Tag Archives: child abuse

Acceptance

15 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by in Bourbon

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

Isn’t it wonderful to hit a place of acceptance? It doesn’t even really matter what the acceptance is about; the relieving feelings are the same every time.  It is like your brain suddenly says: Right, that is it, you don’t have to think about this anymore, it is the way it is and I accept that, and everything is okay.

I can’t actually say the word ‘acceptance’ out loud without coaching from someone else to tell me how to say it.  A psychotherapist I had once found that very interesting/relevant: can’t say it, can’t do it.  In a way I think he was right, accepting is hard to do, but only because I have such big/difficult things to accept.  So the relief of accepting just one of these ‘monsters’ is very boosting.

Yesterday in session Cat said to LJ that she knows it is so unfair that we can’t start again, from scratch, and have her as our mother.  My ears pricked up when I heard this because I have no idea why she said that.  The conversation wasn’t going down that road at all and none of us had given her any idea that we were thinking that way at all.  LJ was unable to really explain this so instead I sent Cat an email today to explain our view of this situation.

Basically, I said to Cat, we have accepted that the mother we had is the mother we have.  Of course it remains to be the case that I don’t want my mother in my life; but that doesn’t take away the fact she is my mother and the only mother I am going to get.  In fact, I don’t want any other mother, I said, especially you.  Introduce a mothering dynamic to what we have and it will all go downhill.  I will end up feeling like I have to please you, make you happy, and that takes away energy from my healing.  And realistically, if it wasn’t for my mother I wouldn’t have met you in the capacity I have done and we wouldn’t have such a good bond with you.  So there is no need to take away anything that has happened in my life, I’m quite happy with the way things have turned out.

But what I do like, I continued, is the idea of you being an auntie figure.  If you want to take this back then let me know, otherwise I find it very innocent and comforting and would quite like it to stick. 

Receiving an email back, when her policy is to not reply to any emails, simply saying ‘the auntie figure is good for me too’ has definitely solidified this acceptance amongst us all.

I have spent about a decade of my life searching for a new mum.  The happiness that has spread through me when I think I have found one, and the disappointment that crawls over me when I realise I haven’t, has been mind-bending.  But actually I think all this time I have been searching for something that I don’t actually want and won’t let in my life.  That is why these mother figures have never really ‘worked out’ because deep down I know the idea of a mother, according to my mind, is dangerous.  ‘Mother’ comes with so much tension and responsibilities from both parties.  I’d rather just give that all a miss really, thankyouverymuch.

“I feel love for you”..?

14 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by in Bourbon

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

, , , , , ,

After a three day veg in bed I managed to drag myself up and out to take Raggy for a walk this afternoon – what a struggle.  It was good to be out, I suppose, but my bed was calling me the whole time.  Things still feel ridiculously heavy and I didn’t realise how much I was actually holding back until I had my daily check in call with Cat and ended up blubbering down the phone for the whole 25 minutes.

It was a tricky phone call because I was asking her really really important questions whilst not being able to trust her answers, at all.  She was saying one thing, and I was hearing another in her voice, and regardless of how much she tried to reassure me that what I thought I was hearing in her voice was complete bolderdash I just kept believing she was lying that little bit more.  In the end I just had to give up and hold what she was saying close to me so that I can keep trying to trust it if and when I feel able to.

The thing is I was ready to quit therapy.  In fact I was ready to quit life.  Things haven’t felt this awful in a good few months and I was just pushing every self destruct button I have.  I am great at kicking myself when I am down.  I am great at pushing away the exact people I need when I need them.

I think I am feeling a lot of grief right now too.  With it being the run up to my birthday I am considering being 26 and where I’m at in life.  I am wondering what my upbringers will do on MY special day.  Will they silently wish me well? I doubt it.  I’m sure I have been cursed (as in verbally, and actually cursed) many a time already.  My mother told me you never cross a witch because they can ALWAYS curse you, whoever and wherever you are.  All they have to do is THINK the curse and with the power of their minds they can make you fall with an extremely painful illness or take away everything you know and love.  My mother took pride in making me see that she is some all-knowing, all-powerful being, and my life depends on me respecting her and keeping her at a safe distance.  Like a couple dancing a tango, the distance has to be perfect.  With me turning my back on the family the distance is no longer perfect.  I am at risk.  Not something I should dwell on too much I don’t think with how unsettled and unstable I am already.

