It was a rough start, like I said, I exasperated my T at first. After agreeing to go through the motions, this is the story of how I came to accept it for a valuable idea to use in getting better.
My t asked me what I would do now, as an adult, for that abused kid if I knew them now.
First, I am sworn to report child abuse. Although I am no longer doing work as a first responder, I don't think that oath has a sunset. 'I would report the abuse and let child services know what I had seen and be willing to testify" I said.
She says "no, what would YOU do, if you could, to help that child now?"
I guess I would have to tread lightly, ask a lot of questions, be a part of their life for awhile, gain trust and if all went well, try to find that child a better place to be, maybe my own home with me and my wife and dogs and acreage and a long history of successful parenting.
"OK, think about that, let's start the EMDR stimulation" she says.
I made it through about twenty seconds before I realised that I live in the very home I would have wanted to be in when I was tormented by my parents. I live in the very house that could have been my sanctuary. I live in my grandparents house, on land where my great great grandparents lived.
some background info:
I bought my grandparents home when I found myself working a job in a nearby town and commuting two hours to be there. My grand father was long passed and my Grandmother had tried to sell their home on private contracts several times since his death but no one wanted a small neglected home in the middle of nowhere at the time and deal after deal had fallen through. She was resorting to renting it out to make the mortgage payments (she had borrowed against the house to pay for a heart surgery and to build an addition onto my aunts home where she lived, several hours away). I offered to rent the place and we bought it within a year, at the highest asking price she could have expected on the current market. I have always loved being here, and the middle of nowhere is fine with me, but it couldn't be a gift and the extra money we paid was worth it to have the deal feel more like giving something back to a woman that I know would have let me have it for the cost of the bank loan. It was a lot of work, but thirty years later it is a totally updated home that is twice it's original size and sitting on what is now highly sought after land that is sadly no longer in the middle of nowhere. My dream is for my grandchild to own it someday.
When I realised that my inner child needed to come to live in the very house that I could have offered them at a time that they needed it most (had I owned it at the time), I rounded the corner of accepting that there is an inner child and that I can gain ground by going through the mental gymnastics of offering up my true concern for their well being.
I am seeing my purchase of this place differently, and I am freely remembering the things that happened here when i was a vulnerable kid in need of help. I remember how good it was to come here for a weekend or a day and experience a little of what my life was like before my initial traumas. And, conversely, I remember how awful it was to go back and feel the nightmare of my fathers home close back in around me. It is like the lights are on again in some of the abandoned places in my memory.
Like I said, I was resistant to even go down the road, and now I am moving steadily under my own power.
