My level of awareness was always my blessing and always my curse. What is one to do with the information that their survival profoundly impacted the rest of their children’s lives in a way that could be painful for them.
I think of my energy healer here. That she believes (as does Pink RE her new documentary) that we choose our circumstances and contract with them before we come into this life. I don’t want to make any justifications so it’s hard to accept this but it feels right.
Any one of my children not being ok is impossible for me to grasp and yet I can’t ignore the disconnect they feel from both parents. I was so focused on my ego, or on my identity formation if I want to be kinder. That I missed the forest for the trees on this one. I am realizing now and it’s painful.
Slow shifts and compassion and grace are my only options. I thought I was reading What Happened to You? To find out about me, but as it turns out it is showing me their experience which will hopefully help me understand for the rest of their lives. But I can’t go back and change those things. So this is where I suppose I have to have faith there is a reason, and it’s not all as terrible as the monetary realizations feel.
It coincides with family therapy. They want me to understand their experience with my struggles with attachment and before I just felt attacked and judged and no one was asking what happened to me. Now that this is being given attention in therapy, I have some ground to stand on to face their feelings and connect still rather than turn away bathed in my own shame.
It’s unreal this work.
The book is talking about how divorce is a death for children, and immediately the waves of guilt. I never realized that by doing my own therapy and standing up for who I was and my needs for so many years, that they got lost in that. I knew I had to do it to be healthy, and I did, but I had no balance.
The book talks about what happens in our brains when a new connection presents itself and how long it takes to get regulated and safe. By the time they did I was into another growth thing, and they were left hurting. I turned away from their hurt and mine because of shame and I just kept working and driving through life and numbing.
If I knew then what I know now. But most importantly I know now, and will adjust accordingly.
And I have no choice (I want to, I will) but to own this part in their story and be able to apologize and let them have their truth while not internalizing it as my fault or shame.
It just is. Not it is what it is, because I don’t believe in that. I believe it’s what we make it. Always have and always will, and I’ll keep living by that compass.
I will make myself a safe space for them and do the best I can now. I will honor their truth and make space for it, and I will consistently challenge my ego and the story I needed to feel better, which was constantly dismissing their feelings.
Feelings demand to be felt, and I will make myself a place where this can exist for them. Where we can accept our story and all the emotions that come with it and be able to stay in that without freezing or flying or unhealthy coping mechanisms.
They have their whole life to sort out this attachment stuff, their own anxieties and struggles, their own nervous systems and health stuff, and I will be here every step of the way and the mother they deserve.
It’s going to be a lot to sit with ….. this acknowledgment of the ways they have hurt as a result of me, my choices. How to walk the line between accountability and also asking that what happened to me is also seen. But I am going to strive for it always. And it’s going to be written about, talked about etc. it’s going to shape the landscape of our lives. Whether we wanted “normal” or not, this is us.
It took having my reality dismissed and feeling what it felt like to feel this feeling I couldn’t explain this need for closeness and be denied it repeatedly. I almost lost my life. For me to see and recognize and realize the impact I have had on them and to truly change my patterns.
I thought I wasn’t going to have to do that alone. I projected and thought that journey would be with another and the truth of the things I missed is devastating. But I ended up facing myself down and confronting my stuff and getting a more full recovery in this way.
“I am here…… I am here, I am here
I’ve already seen the bottom, so there’s nothing to fear
Know that I’ll be ready when the devil is near
I am here, I am here
All of this wrong, but I’m still right here
I don’t have the answers, but the questions is clear” Pink
I will honor their experience with me and strive to forgive myself, and I hope they forgive me too. This grief is something so different than I realized. It’s so deep, to the very core.
Shame is an ocean I drowned in, that now I’m learning to swim across….. 💜