But back to Cat and those really really important questions.  Through tears I told her that I just need to hear that she cares about me.  Through tears I told her that I just wish she would tell me that she loves me, like a mother does to their child.  Through tears I told her that I just want her to hold me; I don’t want a hug, they are too impersonal, I just NEED to be held.

She tried to tell me that she does care and that she does “feel love” for me.  She kept repeating that over and over again: “I do feel love for you, all of you”.  I am trying to work out what that means.  Is that a cop out? To feel love for someone, is that the same as loving someone? I genuinely don’t know and any help on this particular issue would be greatly appreciated. 

She told me that when I sent her the text I did this morning saying that I cried myself to sleep last night in Raggy’s basket with him licking away my tears, she cried.  “Not for you to feel guilty” she said “but you see I do care, otherwise I wouldn’t react to things you say like that”.  My head had a response to that.  The same response as what was being screamed following everything else she said: LIAR.

Cat reckons some parts of me knows that she cares and is angry at that.  “Angry because it is much harder to off yourself when you know people care about you” she said.  And angry because if she cares then how dare she up and leave and go on holiday and leave me in the lurch.  Rationally I don’t think that, I can’t.  But with my attachment issues and my struggles it would be stupid to not expect SOME parts of me to think that exact thing.  Perhaps these parts needs to express this anger at some point this week.  I hope I can step away enough to allow this to happen.

As for being held, she thinks we are (all) ready.  We have known her for nearly a year now (where has that time gone?) and I think we all know and love/trust Cat enough now to know that some physical comfort from her is safe and okay.  It doesn’t mean it is going to happen tomorrow or Friday or anytime before she goes away but that option is now available to us.  She reckons being physically contained and held is very much needed because we were so so starved of that growing up.  We literally had zero experiences of SAFE holding touch.  The mother was NEVER affectionate in words or touch.  When the father was affectionate in touch it was mostly when he was crossing sexual boundaries.  Accepting it from Cat is going to be hard but when the right time comes, I will know.

Weekends nearly over; I need a break.

12 Sunday May 2013

Posted by in Bourbon

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Another fucking difficult day.  And excuse the swearing but I am, to quote Anastacia, sick and tired of being sick and tired.  Between my poor housemate being physically very poorly all weekend and me being emotionally poorly all weekend you should see the state of the flat.  It is angering both of us that it is in such a tip and neither of us feel as if we can do anything about it.  Poor Raggy hasn’t had a walk this weekend either.  Everything and everyone has just flumped.

With Cat going on holiday in just over a week I think we were hoping to contain things but that hasn’t really happened this weekend.  Things have been coming up within us that have literally left me struggling to stay upright with its heaviness.

**Trigger warning: child abuse**

The first thing to come up was I was introduced to someone who MAY be another alter, but I am holding judgement.  This child goes by the name of Gypsy and has been horribly physically abused.  She wears rag-like clothes and has a dirty round face.  And that is all I know.

The second thing to come up is I had a flash(back?) of a very disturbing incident of child sexual abuse.  The actions were very detailed.  I could see everything that was going on and relayed it to Cat in as much detail as I could bear.  The only thing I couldn’t see was who the man was.  My tunnel vision onto the incident didn’t stretch up to his face.  I just ‘knew’ he was an old man.  Jury is out on what this incident is from but all Cat said was; it is clear you have been traumatised from all angles at such a young age.  What she isn’t saying is that the child being abused is me, or at least part of me.  What she is saying is that perhaps this is a scene I witnessed, or it was an ‘acting scene’; something I was led to believe happened at the time.

She is asking me to respect the part of me that has thrown this much up and not try and push for more and try to make sense of it all.  She has asked me to give the fragment to her to hold and then try to keep myself as distracted as possible.  Easy to say but when it is something replaying in your head over and over and over again, when you are left wondering if you just have a very sick imagination, when there is actual physical pain in your body as you try to carry this around… it is hard to do.  I feel like I have had the rug pulled out from underneath my feet and I am struggling, really struggling, to stay contained.

Everything is upsetting me this weekend.  Everything.  Watching ‘the hangover’ with my housemate yesterday my eyes welled up with tears at the end when they finally found their friend.  This film is a comedy for gods sake.  I’ve been triggered by Cat because on the phone she said: “I’d better go now” and that threw up all sorts of fear and guilt that I am wanting/needing too much from her and I have been a naughty child in pushing for it.  I feel like I’ve had a couple of layers of my skin taken off me and now everything is just hurting me that much more.

