The Next Version Of Me

[rainydiary]

I appreciate you articulating the deep raw spot - I felt it in my body while reading the description.  I have no words for all of that. I am here walking my path and thinking of you as you walk yours.

[Bach]

rainy, thank you so much for reading and replying and acknowledging my struggle. 

I'm identifying a lot lately with that unloved little baby soul.  That's another thing that's hard to describe, because it doesn't feel like it was really me.  Lately, I've been looking at some old family pictures I have (I stole them from her house in 2006 when I was first doing what I refer to as emotional archaeology, but which i could also describe as ransacking her house when she's not there looking for documentary evidence of my life). I barely even recognise any of us.  "Oh, that's what we looked like?  Okay".  My mother was very, very thin and very cold.  I'm not in very many of the pictures, and when I am in the pictures, she's almost never touching me.  In some of the pictures I look like I'm trying to get her to.  There's one where it looks like I'm trying to cuddle up to her but she's leaning away and holding her arms behind her back.  There's another where I'm hugging her arm but her arm is hanging down by her side and her body isn't turned toward me.  Obviously I don't know what was actually going on in any of those pictures, and I don't really remember being that little girl, but I swear I can remember wanting loving touch and not being able to get it. 

[paul72]

hi Bach
I was doing the same thing this morning, hours before anyone woke up... looking at old pictures and at my M's eyes, trying to see if there was any love in them.
I like the term emotional archaeology. Very clever
I wish I could offer so much more, but you have my care and best wishes for you and that little baby soul.
You deserved to be so loved and I'm sorry you weren't. 

[CactusFlower]

I too love the term emotional archaeology. Wishing you strength and peace during the excavation. Gentle hugs if you want them.

[sanmagic7]

great term you coined, bach.  i know what it means to be touch deprived, and it's a horrible feeling.  so very sorry you experienced that.  i don't think a lot of people realize how important touch is.  well, during WWII, they found out.  so many babies were taken out of london for their own safety, but the hospitals who housed them didn't have enough staff to care for them more than shelter and food.  it was finally noticed that these babies weren't gaining weight, were 'failing to thrive' and it was finally determined that lack of touch was the cause.

i hope you get touched in a caring way now, at least.  if i could, i'd give you a hug in real time.  for now, i can only send love and a virtual hug full of care and comfort.

[Bach]

Thank you for the validation, friends

san, your use of the phrase "failing to thrive" gave me shivers, because one of my mother's crazy stories about my childhood involves her changing my name when I was a year old because I was "failing to thrive".  And my brother has told me about a visit to the paediatrician that he remembers from when he was 3 during which he and I were both prescribed something to stimulate our appetites because we were malnourished.  It all makes sense.  Ugly, painful sense.

I was supposed to see Other yesterday, but he had to cancel because of a work schedule change.  He said he was going to call so we could talk about getting together later this month, but I haven't heard from him.  That isn't helping.  Drugs aren't helping either.  Nothing is really helping.  I can't get what I need.  Mostly I know I have to keep my head down and keep going and it'll pass and I'll stop feeling so much like there's a howling empty black hole or a quivering raw membrane where my heart should be, and I'll be able to feel warm and smile again, but right now...wow.  Wow.  Ouch. 

[sanmagic7]

what a horribly painful realization, bach.  i'm sorry for triggering that.  i didn't want to cause you more pain.  what you're experiencing right now seems like more than enough.  that icky black hole, life-sucking.  hang tough, ok?  hangin' right beside you.  love and hugs

[Bach]

Oh, san, don't worry and don't apologise.  It was helpful.  All of this is helpful.  Awful, but helpful.  I didn't start significantly understanding myself and healing until I first found those pictures and documents at my mother's house and even though my initial reaction to them was to have a total mental breakdown, I firmly believe that it was necessary and eventually beneficial for me to confront the feelings evoked by that so-called emotional archaeology.  I think it's the same now, and as terrible as everything is right now I feel that it is leading somewhere good.  So don't ever be afraid to share your thoughts and insights, they are important to me and truly appreciated

[Bach]

I think I actually repulsed my mother when I was a kid.  When I think about my issues around loving touch, I feel repulsive.  I feel like my needs are bad and wrong and disgusting.  I feel a lot of contempt for my physical body and its needs that probably comes from her.  I believe that this is my primal wound, and an even bigger source of ongoing trauma for me than the suffocation incidents.  I think that my yearning for loving touch is the pain that I’ve been self-destructively medicating all my life. 

