I recently brought the last drop of awareness to one of my core wounds. This is the story of how I did it. This is how I navigate healing my own trauma.
Backstory (of course, Tinder)… A guy I just matched with deleted me straight off the bat. We were three sentences into the conversation, and all of a sudden – gone.
Feelings surfaced, and… I instantly turned against them. Sentences like “there’s no point being upset, he is gone, I can’t talk it through” started going through my mind. I kept oscillating between feelings and thoughts, which is rather uncomfortable dynamic.
Then I remembered something my therapist once said: no matter what happens in the external, what you CAN control is how you treat your feelings.
With that in mind, I started to pay attention to the different aspects of my internal dynamic. The part that wanted to eradicate my feelings, check. There was multiple feeling present too – feelings I was adamantly trying to get rid of.
An open and curious attitude towards my feelings led me back to my childhood. My mom and dad were there, both punishing me for not going along. They were energetically pushing me away. My child self could tell they were upset, and the loss of connection was palpable, but I didn’t understand why. Just like I didn’t understand why my attempts to address the rupture were met with words such as “I’m not upset”, “I’m not pushing you away”, “Nothing is wrong, you’re reading too much into it”. It was totally and utterly gaslit.
The only way to get back into their good grace and re-establish connection, was to let go of my perception, and go along with what they wanted in the first place. Even that was not enough, it often required immense amount of sweet-talk.
Being in that kind of gaslighting position as a child has a unique flavor. Of course, there were feelings like confusion, fear, anger… I mean, my parents were acting like hurt children. Pouting and punishing where they should have given love. Being in a situation where connection relied on my ability to sacrifice my perception of reality, along with any need to be seen and soothed in my experience… The level of loneliness is excruciating.
This dynamic is not new, I have known it for years, so what did I mean when I said “I brought the last drop of awareness”? The difference between the previous times I have visited the dynamic and now, is a string of connection. It might sound weird, but it often happens that I see my younger self, but I don’t connect her to me and my current life. When the connection is established though, like today, the feeling is literally like a thread that runs from my inner child, throughout the years I have lived, ending up in my Now-Self.
The thread brings a sense of empathy, compassion, and understanding. The Tinder-Guy abruptly leaving triggered the wound of being completely alone with my feelings, no chance to re-establish connection. Of course it’s painful, I see that now. I can hold the aspect who was trying to eradicate my feelings, I can tell her we’re safe, and then I allow myself to fully feel that pain and the rage that has built up after years of throwing myself under the bus in the name of re-establishing connection.
Gunhild Archer, counselor 