–From a very worn down and slightly exasperated Bourbon

On suicide *trigger warning*

12 Sunday May 2013

Posted by in Bourbon

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

To put it bluntly, today has been A Very Shit Day.  My brain melted somewhat and texts have been sent to Cat but with no distinct author; telling her to go away and come here at exactly the same time.  We were being triggered left right and centre by car doors slamming and people next door showering and other perfectly innocent things.  And then I read a post with someone threatening suicide and it just threw up far too much stuff for my already melting brain to handle.  I can’t remember where the afternoon went but I think I was sleeping.  I think.

Luckily Cat has been very close by in text message form all day.  In between falling down the stairs and standing on drawing pins she has been Right There and that has helped immensely.  After all, if I tell someone to go away the best thing to do is emotionally come closer to me, that is just the way my brain works.  As long as I have THAT sort of attachment to you anyway.  Yeah, confusing.

But I was thrown into a bit of a guilty panicked state of I-already-made-my-mother-threaten-suicide-once-and-undoubtedly-I’ve-done-it-again.  Still, yes STILL I carry around the responsibility of my mothers life/death and even though I can recognise her blaming her suicidal ideation on me is disgusting behaviour, parts of me still believe it to be true.  I DID force her to the edge of the cliff with my words.  I did.  I MADE HER DISAPPEAR FOR 48 HOURS, no one else.  Me.  It is beside the point that it was her choice to find and read my personal diary where I wrote about the abuse she had done over the years.

Really I should be reeling in the fact that she dared to give the ultimate threat to keep me silent: speak and I will kill myself.  So much so my sister said the same thing: speak and our mother will kill herself.  A few months later I “spoke” through the silence of estrangement.  It is hard to hold onto the disgusting manipulative truth and not turn it on myself.

If my mother dies I will blame it on me.  BECAUSE SHE TOLD ME TO.  Through physical illness or suicide.  She told me over and over again, it will be my fault.

And THAT is NEVER a burden to give your offspring.  WHATEVER the situation.

But at least I can be angry about it.  At least a little.  Anger is a constructive emotion vs. guilt which is purely destructive.

Therapy bits and bobs

10 Friday May 2013

Posted by in Bourbon

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

Thanks to everyone who has left such sweet messages for Kerry on the previous post.  She got her story today in the session with Cat: Peter Rabbit.  After the rough night we had, a gentle story was what all the system needed I think.

Last night I was trapped in the state I call dissociative sleeping.  Old readers will have heard me talk about this before but as all my old posts are privatised I shall summarise it again.

You are neither awake, nor asleep, not conscious but not unconscious either.  You are literally stuck in limbo with flashbacks/delusions happening every minute.  It happens a lot when Kerry is in the body but rather than just tell her to go back to her dark place in the inner world I got out of bed, lay down next to Raggy, and spoke to her about what was wrong.  From what I gather she was freaked out by my housemate who is very bunged up with a cold right now and so was snoring.  It reminded Kerry of the father.  At least when she told me that I was able to keep reminding her that my housemate is safe and isn’t going to hurt us whilst acknowledging that her fear is justified and I am listening to it.

I think I was sharing Raggy’s basket for about an hour before I felt grounded enough to get us back to bed.  A very long time for us to be in such a traumatised state and at one point I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get us out of it at all.  It does leave you feeling like you are bordering on psychosis and literally all you can do is sit with it.

~~~

**Trigger Warning: talk of witchcraft**

In session today Cat and I touched on my very real fear of Cat brainwashing me, bringing these alters out of me, creating them, like some form of witchcraft.  Although she isn’t saying this is true, Cat is very aware of the possibility that my mothers ‘interest’ in witchcraft may have been more sinister than just curses and blood-letting.  My fear of Cat putting these alters in me MAY be a projection of the possibility the mother may have purposefully messed with my mind and created some alters.

I very much doubt that my mother had the insight/intelligence or desire to purposefully create alters in me.  I remember, ironically, letting my mother borrow ‘sybil’ the book from me when I was a teenager and as far as I was aware that was the first time my mother had ever even heard of multiple personality disorder.  But there may have been more subtle ways my mother behaved/manipulated her belief in being a witch that encouraged us to become multiple, perhaps. 

And of course also the fact that I am quite certain she has multiplicity running through her too.  She had dramatic switches behind closed doors and it isn’t hard to appreciate that I was following her lead and also developing these new modes of being to match hers that developed over time into full alters.  For example, at times she would literally switch into a very young being and become very ‘playful’.  Unfortunately her idea of playful was a bit off the wall and would involve causing me physical pain, one way or another.  I was the type of kid who would mould into whoever the mother wanted me to be at that moment in time.  If she wanted me to be playful back then I would create the part to do that.  If she needed me to act the victim role then I would create the part to do that.  Whatever it took to keep the mother happy with me so the more frightening abuses didn’t take place.  Just a theory.

