Thank you @
HelenB for taking the time to read and reply. If you don't mind me asking, how did you learn to live with the little girl, as in how did you learn to work through it all and bring things to a place of safety? I have no compassion for my little girl me, just hatred. You are brave and courageous in being able to get to that place. Did you have a particular type of therapy? Sorry to ask, I'm just at loss at the moment as to how I'm ever going to be able to go forward from here, all I can see myself doing is going backwards at the moment.
Again thank you for the reply. :)
You do not need to be sorry for asking. I am happy to share my experiences with you if they can help you at all, and really do hope that they will be able to.
Learning to live with the little girl for me, is still a process, but one which over time I have been really trying more and more to do. It began for me quite a long time ago, when a counsellor I was seeing recomended to me a book by Penny Parks, called rescuing the inner child. I read it, and at that time did begin to work through some of the things, and was able to allow myself to connect to some of the different parts and write letters from those parts, and bring in many ways more connection, but as it got harder, and the things coming up became so much for me to deal with, I again ended up in a place where I could not deal with it at all, and again went back to trying to shut it all out, and not face it at all. Not too surprisingly it all went pretty pear shaped, because in reality, as much as I did not want to connect to those hurting and screaming parts inside me, it just did not work, and my eating disorder and everything became pretty bad then, and then from that place, I really did learn, that it really was never going to go away by just trying to shut it all out, and that the only way was to be able to finally find a way of releasing it all, and I really did realise, that though so much had happened, which had caused that little girl in me to be so terrified and so hurting, that now it was me which was being so angry with that part of myself, and that now only I could really do anything about that.
From that point it has still been very much a process. As a Christian, I know that my faith has been very key to me, in being able to find that safety, and have been very fortunate that I have been able to have the support of a Christian ministry centre - Ellel Ministries, which has been invaluable to me and still is. At one point I also had a series of Cognative Analytical Therapy sessions, which in many ways were very helpful to be able to map, and connect to so many of the different things going on inside me, though at that point I was still very much in the place that I could not accept that the things had really happened to me, and expressed them only as a story in my head, which was about a teddy, so when they came to an end, as they were limited in number by the NHS, and they decided that they had concerns about someone in my past, who they were going to refer to social services, despite the fact that to me I still could not accept it was real, I ended up in a very hard place, and as they also offered me no follow up support, I did again go very much back to that angry and hating myself place and was so angry with myself for even letting any of it have a voice, and did in fact OD then, which is something I really had thought my children would always keep me from doing. Fortulately I have a very good GP, who had called me back after I had called earlier in the day, and she could tell somthing was wrong and kept me on the phone until I did tell her, and then called me an ambulance, and then from there, I was also having the support from Ellel, who really did help me get past that.
Over the time when I have been going through it the other therapy which I have had, which I know has been so invaluable to me, has been therapy which I have been having with a sexual therapist. I first saw her about six years ago, and when my eating disorder got really bad had to stop and be refered to someone else, but once that had all stabilised, and I had finally come to the place where I made the decision that I was going to chose life and not death, I was able to go back to her and work through things with her, and since last summer, we have been doing EMDR and working through the different things which have been coming up, and though it has been very hard, I know this really has helped me so much more to be able to connect to and allow myself to voice the things which have happened to me, and though I still feel very mixeed about it, and do still feel very angry with myself so so often about even allowing myself to say anything or feel anything or even let it matter, more and more I have been able in that place to realise I was just a little girl, and though that hurts so much and there are still many many mixed amotions, I realy am trying to continue to allow myself to feel and process so many of the things and do know there is no other option for me any more, and that I really do have to now finally allow myself to feel, becuase it really is the only way I can ever find safety, and I know I cannot keep trying to fight it all any more, and that really it is true that that little girl. - me - just has so much hurt and pain and so many fears, and that me shutting it all out and being angry with me too, just is not going to help that any more, and that the only way really is allowing myself to bring that safety now, which I can now bring, and she so much needed, because it just is not going to go away any other way.
I am certainly not going to pretend it is easy. The compassion I have towards myself is still very much less than the anger which I feel towards myself still and it really does not take a lot to take it all back over the egde, as though I know it is not really safer, it does still feel so much safer to me in those little girl places where I really had no other place to go, but I really do know in my head, that the reality is that it was not in fact my fault and it is true that I was just a little girl, and the compassion I know I do have for so many other people, I really do try and be able to find for myself too, and really am working so much on.
I hope you do not mind that I have rambled on quite so much at you in reply to your question, and hope it in some way does help you with your journey and where you are at too. I do also think that you are courageous to be in the place you are in, and to be working on the things you are. It is only natural that you will also at times come back to that place which for you very likely would have been the only place you could at least feel safe, even if in reality it did not really stop the things happening and I really hope that you are able to find so much more safety and somehow feed that more and more into the places you are in now, as you deserve so much to be able to be free and be able to be whole, and every part of you really does deserve to be able to feel that and find the real safety which can come when that can finally be found.
God Bless
Helen x
