Um ... weird

Maybe I'm just tired (most likely) but today I feel like crap. Right after my last post, I spoke to my counsellor. It was a powerful session that began as if it were an ordinary conversation. Based on the previous session, it evolved quite strangely. In the end she asked me to talk to my child self, which made me feel like an absolute goon. I felt preposterous, so much so that I said no more than once. She offered to moved out of my sight and I kind of did what she asked. A bit. Even so, it made me absolutely sob. I felt so much pain coming out of me. The key thing I "told" myself, that little six year old she thinks I still am in some ways, was that my mum did love me. It was killer, I'm not kidding. I'm really not into psychobabble and I did not believe for a minute that it would work. She said it was a powerful technique but I failed to grasp its power until I actually sat there and did it. I wailed, and I didn't even know I had it in me. Well, maybe I did. Maybe it's all that anger.

Afterwards I felt worn out and relieved. So strange - but good. However, since then I have felt sad at all the wasted years, incredibly sad. I also feel huge amounts of sympathy for my mother for what she must have suffered without really having any idea of the motivation for my constant anger towards her.

Astonishing.

I feel grief and sadness. I also have been feeling unsure of myself again but I wonder if that's because I'm really, really tired (late nights, not the infamous insomnia that plagued me for two years after the male parent disowned me. The shock and stress of what he did and the complete change it caused in my understanding of my life and relationship with both parents kept me awake for hours nearly every night. Insomnia is an evil curse). I didn't want to go out anywhere or follow my normal routine. Found myself doing lots of my distracting things.

The "hole" is filling but far slower than I anticipated. I was all excited, wasn't I? A week ago I thought I'd be "cured" within days. Got a bit ahead of myself. I do feel better in odd ways, though. Instead of constantly feeling worthless, I think I've only really felt that way, the way I've felt most of my life, today and perhaps last night. This is good, an improvement. I suspect being so tired has an effect. I do feel intensely but manageably sad about my mother. It's timely and necessary and okay and will settle down when I've grieved enough. I'm not afraid of this grief. I MUCH prefer it to the dislike and anger I used to feel for her. Feeling sad is much nicer than feeling something verging on hatred.

I also felt violently ashamed for what I did. I know, as my counsellor repeatededly told me, that the alienation wasn't my fault. I was brainwashed from a very young age, I know, but I'm also supposed to be the clever one. I'm finding it hard to accept that I couldn't see what he truly was until I was an adult and he did it to me, until he lied about me and tried to bully me the way he did to her, all because he couldn't get his own way. I still feel stupid and complicit. The man felt me up and I still believed in him!

I have no one to protect me or take care of me. I take care of everyone else. This is okay. I have learned to take care of my offspring and am learning to take better care of myself - including self-protection. I think this is what my counsellor meant when she said to parent myself. I also need to do things my parents would both do if they were both alive, sane, able and willing. Right now, Mum would tell me to sleep more and chill out more, but also not to mess about on the Internet so much when I have important things to be doing. She'd tell me to manage my money better and be stricter with the offspring (because I think I'm too soft, given that I've always been afraid of making said offspring too angry at me, like I was with my Mum) . Critically, she would tell me that she is glad she now understands what made me the kind of child I was, that it wasn't my fault, that she forgives me and is proud of me for seeking help, for facing upto my part, however much blame you want to attach to my actions, and mostly importantly that she DID and DOES love me and that she knows I love her; she just never understood me and did not know how to show love to a child that seemed to hate her and reject her at every turn.

I'm sad but relieved that I know the truth because sophistry eats you alive and lies can kill you.