~~~

I am finding it unbelievable to think that it has been 8 months since I changed my number and made myself a voluntary orphan.  I said to Cat today that I can’t quite believe how easy and beneficial it has been to do that.

Bourbon: “I mean it’s not like they were actively abusing me at the time.  We had all silently moved on from that now I am an adult and living away from them.”
Cat: “They may not have been actively abusing you but there would have been looks, or words, or patterns of behaviour that were keeping you in that abused place.  The mother may have only had to look at you a certain way and it would have reactivated all of what happened in the past and kept it very much alive in the present.”

When you have spent 18 years of your life being brainwashed and systematically abused by your upbringers I don’t think it ever goes away from the family dynamics.  That type of abuse never goes away.  It is enveloped in the whole family system and whilst they were happy to bury it under the carpet and carry on pretending, there was just too much that I could see and feel under my feet.

Of course I still feel awful about “ruining their lives” and I am still sometimes hit with the thought of ‘what have I done, I am wrong, they were never abusers’.  But as Cat pointed out today I have a whole sub-system of backward facing alters who are very very loyal to the upbringers.  It is not surprising that in some moments they completely overpower any rational thoughts I have as the programming of ‘parents are always right, you are always wrong’ kicks in.  It is a fight but I hope we can all be on the same side eventually.

You’re a survivor; it is written all over your body

08 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by in Bourbon

≈ 21 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

**Trigger Warning: blunt talk of self harm**

I have decided this summer I am not going to swelter under long sleeved tops making myself feel ill with the heat.  I am going to let my arms free, from top to bottom, self harm scars and all.

Bourbon: “I am sick of having to hide myself in shame”
Cat: “Yes, and why should you?”
Bourbon: “Well… my mother….”

I don’t know when my mother first became aware of my self harming.  I think it was when I was in my mid-teens. She never really spoke to me about it though.  It was one of those situations of ‘I know she knows and she knows that I know she knows but it is still a secret’. 

Her little jokes started a bit later.  When I was in my late teens.  She would look at me, put a knife to her arm, and joke that she was going to cut herself.  I don’t really know why.  I guess it was my responsibility to stop her? She probably just wanted both my sister and I to have to jump in to stop her hurting herself when she knew full well that actually she was never going to do anything to herself.  Very manipulative.  And of course just a way of taking the absolute piss out of what her daughter was going through.

When I finally left (escaped) the house, my first year of university, the self harm escalated to a whole new level.  I was very straight with my mother about it.  Once.  It was when I had burned my arm pretty severely and it had got infected and needed medical attention.  The discussions with my mother went so far as ‘what anti-biotics are you on’ and ‘leave it uncovered to get air’.  My university mentor at the time thought it was great.  She told me it is proof that perhaps now I can get a good relationship with my mother going, now I am an adult and away from her full time.  In actuality it was awkward, uncaring and fake and I never spoke to her about it again.  Later on, the mother pointed to the scar left from the burn and said with a smile ‘what is that?‘.  I suppose she just liked to see me squirm with shame.  ‘You know what it is’ I muttered and left it at that.  But the shame inside just grew and grew.

Fast forward a couple of years when I was living with the abusive ex housemate and the self harm was still present and still severe.  I guess I had also developed a ‘I don’t care what I am doing to my body anymore’ attitude and the cutting spread from my legs to my arms to my torso.  I would be in and out of A&E getting roughly 50 stitches per visit.  At one point I think I had at least 400 stitches on one arm in one go.

One day, in a moment of madness, I went to see my parents and left my arms uncovered (perhaps a cry for help considering the environment I was living in?).  I remember very clearly that despite the ill treatment my arm had taken up till then all that was left at the time was three or four thin red scars.  I also remember very clearly the absolute disgust in my mothers voice as she told me I look disgusting, asked me why I am flaunting such idiocy, and told me that no man will ever love me now.  Silently I believed her and thought of the state of the rest of my body that she cannot see.  I concluded that she was right, I should be so very ashamed and yes I am completely unlovable.

