Believing My Own Story
What inner child work is and why it is important.
Trauma, attachment, affects our adult selves.
my husband told me this.
wanting to bolt when things got hard.
Perfectionism.
Not feeling worthy.
constant survival mode.
Afraid in the world.
When Ian and I began inner child work, I had a hard time feeling any compassion at all for my little girl self. In fact, if my little girl self and I had been two real girls on the playground, I would have been the mean girl in this scenario for all the compassion I showed her. Ironic, because I am all kinds of compassionate toward other people, including the ones who let me down as a child, but not so much toward myself.
Healing truly began for me with believing my own story, but it didn’t come easy. I preferred the story I told myself. The story in which I was somehow responsible for my father’s alcoholism and my mother’s failure to protect my siblings and me.
It took me thinking about my daughter growing up in similar circumstances or my nieces, sisters, just like my sister and I. They were the easiest to picture since they were sisters. The have the best father though. My younger brother didn’t live through what my sister and I and my older brother did because by that time, circumstances had radically changed. I’d have to see them in my story to come anywhere near having any empathy for myself. My father was a violent alcoholic. Guns in the home. He shot a hole through a piece of furniture one time. He waved a gun around toward the neighbor’s house. My mother once had to subdue him on the floor of the kitchen. She was six months pregnant at the time. Stuff like that.
I never saw myself as a victim even though children truly are victims. Powerless, defenseless, and vulnerable, physically and emotionally, children truly are victims. But, I never saw myself that way. I never saw my violent alcoholic father as a monster. It all became normal. It my family, it was just something that happened to me, that I should get over and move on from—there’s that word again “move on.” Not get stuck. But I did get stuck. In a mentality that didn’t allow myself to label myself a victim of but a survivor of childhood trauma.
Healing began for me with believing my own story.
I reject the victim mentality. You never get anywhere with that mentaility, but you also don’t get anywhere if you don’t acknowledge what happened to you and the trauma you still carry.
Yes, the goal was insight but Ian always emphasized taking constructive action in the present to
Tips on finding a therapist: Ask for referrals from family, friends, and co-workers and do your homework. Don’t be afraid to switch to another therapist if it isn’t a good fit, just give the relationship a shot before making a change. Don’t be afraid to speak up if there’s something bothering you about the therapy itself. As with most issues, concerns can be fixed with communication. Therapists are bound by a code of ethics. If something seems untoward, run fast and far in the other direction. Check out the resources page for more information.