I decided to write again because this has been an important week for me. On one level it has been a very busy week and the demands being made on me increased so that I didn't feel at one stage I was coping at all well. I rang my friend who knows what I am trying to deal with in myself and he advised me 'to hang on in there' as I really felt like jacking in my work and home and just running away (well I know this was what it would really mean doing). To change my work or home at the moment would really throw me at a time when I need stability and a familiar environment but given that the people around me do not know what I am also trying to come to terms with, I'm finding it very hard to live this 'double life'. Emotionally I'm struggling to hold it together, I'm not sleeping well and feeling tired a lot of the time.

Fortunately, towards the end of the week I managed to create some space for myself. I've been reading about how to recover your inner child and decided to try some of the exercises suggested. I realise that formerly this kind of self-help therapy was something I would pooh pooh as being self-indulgent nonsense. This I now know was my ultra-logical mind which has ruled the roost for so many years being afraid of what my feelings, senses, intuition and imagination might have to teach me about myself and my past. So, still slightly skeptical, I began to write letters to and from my inner child, to allow my inner child to draw pictures and symbols (using my non-dominant hand) and generally to open myself to what my childhood self felt and experienced. It has been strangely liberating if a bit disturbing as well. When I try to recall childhood memories directly even what I can picture seems divorced from me, in other words these incidents seem to have happened to someone else, not me. I cannot recall any feelings, sensations, or thoughts that were mine at the time, I only have adult reflections from now on the events. But I also have an excess of powerful and disturbing feelings and intuitions which I seem to be unable to connect to any current reality.

I'm not sure if this is making any sense but what I have found is that talking with my inner child and letting her express herself has enabled me to relive past events as she actually experienced them. She can now speak about her hurt, fear, anger, confusion and loneliness and I am starting a process of re-parenting her so as to give her the love and safety that she never experienced then. I know this is not an over night solution but it is a way forward which I'm finding helpful. I'm learning to reconnect with a part of me that has been silenced for a long time and it will take a lot of work to bring me to a sense of wholeness that I want and think I should have. It's like trying to love and trust your self when your self has no feeling of value or worth so doesn't see why anyone would want to love and trust it. It's extremely painful to be exposed to your own childhood self's feelings of shame, badness and sense of betrayal. 

What's hard is realising I've been lying to myself all my life because I couldn't face the truth that my parents didn't love me and were abusing me. I wanted so badly to be loved by them that I buried the truth and all the pain that went with it and convinced myself and everyone else that I came from a loving family. When I finally allowed my childhood self to speak I discovered what I'd always secretly known: that when I was very small my father was sexually abusing me and throughout my childhood my mother physically and emotionally bullied me so that my whole childhood was lived in terror and without the signs of love that I desperately needed. In some senses it's frightening to realise the depths of pain and confusion inside of me but it's better to know what healing needs to take place than to live in the dark. 

I will persevere with the work on myself that I have begun now that I have the knowledge and the tools to do that. I think possibly I may try and speak to a therapist or at least find someone with whom to share my writings and drawings. It seems important to have them acknowledged somehow, even though 'baring my soul' like this feels like a big risk. Maybe I won't do it just yet. If I thought someone was going to be reading what I write I mightn't be as honest with myself as I need to be!
Well, I think that's all for now,
With best wishes,
Anon.

Jamie's reply:

Dear Anon

Your reaction to the healing journey is very normal and I sometimes find myself being very skeptical too.  I think what you have discovered is how valid something like the inner child exercise can be.  Well done for persevering and trying the self-help side of the journey.  I'm firmly of the opinion that trying something once is far batter than sitting back and pooh-poohing an idea straight away!  Good for you.  Superimposing adult feelings and emotions onto your child hood memories is very common, and potentially damaging.  This is where all the guilt and shame feelings come from.  My personal experiences of the healing journey seem to hold very similar to your own.  I can vividly remember the details of the abuse, but I have no sound or recollections of the emotions.  All I can remember are the actions.  Its like watching a silent movie in my head, detached and impersonal.

Your idea of therapy is excellent and I would thoroughly recommend it. However I realise the fear about opening up and perhaps now isn't the right time.  If you let me know where you live I can provide a list of therapists in your area.  At least then you'll be armed with the necessary information should you decide you are now ready.

I am more than happy to read through your work so far, although I'll fully understand if you decide not to share.

Your letter is very sad, but at the same time very uplifting.  You show great commitment to healing and trying all the alternatives.  With your permission I would like to add your letter to the website so that others can benefit from your intuition and bravery.

Warm regards

Jamie