But actually she was wrong.  So very wrong.  Even now, with more scars than I can even count, my arms are not disgusting.  It is time I claim my arms back as mine and tell anyone who has a problem with them to, well, take a run and jump because I am not interested.  Yes I have had a long history of self harm but I am not going to cower in shame anymore.  Considering everything I have been juggling my whole life I can break away from the conclusion that it makes me weak and moronic.  Actually it makes me a survivor.  And in general, I hate that word, but today it just seems to fit anyway.

100,000 views and stuff…

07 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by in Bourbon

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

My blog passed 100,000 hits today! That is a pretty fantabulous milestone even if I do say so myself.  Considering how egotistical I am on my blog, simply talking about myself, myself, oh and myself I remain to be astounded that anyone is still actually reading it.  Thank you to everyone reading and silently cheering me on, it does make a difference.

But now as I mean to go on… the typical Tuesday therapy tale… (alliteration anyone?)…

For some reason I yet again arrived as a ball of anxiety.  I managed to get into the therapy room but even pacing about I was getting more and more worked up and in the end we decided to go for a walk again outside.  Again it was nice to just ‘be’ in Cat’s company.  I don’t expect we will be doing much more, and we are certainly staying away from the heavy stuff as we prepare for Cat being on holiday.  I am certainly getting much more comfortable in Cats presence and there is one way I know that for sure. 

It has always been the case that I show my affections by playfully hitting people.  Over the years I have learnt to tone this down – a lot.  It was quite mortifying in high school when my best friend at one point turned to me and said ‘can you stop hitting me like that, I’m going to tell my mum’.  I guess that was the first time I ever really became aware of what I was doing and I am so glad she told me as respectfully as she did considering our age.

Having been brought up in a physically abusive household with absolutely no physical touch between mother and child unless it was hurtful touch, that was all I knew.  At that age I was absolutely craving physical affection.  But when that same friend would hold my hands, in a gentle way, to show how much we cared for each other (it was an awful lot) my whole body would literally feel as if it was on fire.  Gentle affection I just couldn’t do and I definitely couldn’t initiate it.  The only way I knew to fulfil my need for physical affection was by playfully hitting someone.  I genuinely didn’t seem to know it was wrong.  Now I do.  But it is still my knee-jerk reaction when I feel close enough to someone that I feel comfortable to show them I care.

So, back to today, whilst I definitely didn’t hit Cat, in fact I’m not sure any part of me even touched her, my arm did reach out with that sort of gesture and now I am screwing myself up because of it.  The fact it happened probably means I/parts of me are craving physical contact.  But that is beside the point – I feel like an awful human being for doing it.  Good therapy is always going to end if the client becomes physical and whilst what I did was nowhere near that level I feel an intense self hatred for putting Cat in that position.  I am pretty worried about what she is thinking of me now.  Did she notice my wrist flicking in her direction? Did it make her uncomfortable? Do I need to apologise and hope she can still work with me?

I’m trying to not be too hard on myself.  It is not my fault I was abused and left with some pretty funky ways of being in relation with other people.  At least I am aware enough to know that sometimes the way I behave is not socially acceptable in the outside world and is just another product of my childhood that I need to understand and flick away.  And of course the main thing – I didn’t actually hit Cat.  I don’t generally go around hitting people now.  That was a teenage-thing that I snapped out of pretty quickly after the best friend told her mum (who was a psychotherapist and aware I had huge issues).  I think I just need to hear that it is okay from Cat before I can let it go completely.

A crying baby

04 Saturday May 2013

Posted by in Bourbon

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

“If babies are crying and aren’t picked up and held it can leave them feeling like they are going to die. That is how I picture it feeling for you at the moment. Your distress has the same life or death quality to it”.

Yet again Cat put her finger on something I was only semi aware I was experiencing and explained it so succinctly that for that split second it took all the distress away.

I am like a crying baby today constantly screeching out to be held and feeling like if it doesn’t happen, and soon, I will not survive. Cats soothing voice held me for a bit on the phone this evening but the pain has returned. All I can do now is try to soothe myself to sleep and hope tomorrow has a different quality to it. Today has been the hardest day I’ve had in a very long time.

Catch up

02 Thursday May 2013

Posted by in Bourbon

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

Hi all,

Finally beginning to feel a bit brighter.  I have missed the interactions with you all, through my blog & your blogs!

The last couple of days I have had Raggy almost surgically attached to my side.  I think he knows his mummy has been feeling under the weather and isn’t keen to let me out of his sight at the moment.  Can’t say I mind.  The cuddles when he falls asleep on me are quite glorious.

