I Wish I Loved Her...
I Want to Love Her. I Don’t Know How.
I have trauma therapy today. And wow do I need it. I woke up feeling yucky. Headache. Allergies. Often when I feel physically weak, I feel emotionally vulnerable. The mirror I passed in the hall revealed I was walking around biting my lower lip. I put an end to that, but only God knows how long I’d been doing it.
The other day my girlfriend asked me why I was acting like a little girl. I hadn’t even realized I was. We talked for the next few hours. She held me. I cried. So many things are going on inside of me. So much “stuff” is surfacing. Often I feel like I’m on a roller-coaster. While I love roller-coasters at amusement parks, these emotional ones? Not so much.
I guess I’m noticing it more now that I’m healing. Most days, I feel on top of the world. Excited about living. Free. Happy. More alive than I’ve ever been. Then suddenly in the midst of my day, as a highly functioning adult, I can collapse. Regress. Become like the vulnerable child who was wounded.
It’s taken me a long time to even like my inner child. I love children. They are drawn to me like a magnet and I to them. But my inner child? I have a hard time with her. I tend to treat her like all the other adults in her life did. She gets in the way of me living my life. She needs me at the most inopportune times. I feel badly for not loving her unconditionally. I want to love her. Sometimes I feel sorry for her. But, honestly, I don’t have a strong relationship with her. I think when I form one, I’ll be a lot farther along on my healing journey. It’s just that I don’t trust her. She doesn’t trust the adult me either. And why should she? I’m not always there for her. I don’t love her unconditionally.
While intellectually I know that nothing she did, as a child, was her fault. For some unknown-to-me reason, I still blame her. Just like the adults in her life did…for the abuse. (I know… It’s Wrong!) She was such an over-sexed, seductive child. As I’m writing this, I’m thinking, of course it wasn’t her fault. How could she have known anything different? Actually it was all she had ever known. That’s just sad. Really I want to wrap her up in my arms and hold her. I just don’t know how. I don’t know how to love that wounded child inside of me who is crying for my attention and love. The child inside who didn’t have any safe place to turn as a child. Well, that’s not entirely true. My aunties loved me. But, I don’t think I ever really felt safe as a child.
That unsafe feeling followed me through life. Even now, I don’t feel entirely safe. There is still a scared little girl inside of me. Maybe that’s why I can paint frightened, sad children so well. They are me. I am them. Still.
One day I will love the little me so much that she will be completely free. It will be safe for her to grow up completely. She won’t need to show up in my adult life and wreak havoc. Until then, I am learning to be patient with both parts of me: the adult me and the little me, who haven’t quite connected.
You can visit my gallery and see all the different versions of little me. Maybe you’ll see your little self in their eyes also. Every sale helps today’s wounded children start their healing process. Worthy cause. Art you love. It’s a win-win deal.
Here’s to connecting with and loving our inner children!
~mm
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