Gunhild Archer, counselor

Most often I feel drawn to write when I am in the end stage of processing something. That is when I have it all figured out and do not risk saying something that might not be well thought through. It leaves me with a sense of control. I feel safe from humiliation and criticism.

Having made the decision to allow myself to express as I am still in the midst of whatever I am going through… It feels scary. I notice a certain readiness to defend myself. My body is tense. Hard even. I cannot stop thinking about how much it hurts when I let people in on how I feel, just to be met with minimizing, advice or attempts to lighten my mood.

This morning I woke up from an unpleasant dream. I could not remember what I had dreamt, but the discomfort was strongly present in my body. I struggled to put my finger on what exactly I was feeling. As I was writing my morning pages, it became increasingly more clear.

Usually I encounter what I have come to describe as “a revelation sentence”. It is a sentence who gets to the core of whatever is going on. The sentence that chose to reveal itself this morning was “I want justice. I want them to admit to what they have done”. As I kept writing I discovered the presence of several different feelings. Feelings of being tainted. Feeling of self-disgust. Feelings of hurt. I noticed betrayal. And last, but not least, there was anger (borderline rage). An image of me standing in front of my parents, my previous therapist, my siblings, people from my childhood, kept showing itself in my minds eye. As I observed the image, I slowly felt despair starting to arise, along with a familiar sense of loneliness. “There is no one to turn to, no one who believes me, I am all alone with my truth.”

A part of me kept coming back, she was easy to see as she expressed in big letters. “I DON’T KNOW WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO!” She turned to me for answers, which has been happening occasionally the last few months. It is peculiar as they use my name to get my attention. “Gunhild, please help me, I don’t want to feel like this!”

I was feeling the feeling of two realities at once. Mine. And the reality of everyone else. Those who do not see beyond, those who do not understand, those who are not in touch with themselves… Those whom I cannot trust to receive me if I were to share the truth of how I feel.

It is challenging to live in a world where I can see the different realities that are coexisting, yet mine is not acknowledged.

The feelings of self-disgust, hurt and betrayal intensified. As I was letting the feelings bleed out, down on the paper, I realized that the feelings I was witnessing came from inside me. I cannot escape them. Ever. The damage has been done and I am forced to live with it. I can acknowledge the truth of what happened or I can make an attempt to avoid it, but nothing I ever do will make the damage undone. What happened is real, I know because I notice the feelings inside. I feel them.

The normal defense kicked in and told me that I am making the feelings up and that it all started after I attended a trauma recovery course four years ago. Usually the appearance of this kind of defense throws me into confusion and self-doubt. Surprisingly, this time something different happened. The realization feeling pulled me back to my past, to the years before I attended the trauma recovery course. I was shown how the self-disgust and the hurt were present also back then. I was seeing behavioral patterns and beliefs that have had to come from somewhere. The voice of realization told me that “patterns are created as a response to stimulus, you are acting the way you are because you were put in situations where this was your best way of surviving”.

As I am walking to the gym, the words from my morning pages are settling into my being. I keep feeling that it is all real. I am not making it up.

The rage that was present in a small way is now flaring up in a big way. None of it feels ok. My current situation does not feel ok. The damage I am currently dealing with – it feels unfair. It also feels real. I look at my day to day life and I see how I am dealing with the after effects of my childhood trauma. I am able to see without denying and I feel peace as I am in touch with the truth.

The rage flares up again as I start thinking about reconnecting with my family. I cannot make repair alone. I am dependent upon them to want the same thing. I. Am. Dependent. Upon. Them. I want us to have a relationship, but a relationship requires both people’s reality to be acknowledged, something that is currently not happening. I cannot make them want to see my truth. I hate to have been put in this position. It is not what I want and I do not hold the power alone to make a change.