He is probably the only thing that has kept me sane through this bout of illness.  As I explained to Cat, Raggy is still Raggy and still needs a lot of care and attention.  I cannot just neglect his toilet training or expect him to just sleep all day just because I feel I have no energy to keep up with him like I used to.  So I have been forced out of bed by him, made to feel better by having a little play with him and he is keeping me/us aware that it is 2013.

Emotional memories have been coming thick and fast with this bout of illness.  Every night, in particular, there has been a very frightening and real fear that we are going to be made to cough up phlegm and be sick.

**TW: graphic discussion of illness** For the longest time those two things were the same in my mind.  I couldn’t differentiate between them because when you are being forced to cough up phlegm it has the same ‘feel’ as vomiting.  I am trying to train my emetophobic brain that phlegm isn’t the same as vomit.  And of course I am trying to tell everyone inside that every time I feel this fear it can be counteracted with the fact that NO ONE in my life now will ever force something like that upon me again.  If it happens it happens, but that is because it is what my body needs, not because someone is annoyed at us for being ill and making extra noise from coughing/breathing heavily.

I got some feedback from Cat about how she felt our first “trip” out went on Tuesday (when we went to the park with Raggy).  She remarked that I didn’t seem very well (not just physically).  She felt I was very un-relaxed, uptight and holding things in.  Her feedback surprised me a little.  I actually felt I was reasonably relaxed but then I am used to the hypervigilance that comes with being outside the house, I am used to my brain running a million miles an hour trying to keep up with all that is external and internal, and I am used to a lot of “me” shutting down because I am in the public eye and feel too vulnerable to expose myself.  Cat is seeing the way I am outside for the first time so is coming from a fresh perspective.  My idea of relaxed is probably a far cry from her idea of relaxed for example.

So I explained to Cat how everytime I am outside the house I am constantly scanning my environment.  Trying to engage in conversation would take away from my ability to keep us “safe” so is naturally put on the back burner.  In time she wants me to give HER the responsibility of keeping us safe so we don’t have to shoulder what feels to us like such a big burden.  In her eyes it probably isn’t that big of a burden so won’t take too much of her energy to do on the sidelines.

I don’t know, I hope this is making sense.  I feel a bit waffly but I am going to blame the gunk in my head from this cold.

That is all I have for now, I guess.

Love to you all xx

Learning to say no…

29 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by in Bourbon

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

So this topic has come up, again.  It is so important to be able to listen to your thoughts and feelings and be able to say ‘no’ to someone if that is what you need.  Today, I didn’t listen to my thoughts and feelings.  Today I said ‘yes’ and now I regret it with a massive twang in my guts.

It is not a huge deal.  The situation I am referring to.  But me doing things simply to please others and sacrificing my own comfort isn’t really okay.  I need to stand up more for myself and what I need.  I need to be there for myselves and protect myselves.

Today a pleasant enough woman came up to me when I had Raggy in my arms and asked if she could cuddle him.  I immediately said yes, pulled him out of my coat, and gave him away.  But now that makes me feel sick.  I had no idea who she was, she could have been anyone.  Whilst she was holding him I kept getting distracted by thoughts that she was going to either a.) run out of the shop with him b.) squeeze him to death purposefully or c.) poison him with the rat poison I fantasised she may have on her hands.

She did none of those things.  She had quite a long cuddle with him, and eventually gave him back.  But the minutes she had him in her arms were going by so slowly, all the while I was panicking and feeling more and more distressed.  There was something about the way she looked (reminded me of my abusive ex-housemate) and the way she smelt (I’m not sure what that reminded me of) that just put me at total unease.  And instead of listening to myselves, I just let her do whatever SHE wanted to do.  A total stranger.  Sacrificing my comfort and health for a total stranger.

Now, with Raggy lying right next to me I am feeling tearful.  Rather silly really but I feel like I failed in keeping him safe and protecting him.  I feel like he has been dirtified and passed around thoughtlessly like he isn’t the special little nugget that he is.  I don’t even want to touch him.  My safe little buffer feels a million miles away from me right now because I abandoned him and handed him over to someone without making sure he was safe.  I failed him.  And that is tearing me up right now.

All I needed as a kid was to be protected.  Not passed around caregivers and abused in some way by every single one of them.  All Raggy needed was protection and I failed.  He isn’t just my special little boy anymore, untainted and innocent.  Well he is, but he isn’t.  And now I just want to cry.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 428 other followers