It all started with a cough. Then it evolved into a story about a runaway. And then betrayal and death. And then silence. Always silence. But first, the cough. I had never seen a horse cough before. She would lean forward, stretch her head down towards the ground, and her entire body would convulse to …
I’ve started reading Reconciliation: healing the inner child, by Thich Nhat Hanh. The five pages of the introduction have already had me openly weeping several times, and my favourite purple ink underlines nearly half the words. Beautiful and painful and horrible and wonderful. And through it all, I fight with myself that I am worth …
When I started writing, I really struggled with why. Why would anyone want to hear from me? Why would I matter, my story matter? Why would anyone want to read my words? I want to be heard. Ok, so does pretty much everyone. Why me? Why should anyone listen to some middle class American white …
I’ve written a little about my mother’s accident, but I have been putting off the most painful parts of it, because they’re, well, painful. And scary. Overwhelming. One of those memories we are terrified to dredge up, unlocking the cage of some terrible beast that will burst out and devour us while we scream in …
There’s an Instagram account I follow, @survivingchildhoodtrauma, that posts daily writing prompts about trauma and recovery. I always read and think about them, but I’ve never written in response to one before. Until now. And not because I feel inspired, but because I feel called out and ashamed. And just sad. “How do I show …
In Inner Child work, there is a concept of Inner Protectors, basically defence mechanisms created during or following trauma to help a child deal with the event or events and to protect the child from future threats. Inner Protectors are often visualized and addressed as separate entities, and part of the recovery process involves “recruiting” …
So I’ve been doing some reading on Inner Child work as a method of working through past trauma. While parts of the process trigger the “bullshit alarms” ingrained from my father about “New Age crap,” I can see the merits and the potential for real change in myself (Man, I swear I need to be …
When you start a journey through your messed up psyche, you have to be prepared to stumble on some ugly truths about yourself. Or maybe not so much stumble upon as be smacked in the face by a baseball bat of truth. Gobsmacked, perhaps. Though that makes it seem more comical and less brutally painful. …
In thinking about my mom for my last post, I had an odd, and rather uncomfortable, realization: I think of my mother as two different people, with different names: Mom and Mother. Even in my own head, they are distinct, and when I talk with people about her/them, there is a very clear line between …
I’ve lived my life this way for so long, it begs the question: why bother to fight my way out? Why go through the messy ugly painful confusing process of trying to understand why I am the way I am and figuring out how to be different. Both the process and the possible end results …