Post by winduptoy on Sept 21, 2011 18:18:36 GMT -8
I was sitting here thinking vaguely about the inner child concept and suddenly it was like I was transported somewhere in my mind. It was dark gray, like slate, and everything was rough and angular, like a system of caves, but there was no skyline or ground. It was just dark gray all around. There was a girl sitting there, a skinny, white, blonde-haired child, pre-teen or early teen, streaked with what looked more like coal dust than dirt, sitting with her head down, her arms around her knees. She was wearing shorts, a tank top and...I don't think I noticed her shoes, sneakers or sandals maybe. She saw me and stared at me with these icy blue eyes, her eyes were narrowed and she clearly did not want me there. But I was surprised by what she said when she immediately started screaming at me. Get out of here! Get out! You hate me! You hate me!
I had expected, some things I've read about inner child work, for her to possibly be angry and hostile towards me, or to be fearful or suspicious. I wouldn't have been surprised to hear her say that she hated me. But I was genuinely stunned to hear her say what she said.
Then she stood up and kept shouting, You love her; take her and get out! It was then that I noticed a little girl, maybe not quite two, standing off to the side. She had pale skin, big brown eyes that were slightly crossed, like she had a lazy eye, stubby dark brown pigtails, and she wore red overalls and sneakers, and I think a yellow striped shirt. She was smiley and happy and just grinned at both of us. I think she was preverbal, and was still drooling a little bit, like she wasn't fully out of the teething stage (I couldn't see if she had all her teeth or there were gaps) or just didn't quite have that under control yet. She had that ducklike toddler walk that I find so charming, when their feet don't quite go straight in front of them yet. She was clean and put-together and happy-looking.
When I looked back at the older girl, she was holding the hand of a child who looked Aboriginal, with dark tan skin, short, matted hair and no shirt or shoes. I think this child was female but it could have gone either way, maybe eight years old. They both just stared at me, eyes full of hatred, and then I snapped out of it.
I'm known for my weird meditation experiences, so I don't really know what to make of this.
Thinking about it now, a few things make sense. My general anxiety began around two or three when I had an accident that required my father to hold me down for stitches. It took a lot of time for him to regain my trust and I kept asking why he did that to me for months. I was electively mute for a long time in early childhood, but I don't know what ages. I started therapy for this at age three, and I remained painfully shy up into my teen years. (That's since resurfaced, but I had a few years of being able to fake being sociable, which is something, anyway.)
My anxiety towards failure started to manifest when I was very young, but the despair and hopelessness over constantly failing started around age 13, when I stopped being the smartest in my class - I was naturally bright but had no idea how to compensate when the material got harder and I couldn't just rely on my brain. At the time I just thought it meant I was naive - since I naturally excelled at school no one ever really taught me that, you know, sooner or later you have to work hard to be able to learn the skills and retain the information. I just thought I was naive and gave up. I was naive and a failure, and my parents were always angry with me, so I just slipped more and more into avoidance.
The middle child, the wild child, surprised the hell out of me. I couldn't think what she might represent, but as I was typing the earlier parts it occurred to me what it might be. In my late teens/early 20s, I started having nightmares about my father sexually assaulting me. Now, let me be clear first and foremost: I have no recollection of these things actually happening and I don't believe that they did. I think it was just a product of inappropriate therapy (my therapist literally watched me grow up, got way too invested in my life and at times probably didn't behave perfectly professionally in terms of judgment. Actually, she was the one who insisted I leave a school I loved to go to a more challenging one where I never fit in, but that's a story for another day.) combined with various little things that added up to something disturbing in my subconscious. In the dreams, I was always about the age of this child. That's the only thing I can think of, and that may not be correct.
There are a lot of things I feel like I want to talk about regarding this, but I'm not sure what would be too far off-topic, and maybe I need to think about things a little more first.
I'm sorry this was so long and thank you for listening. This feels like it may be significant and I wasn't sure where else I could take something like this, plus I think it may be helpful in understanding my obsessive personality tendencies.
I had expected, some things I've read about inner child work, for her to possibly be angry and hostile towards me, or to be fearful or suspicious. I wouldn't have been surprised to hear her say that she hated me. But I was genuinely stunned to hear her say what she said.
Then she stood up and kept shouting, You love her; take her and get out! It was then that I noticed a little girl, maybe not quite two, standing off to the side. She had pale skin, big brown eyes that were slightly crossed, like she had a lazy eye, stubby dark brown pigtails, and she wore red overalls and sneakers, and I think a yellow striped shirt. She was smiley and happy and just grinned at both of us. I think she was preverbal, and was still drooling a little bit, like she wasn't fully out of the teething stage (I couldn't see if she had all her teeth or there were gaps) or just didn't quite have that under control yet. She had that ducklike toddler walk that I find so charming, when their feet don't quite go straight in front of them yet. She was clean and put-together and happy-looking.
When I looked back at the older girl, she was holding the hand of a child who looked Aboriginal, with dark tan skin, short, matted hair and no shirt or shoes. I think this child was female but it could have gone either way, maybe eight years old. They both just stared at me, eyes full of hatred, and then I snapped out of it.
I'm known for my weird meditation experiences, so I don't really know what to make of this.
Thinking about it now, a few things make sense. My general anxiety began around two or three when I had an accident that required my father to hold me down for stitches. It took a lot of time for him to regain my trust and I kept asking why he did that to me for months. I was electively mute for a long time in early childhood, but I don't know what ages. I started therapy for this at age three, and I remained painfully shy up into my teen years. (That's since resurfaced, but I had a few years of being able to fake being sociable, which is something, anyway.)
My anxiety towards failure started to manifest when I was very young, but the despair and hopelessness over constantly failing started around age 13, when I stopped being the smartest in my class - I was naturally bright but had no idea how to compensate when the material got harder and I couldn't just rely on my brain. At the time I just thought it meant I was naive - since I naturally excelled at school no one ever really taught me that, you know, sooner or later you have to work hard to be able to learn the skills and retain the information. I just thought I was naive and gave up. I was naive and a failure, and my parents were always angry with me, so I just slipped more and more into avoidance.
The middle child, the wild child, surprised the hell out of me. I couldn't think what she might represent, but as I was typing the earlier parts it occurred to me what it might be. In my late teens/early 20s, I started having nightmares about my father sexually assaulting me. Now, let me be clear first and foremost: I have no recollection of these things actually happening and I don't believe that they did. I think it was just a product of inappropriate therapy (my therapist literally watched me grow up, got way too invested in my life and at times probably didn't behave perfectly professionally in terms of judgment. Actually, she was the one who insisted I leave a school I loved to go to a more challenging one where I never fit in, but that's a story for another day.) combined with various little things that added up to something disturbing in my subconscious. In the dreams, I was always about the age of this child. That's the only thing I can think of, and that may not be correct.
There are a lot of things I feel like I want to talk about regarding this, but I'm not sure what would be too far off-topic, and maybe I need to think about things a little more first.
I'm sorry this was so long and thank you for listening. This feels like it may be significant and I wasn't sure where else I could take something like this, plus I think it may be helpful in understanding my obsessive personality tendencies.
