I'm a "terra firma" kind of girl. I like to feel something beneath my feet. If I'm up in the air, there has to be a plane holding me up. Or if in water, my feet have to be able to touch bottom and my head must be above the surface. Anything less is terrifying. The feeling of losing control, of falling and / or drowning - has been with me for as long as I can remember. The predictable and safe has always been preferable to the unknown for me. I could postulate theories as to why this is so: a bad fall when I was two (and no, I can't remember the fall, just the fear), a couple of experiences with near-drowning. And of course the ever-present verbal abuse and added threat of physical abuse, which made me hypervigilant and edgy all the time, needing to know where I was, where everyone else was, so as to make my world safest for me.
Whatever the reason, the fact remains that I like to know where I am, to have something under my feet, to feel safe. Picturing the origin of the words 'free fall' makes me panic. To me those two words are an invitation to experience horribly disfiguring maiming, pain, and disablement - because that's the nature of the fear of what COULD happen.
Emotionally as well as physically. For many years as I was growing up, I prided myself on things and people not affecting me, of not 'losing it' emotionally.
It was an illusion.
The truth was, I was afraid to let those feelings completely come to the surface because I wasn't sure - if I plumbed the depths of them - if I'd ever be able to stop and then I would be in 'free fall'.
It was like my life was a pressure cooker. Occasionally, the relief valve let off some steam, but always the contents were under that pressure to keep a lid on it. My subconscious had a field day. Don't let yourself feel this fully. It's too painful. Yes, cry if you must, but not too long and definitely not with the abandon you feel - someone could give you more to cry about because it's just not acceptable. So deny it. Push it down. Stuff it inside, deep inside where nobody can see it. Hide it so far away that not even you know where to find it.
Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
The emotions we have are given to us to alert us to what's going on in our inner life. Feeling them fully is not a sign of weakness but of maturity.
True, while in an abusive situation, the mind creates defense mechanisms like 'numbing' to survive the experience. And once away from it ... the mind can't shut those mechanisms off (on its own) and we end up stunted emotionally. At least I did. Viciously cycling between being the stoic and being the clinging vine, always feeling like an outsider, I really didn't know how to act around people. It's hard to know what the rules are for acting around normal 'regular' people, when all you've ever known are dysfunctional 'irregular' ones.
When I first admitted (out loud to myself and to someone else) those feelings of fear, panic, anger / rage, loneliness, abandonment, and resentment, my therapist gave me - as if a great and precious gift - those amazing words, "What you're feeling is perfectly normal for what you've been through." What validation! Then, it didn't seem so scary to go to those difficult places, to exteriorize the wounds that left scars on the outside of my soul and festering infection inside, infection which had no way to make it to the surface except by re-experiencing those trauma. With God's enabling power, I could allow myself to explore the roots of my emotions, to discover why I felt the way I did, to acknowledge the pain, to fully feel those feelings, and to look at their root cause without shame or guilt for being "weak." Only then could I start to heal - from the inside out.
Was it hard? OH yes. Could I have done it on my own? NO WAY. Would I want to go through it again? Most likely NOT! Am I glad to have gone through it when I did?
Absolutely.
Whatever the reason, the fact remains that I like to know where I am, to have something under my feet, to feel safe. Picturing the origin of the words 'free fall' makes me panic. To me those two words are an invitation to experience horribly disfiguring maiming, pain, and disablement - because that's the nature of the fear of what COULD happen.
Emotionally as well as physically. For many years as I was growing up, I prided myself on things and people not affecting me, of not 'losing it' emotionally.
The truth was, I was afraid to let those feelings completely come to the surface because I wasn't sure - if I plumbed the depths of them - if I'd ever be able to stop and then I would be in 'free fall'.
It was like my life was a pressure cooker. Occasionally, the relief valve let off some steam, but always the contents were under that pressure to keep a lid on it. My subconscious had a field day. Don't let yourself feel this fully. It's too painful. Yes, cry if you must, but not too long and definitely not with the abandon you feel - someone could give you more to cry about because it's just not acceptable. So deny it. Push it down. Stuff it inside, deep inside where nobody can see it. Hide it so far away that not even you know where to find it.
Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
The emotions we have are given to us to alert us to what's going on in our inner life. Feeling them fully is not a sign of weakness but of maturity.
True, while in an abusive situation, the mind creates defense mechanisms like 'numbing' to survive the experience. And once away from it ... the mind can't shut those mechanisms off (on its own) and we end up stunted emotionally. At least I did. Viciously cycling between being the stoic and being the clinging vine, always feeling like an outsider, I really didn't know how to act around people. It's hard to know what the rules are for acting around normal 'regular' people, when all you've ever known are dysfunctional 'irregular' ones.
When I first admitted (out loud to myself and to someone else) those feelings of fear, panic, anger / rage, loneliness, abandonment, and resentment, my therapist gave me - as if a great and precious gift - those amazing words, "What you're feeling is perfectly normal for what you've been through." What validation! Then, it didn't seem so scary to go to those difficult places, to exteriorize the wounds that left scars on the outside of my soul and festering infection inside, infection which had no way to make it to the surface except by re-experiencing those trauma. With God's enabling power, I could allow myself to explore the roots of my emotions, to discover why I felt the way I did, to acknowledge the pain, to fully feel those feelings, and to look at their root cause without shame or guilt for being "weak." Only then could I start to heal - from the inside out.
Was it hard? OH yes. Could I have done it on my own? NO WAY. Would I want to go through it again? Most likely NOT! Am I glad to have gone through it when I did?
Absolutely.
No comments:
Post a Comment