[milkandhoney11]

Bach,
I'm so sorry for what you're going through. It's so hard to be in a body that makes you feel uncomfortable and repulsive. At times I almost feel like it's like being stuck in a prison that you can never escape. So, I understand how you might be struggling with feeling contempt for your body, whilst also longing for some kind of loving touch.
When I talk about this issue with others hardly anyone gets it, which always leaves me thinking I might be broken somehow, but I know that at least there are some people here in this forum that will understand what it means to be longing for a hug or other form of loving touch, whilst also being scared of making this kind of connection because being touched by others triggers so many negative memories.
I don't have a solution for what you're going through (I wish I had) but I hope it will get better with time as you get to process what happened to you as a child. Maybe all your emotional archaeology will help you resolve all your issues with touch even though it may be hard at the moment?
At any rate, your needs are not bad or wrong, we all deserve loving touch, but it feels so sad that some of us have to struggle with this all through our lives because of what our parents did to us...
Here's a virtual hug if you want, otherwise just ignore it, I wouldn't want to make you feel uncomfortable

[paul72]

Bach,

I'd like to send a virtual loving hug your way, if it's okay with you.
I understand the feeling of being repulsed by my M.. and my heart aches for you.
No matter how one can explain it, it doesn't make it better or even easier.
I'm trying to distract myself from it these days. I am loved, I remind myself over and over. (just not from FOO)
You are loved too.... while it sometimes feels like small consolation, I hope it is some.

[sanmagic7]

bach, just to let you know you're not alone.  while i don't feel that repulsive feeling w/in myself, i can't imagine how painful it must be.  i know i'm carrying a lot of pain about it (even tho i can't feel it emotionally, my body screams at me daily) and being rejected by all 3 hubs re: intimacy/touch, just added fuel to that fire. 

just want to let you know you're not alone.  careful, but caring hug coming your way (wish i could give you one in person), and lots o love.

[Bach]

milkandhoney11, phil72 and san, thank you so much for the understanding and acceptance and hugs.  This is so hard and painful.  I've been in a swamp with it ever since I first started thinking about it a couple of weeks ago.  It took a huge effort to even start talking about it, because it brings up such awful feelings, and because thinking about it or talking about it makes me feel like a whiny little (insert derogatory words of choice here, hurtful insulting critical words) crying about some childish thing that I should have been over years ago.  I know with my rational mind that that is not true and totally not fair to me, that this is a valid issue, valid pain, a valid need, etc., but when I think about needing any kind of physical contact I feel like some kind of disgusting slime creature that any decent human being would be horrified to touch.  It's Little B, poor little thing, trying to cuddle up to Mommy who ignores or recoils or pushes away.

There is sex tangled up with this.  I'm 97% sure that I wasn't physically sexually abused as a child, but I was definitely exposed to far too much sex and sexuality and far too young an age.  This caused me to put an outsized importance on sex as I grew up, which caused me many problems throughout my life, compromised my relationships and greatly limited my potential for achievement.  That's a very complicated thing and hard to explain, and it hurts terribly.  I can't write about it right now.  Thought I would be able to, but like so many other things, it's a big mess of thorny emotional brambles, and possibly the worst part is that at the center of that mess is poor Little B, getting flayed alive just looking for the warmth and safety that should have been but wasn't her birthright. 

[milkandhoney11]

Hi Bach,
it sounds like you have a lot to process at the moment and I just wanted to say that I'm thinking of you.
I'm glad you managed to talk about your issues with accepting your body and I'm always here to listen if you feel you want/can discuss this in the future. It is so difficult to share our innermost thoughts about things that affect us so deeply and I really admire your courage in this situation.
Hearing about your story has made me think about my own experiences and it feels like I have been able to discover some important pieces and memories that I was missing, so thank you for your openness.

I hope you'll find a way to deal with all this awful feelings and gradually overcome your hurt, however slowly

Take care!

[Bach]

I got covid the day before Thanksgiving, and although I am recovering now, being sick and recovering is once again bringing up mental/emotional/childhood trauma issues.  At the moment, the less said about that the better, because as soon as I typed that sentence there was a reaction way down in my gut that told me it's too much to try to write about right now. 

This afternoon, I was texting a bit with my mother.  She was talking about the memoir she's writing.  I'm ghoulishly interested in this memoir, because although I know that all of her stories and recollections are warped and twisted by her need to remember things in a way that serves her image of herself rather than with any realistic perspective, I still get insights into my childhood experience (and in particular, why it really wasn't me) from them.  It gives me a lot of material for therapy and self-reflection. And so, I always encourage her regarding this memoir, and express my interest in reading it.  Today she made a remark about my past that prompted me to speak a small piece of my truth, and she did what she always does, which was offer a weak and insincere apology.  I barely even notice those anymore, but for some reason I was thinking about it this evening when I made dinner, and it occurred to me that a small part of me both wants her apologies and is made furious by them, but the much greater part of me finds them useful as an objective reminder that none of it is actually forgivable.  I'm not sure what the significance of that is, but it seems somehow important.