going deeper into healing

[desertpine]

I'm feeling some heavy grief these days. I've been compiling my journals from childhood through young adulthood for my own recovery process. It's clear to me that one way I survived my difficult childhood was through compartmentalizing. I kept many journals at the same time but each one was for a particular area of my life - one for school, one for religious topics, one for sports, etc. I kept them separate - literally was putting my thoughts and feelings into different compartments/ notebooks. Now I'm integrating them.
It's painful and yet healing to see how interconnected things have been. Now I can how a bad grade connected to more prayers for forgiveness (my family was hyper-religious), and how I tried to cope with being yelled at by going on long bike rides or walks by myself. Its so sad to read about hating myself as a kid. I think I learned self-loathing. Like an internalized stigma - I was repeatedly told how bad kids were and since I was just a kid myself, I believed I was bad.  I believed I had a fatal flaw and no one who saw the real me would stick around. That is just so sad to read in a child's journal. I wasn't but ten years old. By 10 I learned to hate myself and expect rejection from anyone who got to know me. heartbreaking, ins't it?
My parents are old now and I've been NC for over a year. In the past I'd try to share this info with family - wanting to get validation - but I know better now. So I wrote a letter to my 10 year old self - to tell her that is wasn't her fault and what they did was wrong. Also, I feel proud of her because she's tough and insightful, doing a great job taking care of herself in a very scary time.  My intuition carried me through some very hard times, for sure.  And for that, I feel so grateful and lucky.

[Hepatica]

hi desertpine,
I am so sorry that you as a young person began to turn the the anger people had toward children into a belief system about yourself. It is so hard being a child! We need to give children breaks. Children are automatically "behind" adults in learning - so they make a lot mistakes. Adults can be so hard on children, as if they've forgotten that learning is messy and has its own timing, and, even worse, disordered parents prey on children for those reasons.

As children, we don't know any better. We just believe what is modelled to us. Unless someone comes along who shows us some kindness.

I have been going through old journals this past month as well and boy is it triggering. I feel so bad for myself as I read how fragile and broken I was, as I tried to survive a super chaotic home.

What happened when you were young was definitely not your fault. I think it's lovely that you are reaching back and communicating this to your younger self. I think also, this is why self-compassion is so important to healing this sort of wounding from childhood.

[Maxtrem]

Hi Desertpine,

Your text touched me a lot and brought back old memories!

I read the biography of a journalist in my country who has a narcissistic mother and she said: a child does not stop loving his abusive parent, he stops loving himself!

And this is very dangerous and it takes time to heal.