I do not want to be a party pooper here but I think your inner child can only feel what she felt back then when the first caretaker abandoned, rejected, put up rigid boundaries and did not allow love!
The inner child does not have new feelings of today but brings exactly the implicit memories of yesterday. The adult version of you- that one has grown up outside of that inner child (hence why trauma and dissociation are cousins in a pod), the adult who comes to therapist, who knows she needs therapist, that adult needs to re-parent this extremely fragile inner child who is suffering. Easier say than done, of course.
This inner child felt all that you are feeling today and guess what was amazingly and miraculously brave enough to live through that? Just imagine what you are feeling being felt by a one year old or two year old or whatever age you were when you were violated, and abandoned or hurt in so many ways.
if this therapist goes out of her way and says come here little one, let me give you love because your own mom or dad did not love you - that is a lie. That therapist is not going to your home forever to give that love. That love, unfortunately is what is missing in trauma. That love is only given to us when we are young or old enough to be lucky enough to recognize that and give that love to ourselves with the guidance of a therapist who recognizes we are suffering and need space to let it all out and learn (re-learn) the love that was thwarted when we were young.
The rigid you are feeling is not from the therapist, it is from your first encounter. I highly recommend you actually put this rigid feeling into words to the therapist and say in your own words - what you are feeling? that would be an outlet for the inner child to speak up once and for all to ask for what she wants in a safe space and have an emphatic listening and understanding - that is all a therapist can offer. You then feel the love and give it to the inner child.
The therapist, by nature of being a person outside of you, can only hear you and be concern for you and the inner child but cannot take the place of a mother or a father who left you alone then.
I can feel this is not easily digest-able but as you write here, say it out loud to a person who is experienced dealing with this.
cry and grief for what you lost and hope after that you will find the love you were born with and feel its impact on you and your inner child and all become one with an experience. Hope is the key factor here.
With all that being said, trust your gut, if this therapist is good or not but the feeling of rigid boundaries is transference.
if that inner child had healthy boundaries then she would have seen them all over the place. What the inner child feels is what happened then not now. Only you are becoming aware of it now and shocked as you should cause it is really hard to imagine as a child you had exactly same thing but in order to survive, there was a mechanism in which you could split off and keep going. that mechanism is trauma and dissociation and all that related.
that is the beauty of being human but you are rightfully hurting for you then and now.
Yes...a lot. But attachment to me and inner child. It’s not the same.
this is a powerful statement. I had to read few times.
Attachment to me AND inner child is not the same!
of course not. The inner child did not experience healthy attachment but if you have safe and healthy therapeutic alliance - the good news is your adult parts are not fully broken as your inner child.
I recommend you meditate on THE DIFFERENCE between your attachment as an adult VS. the inner child's attachment. The inner child attachment should be wacko and out of order (sorry for the lack of better words) but you seeing that is really great for this inner child as such FINALLY AN ADULT sees how she suffered and was not attached properly. No book can teach you this. Only by focusing, meditating, singing, drawing, writing and listening to your inner child can help.
You are so close and yet so far.
