My Childhood Pain

It didn't take long for my healthy amazing-breakthrough-over-the-weekend adult to beckon from within for deeper healing. That is just my way of saying, Tuesday was a slam. I had gone to bed with such peace and contentment from the memories and connection over the past few days. I woke to a startling awareness of some shame messages in my head (one in particular caught my attention: “I am a piece of crap”). I didn't dwell on them, but knew I should journal my thoughts as I have learned that this is a helpful way for me to process things. It didn't take long before I had a flood of memories pouring onto the pages regarding my childhood. It was if a screen had been lifted and I was aware of the amount of pain I had as a child. I was remembering a lot of chaos due to the anger, often in rage, created around and mostly by father.

I had recently been thinking about the disconnect to my early childhood. I have held onto the happiness of my childhood, only allowing the pleasant memories to be recalled with any clarity. I could reference to a degree some yelling by my father, and a level of anger and unhappiness. But all in all, I felt that I had a very healthy childhood. However, I say this fairly often: “the physical facts are saying something else.” I acknowledged that there was an imbalance of my adult behaviors and codependency to my childhood recollection as to the amount of dysfunction there was in my family. I knew there were some missing pieces, I just didn't feel like “digging” and so I accepted that the memories will come when they come.

And they came yesterday morning, and with this memory floodgate was a lot of emotional pain for the little girl who watched her father’s outrage at her mother, her brothers, and herself.  I remembered spending a lot of time crying in my room, and distraught over the uncertainty of my life. I remembered witnessing and experiencing some physical abuse, and a lot of yelling. Little Sara needed comforting. With these memories were a downpour of tears and lament. It is the kind of crying that is to be released and expressed, not suppressed.   

It soon became evident that I needed to take the day off from work. So I reached into my tool bag of good recovery behaviors and reached out to connect with a friend. Actually, to several. And behold, I came up empty-handed, at least for the time being. I received caring responses but everyone I contacted was unavailable to meet with me. I knew it was God directing me to deal with this head-on and he wanted me to know that I was not alone. I just needed to be – to allow the tears to flow, to feel the pain, to comfort my inner child, and to allow God to comfort me. So that is what I did, and I certainly felt the pain lessen.

After a time, I started walking around the track at the park where I had settled. It helped me transition from comforting Little Sara to acceptance and moving on. After the park, I went to lunch with a dear friend who gave me much welcomed feedback and then I topped off my day with a relaxing massage at Indigo Oasis (yes, a plug for my friend’s spa). Ahhh, self-care – a wonderful tool!

I believe I managed to stay in the Healing Lane in spite of it feeling so vastly painful. I was pleased to talk with Debra late in the day and was able to process a bit about the recollections from my childhood and the feelings that surfaced. I wanted to know what healthy behavior looks like in these situations. She said that although it seems counter-intuitive, doing what I was doing by allowing the feelings to be expressed was it; seeking to medicate though alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, and the like was not it. I passed; or perhaps better put: I maintained lane control! Honk-honk!! She encouraged me to continue to comfort my Little Sara, which I did. As I nodded off to sleep with Ducky tucked in my arms (a recommendation to comfort the inner child) peace was there once again. Quite a day, and whew, this recovery journey is quite a ride.