts of myself who are at various different ages - and I feel their reactions as the book is read and processed, and it's been really helpful.  I've been reminded of so many things in my past life, and it's been really helpful to hear Cathy's perspective on things (she's a foster carer) and also her experience of professionals like Social workers, teachers etc.  Also she writes of the experiences of the fostered children, and the things they've experienced in their lives, and that helps all my younger parts to understand some things better.  Once I've read it all through, I might come back to bits I've underlined - I bought the book, and I've written in it - as I want to keep it and re-read some bits.

Hope 

[Tee]

  I'm glad it helps.

[Hope67]

Hi Tee, Thank you so much 

[Hope67]

24th October 2020
I've been thinking about the emotion of 'anger' as I know that Bach had put a post up asking for thoughts about it, and each time I've wanted to write something there, I've not felt able to do so.  Why has that been?  I think it's because I have such a lot I could potentially say about Anger, but don't feel I could put a reply that would be concise - and maybe that's why I've not been able to respond yet.  But, I hope to do so at some point - as I really appreciated Bach's post mentioning that emotion - and I really do want to think further about it, and contribute something too.  So writing this here to remind myself that I want to do that. 

Having just said that, I feel like I want to write a bit more in my journal - about Anger.  I do remember when I was very little, that I expressed feeling angry with my M, and she really shut me down, and made me feel like I shouldn't feel that emotion - and even more strongly, that I was 'wrong' to express it to her directly - hence I think I swallowed the emotion down afterwards, and didn't feel I could feel or express it.  But I think it went into my body - in terms of tension in my neck, my jaw, and gritting my teeth quite a bit.  I'm thankful that I don't do this anymore as an adult, but I think I did it for quite a few years whilst a child and teenager and even into my early 20's. 

I have begun to feel some anger recently - in recent months, but what I noticed early on was that there was a part of me who seemed to express the anger - she would swear and crash about physically in my mind, and respond to stuff with angry movements.  But you'd not know that if you looked at me, the person, as I wouldn't show that.  Just felt that part of me reacting.  More recently I've actually been able to 'feel the anger' more directly - as if it's within me, rather than as a part of myself. 

Also I experimented a bit the other day - just this last week - by allowing myself to shout and express my anger about something 'out loud' (as I was alone at home at the time, so had the freedom to do that) and I found it quite liberating to do that for a bit.  I also surprised myself with the level of anger that came out of myself. 

However, later in the day, I found the anger was still there, and quite strong...!

When I told my partner what I'd been doing, he looked a bit worried - as I think he was concerned about how it would be to have an angry version of me - and I told him that I didn't want to have to worry about him, as if I did so, then I would be bottling up my feelings, and repressing them again, and I said I didn't think I'd be bad with my anger - but that expressing it would be good for me.  Just as feeling my emotions is better for me than diverting or avoiding them.

See, I'm writing a lot - I feel like I can't write all of this in the post where Bach asked about Anger - I feel like I'd be monopolising the space.  I am not sure I could write it succinctly.

Something else that I've noticed this week, is that I am moving towards emotions that I find uncomfortable, and not avoiding them - and this has meant that I'm beginning to process more things - especially at night - when I feel waves of EF's surfacing, and feel the contact of different parts of myself - who hold different intensities of emotions.  I am feeling less afraid than I might have felt previously, because I am welcoming the contact and wanting to understand it - rather than try to distract or avoid it.

I have made a start with my written journal - where I am going to allow different parts of myself to write.  I had some helpful feedback from some people in the forum about how they use their journals, and one of my parts decided she wanted to write in the middle, on a 'random page' - so she did. 

Interesting that later, another part kept putting the thought in my mind that she wanted to go and 'gauge out' the pages of the book - which was quite a destructive image, and I didn't go with that suggestion, as I want my book to remain intact.  But I do think there are parts that have quite a bit of stuff they want to express, and have been putting images of things in my head recently suggesting that they'd like to express things.  I can't write the content of those things - but they are not very nice.  I'm not sure how to deal with that.  But I wanted to write it here, so I remember it.

Can't think of anything else I want to write here today, but glad to have written something.
Hope 

[Hope67]

I've been watching the latest version of 'The Secret Garden' film, and then I was able to go to write something about 'Anger' in another thread in the forum, and ended up re-reading something I'd written in 2019 about my own anger, and now I am feeling upset inside myself.

I'm not sure what the trigger is - whether it was watching 'The Secret Garden' - which is a book and film that I relate to so much, or whether it was thinking about the emotion of anger. 

Anyway, it's good that I'm in touch with my emotions more, and feeling them more - I think that's better than dissociating and numbing.  I do think that is better to feel them, and I am definitely doing so.

I feel better already for having just written that.  Strangely I have an ache in my stomach though, feeling some pain there.    Not too bad though. 

Hope 

[sanmagic7]

hey, hope, i related to much of what you wrote about anger, expressing it in various ways, getting it out of you. personally, i've found it helpful when i've done that, including what you said about being loud in expressing it (in the past i would sometimes bang pots and pans together for the noise they made - very satisfying!  i think that also comes from my childhood wherein we were basically allowed to be 'seen but not heard'. always the good, quiet, little girl, but boy do i love to make noise about things now!  and it feels so much better!

i've had anger journals where i've designated them expressly for anger. they were different than therapy or recovery journals in that i used a red pen (red represented anger to me) and allowed the anger to come out any way it wanted, including terrible thoughts and words, tearing the paper with the pen because i was writing so hard, scribbles, and just aggressive marks on the page. when that notebook was filled, i walked it out of the house to the garbage bin to be picked up and taken away.

so, my thought that came to mind while i was reading how some of your parts want to be really aggressive with their anger, was - would it be possible to get anger journals for each of your parts that request or need one, and let them utilize it the best way for them to get their anger out?  that way, if one of them wants to gouge, rip and tear, they could do that without losing the rest of your thoughts, which would be in your own personal journal.   don't know if that would work for you, and if not, please ignore.

we've been taught so well, haven't we?  just goes to show how intelligent we are, to have learned those lessons so young in order to make our lives as easy as possible.  sending love and a hug filled with release.

[Hope67]

Hi SanMagic,  It is so lovely to see you again, and I've thought about you recently, but haven't been over to your Journal - I need to catch up on how things are with you, and I hope to do that in the next few days.  Thank you so much for what you've said here - it's really helpful - I already realise that trying to write in my written journal has brought up very strong feelings in an angry part of myself, and your solution of having a journal purely for that part to use - it makes a lot of sense, and I really think it could be helpful - thank you!



Hope 

[Violet Magenta]

Hi Hope,

What you've shared about integrating your parts has been immensely helpful over the past couple of days. I've been reading journals to get familiarized here, and maybe to feel less alone in all this. I think you've helped me to better identify more layers of that struggle in my own experiences and feelings. Anger has been a particularly difficult one for me as well, and I think I've self-censored it out much of my life. It's helping to be able to find it there, and to stop it from turning inward. So, I just wanted to say hello and thank you for sharing what you've been experiencing here. 

Viola