We day dream when bored, wish the ground would open up and swallow us when embarrassed, disassociate when traumatized. Our bodies may be physically there but our heads are somewhere else. Our minds have found us an interesting place, a familiar place, a safer place.
The years of my childhood were filled with many traumatic moments. I learnt at a very young age the safest way to ensure the least pain was to disassociate. It wasn't a consciouses decision it happened naturally and became an important part of my survival.
As I got older I found I could turn it on at ease. Moments when my mother was giving one of her never ending lectures on how terrible we were. Moments when she would tell our friends that we were worthless and forbid us to talk to them. Moments when her rage controlled her and she slapped, kicked, and beat us until she tired out. Getting in touch with the anger, the shame, the guilt only created more pain.
But it's the moments filled with emotions that I vividly remember. The first teacher who took me aside and told me she believed in me. The first time I stayed at a friends house and saw the meaning of a loving family. The first time someone did something for me just because they cared. It is these moments that stand out the most.
While turning off my emotions has always been easy turning them on is so much harder. There were days that I would walk around completely numb an empty hole in my heart where my feelings should reside. It was like my heart has been encased in an impenetrable glass box. The self harm started because I needed something intense to break though those walls of glass imprisoning me. I wanted to feel and pain seemed a better option then numbness.
When the glass box would shatter my emotions would break free and overwhelm me. They seemed to be magnified and to much to bear. So again I would turn to the self harm to help me reign in my feelings and make them more manageable. It was a never ending cycle.
Now I am a mother I need to be able to carefully open the glass box of my emotions. I want to feel the unlimited love for my baby, the pain when she is hurt, the pride in her progress.
Day by day my daughter is slowly teaching me to get in touch with my feelings without letting them destroy me.
