Yoga block

This week has been hard. It's been super busy starting a new job, juggling the needs of others while trying to meet what I need to stay well. The youngest minion is embracing his new life and opportunities at High School by joining groups and attending after school events - which means no buses and trips over there to collect him and ferry him to the next event.
And on top of that was the therapy session - the one that seemed pretty low key. But it wasn't. Because I came away from there angry. so angry it exhausted me to the point of crawling into bed when I got home and sleeping for an hour. So angry that I stayed awake in the early hours of the morning, listening to Lily Allen's Fuck You. OVER and OVER and OVER.
Who was I angry with? I was able to compile a list today - once I had calmed enough down to be rational enough to think. My list went like this.

 I am angry with:

Rebecca
My mum
With Susan
My life
The world
The universe.

So maybe the label "rational" is stretching this a bit.

Now this is the bit where we get to the yoga mat. The bright orange yoga mat. My sanctuary. My space where I have learnt to tune into myself, to feel, to trust my mind, body and spirit. But today I am angry with my mat. I refused to get out of bed and get on it this morning. I stayed in bed so long I had no choice but to step over it with disdain as I got ready for work. I stepped over it and thought it was such a stupid fucking colour. I stomped over it as I returned and thought that I was so stupid to be so attached to an inanimate object. I was angry at the mat. And at yoga. And at myself.

I went to the beach for 1 1/2 hours this evening. I sat and then stood on the rocks for this time, reflecting on these feelings, thinking about what I was feeling and why. I focused on the energy beneath my feet, within the rocks, around me on the wind and in the waves and above me in the rays of the sun. I tried to breathe, to connect to all of these things, to connect to myself, to let go as I have done in that same place many times before. But all I could feel was the anger swirling within me, the tenseness in my jaw, in my back and hips, and especially in the clenched fists that would not relax. And I realised that the anger is irrational, that I don't understand it, that it scares me. I could not just let it go - because I don't understand what it is that I need to let go.

And this is the block that stops me getting on the mat. It is fear. Irrational fear. Fear of the irrational anger. Because I don't know if I want to understand this anger, I don't know if I want to let it go, I don't know if I am ready to understand the emotions beneath, the emotions which the anger covers. And it is knowledge. The knowledge that the mat is a place where my understanding grows and expands. It is where I am connected with myself mind, body and spirit. But right now it is that very connection that I am afraid of.

Pride or ego or denial?

13.10.2012

EGO

Pride goes before a fall

I thought I was different
I thought my story was different
I thought if I wasn't like them
It wasn't so bad

... I thought if I didn't feel sadness
And I didn't feel hurt
Then it didn't deserve that label
I could, should, shut up and get over it

But I was wrong

I blame her so much more than I thought
I hate her
I wish she didn't exist

But she is me

I should have remembered
That fear is anger is sadness

I denied the sadness and the hate
I pushed back the fear
And now it overwhelms.
 

Ripeka

Does this explain it a bit?

"Substantial documentation exists in scientific literature of the association between CM and a broad range of emotional, behavioral, and physical health problems. These consequences may vary depending on a child’s age when victimized, duration and severity of the abuse or neglect, the child’s innate resiliency, and co-occurrence with other maltreatment or adverse exposures such as the mental health of the parents, substance abuse by the parents, or violence between parents."
(CDC - ACE study - Preventing Child Maltreatment through the Promotion of Safe, Stable, and Nurturing Relationships between children and Caregivers. http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/CM_Strategic_Direction--Long-a.pdf )

It really makes me get angry with myself when I think of what happened and my overall long term reaction to it all. Because I think to myself - who are you to get so fucked up over what - by comparison to so many - is really quite minor. Now I realise that this is part of my minimise/denial strategy but it doesn't stop the knee jerk hate myself/you don't deserve to feel like this reaction.

I really struggle to accept that I have so many "classic indicators" of a survivor of sexual abuse. I struggle because even after 15 months seeing a therapist, and I still want to deny that it was so bad - some days it takes her to remind me - she reminds me that I struggled to get away, she reminds me that I had no control when he came in my room, she reminds me that they pinned me down. And still I get so scared that I try to justify what happened - I don't want him to get in trouble. I love him but I hate him.

Emotions

The name peeling back the layers came to me as I was thinking about what this whole process of trying to heal from what they did is actually like for me. It is a constant peeling back of the layers to reveal another surprise - I wish it was like the childhood game of pass the parcel, but when I think of the analogy, I'm afraid I envision an onion. It hurts.

One of the first layers that I peeled back revealed to me my first real taste of the fact that what happened so very many years ago, DID impact on who I am - this fact has smashed me over and over as layers are peeled back. That first layer revealed to me that I struggled to understand and recognise my own emotions. For instance, I knew that I was angry, really angry, waves of wanting to scream and throw things, smash them type angry. Now, these waves of anger have been there before, but the intensity of it this time round terrified me - it felt so out of control. About 4 months into the therapy, I finally realised that the actual emotion under the rage was sadness, gut wrenching sadness - not sadness that anyone else would recognise because the tears have only just started to come more recently and I have been seeing Susan nearly every week now for 14 months. I struggle with understanding how I buried everything.

The emotion that sits with me again now is loneliness. This one is ever present. The fear of being rejected, pushed away, abandoned - being lonely - the fear of these things cripples and taints so many of my decisions. And then when I decide to do something I fret and worry over the decision - I constantly worry what others will think about me.

I wish I was normal - what I think normal would be like. Normal would be not feeling sad for no reason, normal would be going to bed at a time that allowed my body to rest enough. Normal would be liking and respecting myself enough to care for myself, not punishing myself for being me by staying up till the early hours of the morning, by shovelling food into my mouth to try to take away the aching hole that sits in my stomach constantly.

Normal would be not getting overcome by fear/anxiety/anger/sadness/obsessive thoughts. Normal would be not burning my arms, blackening the skin with the flame as punishment for being so fucked up, burning to try to stop the racing self hating thoughts that swirl and bombard me.

Normal would be not having the memory of late at night, waking as soon as the door started to open, pretending to be asleep in the stupidly vain hope he would go away. Normal would be not remembering his fingers inside of me. Normal would be not knowing any of this stuff because I would be normal, it would never have happened.

But it did.  he betrayed me, he took away what should never have been his. It should have been my choice. I'm not normal, I will never be normal. This is a lonely, empty place to be in.