I have come to realize that part of my problem with writing these days is that I have so many parts near the surface that I feel as though they are constantly interrupting my thoughts while I try to write. I can’t seem to think a full thought, never mind write it out, before something else is thrust at me.
It’s hard when different parts have different priorities. One will think that the most important think to write about/explore is my developing relationship with Mama Bear and I will start to write a post about how our interactions nurture my increased ability to trust and tolerate emotional intimacy. However, writing about her reminds me of the work that we have been doing on present centering and working to bring the traumatized parts forward, so that they are able to be comforted and helped in the safe now, rather than be retraumatized by experiencing the same memories over and over. This seems that it would be more useful to others, so I start to write about it. But then while writing, I mention something about my relationship with my father and another part barges in, urgently needing to write about father issues. But then a protective part silences me, making it impossible to write any more about my father, and I am left fuzzy headed, staring at a computer screen, feeling as though I have nothing worthwhile to say and that I should just shut up.
At that point I give up and have yet another partial draft post sitting there, never to be finished. I’ve been tempted to go ahead and post one of these attempts at writing, because I am feeling thwarted and somewhat silenced, but I think that they would be too fragmentary to be of use to anyone.
I am feeling a bit overwhelmed these days by the intensity of dealing with these parts. One has a name. My parts don’t have names, but this one does and she seems to have a lot of life force. She only exists for one type of situation, but she will become completely dominant for those situations. She has strong beliefs and feelings. She holds so much of the more complicated trauma with my father. So often, touching her makes me start to shut down and go to sleep, because I can’t handle her and what she did yet.
But I’m supposed to be helping my parts cope and soothing them, not shutting down on them! I’m supposed to be stronger than her. I’m supposed to be lightening their burdens but with this one, I am too scared to look directly at what she carries, even though I have an idea of what it is. I am exhausted just coming close to her.
Right now I am grateful that my mind was able to dissociate and pull the experiences that she holds into a separate part of my mind. My father was a very deficient father in general, but he wasn’t a monster like my grandfather. Take away the sexual abuse, and I had a family life that was more inadequate than actively damaging, because my mother really did care. Take away the sexual abuse and I could look my mother in the eye and maintain the most important relationship in my life. Take away the sexual abuse and I could excel at school and buy my way into a different life. Take away the sexual abuse and my world didn’t dissolve into a bewildering morass of feelings and experiences that I had no hope of handling alone. But I am no longer 3 or 6 or 9 or 12 or 15. Slowly, bit by bit, I will take back the experiences and feelings that I couldn’t afford to feel for so long. I don’t want to, but I need to accept that her experience was my experience.