Content warning: contains references to abuse and the long term effects of it.
I was scrolling twitter and saw a tweet asking people to retweet with their six words or less epitaph. I thought it might be fun and started pondering. Whilst pondering I was suddenly hit by a wave of grief so strong that I had to take some time out.
This grief is hard to deal with, hard to manage and hard to come to terms with. It isn’t for a friend or family member. It is grief for who I might have been.
It is grief that makes me hurt to my core and makes me want to sob or shout that it isn’t fair.
And it isn’t fair. I will never know who I would have been if I had been able to grow up without being abused. I was abused from an early age until puberty.
In coping and protecting myself, I developed hyper vigilance and that contributed to me never feeling safe. My normal became not the same normal as other people’s. I built strong walls inside me to be safe. I locked off parts of me so completely that I couldn’t access them. I learnt how to survive the world and how to be ‘ok’.
I know that my childhood friendships and teenage friendships were transitory because of keeping people locked out. I know that family relationships with the generation above me have been distanced because that was what I needed to do. I know that I can easily disassociate and it’s remaining present that is hard.
The granite walls that I built, protected me but they also mean that I blocked childhood memories and I have continuing difficulties with keeping long term memories of experiences – it breaks my heart how much I struggle to remember my children’s early years.
My new dosage of medication have made a big difference in lifting the fog. It has dissolved some of the walls I built which has been an amazing and emotional experience. It has given me the chance to see the difference between who I can be and who I have been while I have been locked into a survival mode.
It hurts to see that I can feel a sureness in who I am that I have never felt before. It hurts that I now know that the things that I went through stopped me from feeling a love, a caring and a nurturing for myself for all of those decades. It hurts how much of who I am has been shaped by the way I had to lock parts of me away.
I need to grieve for the person that I could have been. I need to grieve for the childhood that I could have had. I need to forgive myself for the long term impact of protecting myself. I need to nurture a new relationship with the recently discovered parts of my soul.
I am angry and hurting but I also have a new existence.
That made me well up. I have seen avoidant attachment in others and it is a prison of suffering. There is nothing wrong with you, OK? Please please read “Come As You Are” by Emily Nagoski. Xx
This is so beautiful and poignant, Honey. So much love to you. xx
Thankyou for sharing Honey. This resonates so deeply with me.
Maybe I should write about my own experiences 💋💋
Thank you for your sharing you. I similarly grieve so many might have beens if I had not be so physically and emotionally and verbally beaten when I was a child. The sadness I still feel every day. It helps to be reminded that we are not alone in this universe. There are sacred links among us as we share ourselves.