Spinoff from dissociation...Goldilocks inner child

I´ll still keep the rest of my life story for the weekend, as there are still some gaps, but i will finish and post the metaphor tonight.

Thank you for the support!

I read once somewhere that it could help to date people even if they initially seem "boring" and that the ones who initially seem exciting are the ones who will later turn out to be bad news. I guess the idea is that if they aren't activating you it will for awhile seem boring, but over time you will grow into it, get deeper emotions, and see that it is a healthier, better relationship than your previous ones.

11 year old Goldi told her dad she no longer wanted visitation. Why? She was not sure, perhaps it had to do with the way he spoke to her mother... Manipulative, dangerous. Something was just very off...

Goldi was both protective and critical of her mother. All the toxic people who came into the house? Preteen Goldi told them ”Stop coming, you make my mom sick and tired! Whenever you have been here she is complaining about how you drain her and how much of a headache you really are! Why are you even here!”. Preteen Goldi confronted her mother. “Why don't you ever stop bringing people in that make me sick and tired???” She was like a one girl army slaying all of the horrible people with brutal honesty.

Teen Goldi put a lock on her bedroom door, the type of lock that safely locks a front door. She did not mind her mother's dislike of it, she chose safety over politeness. She also rejected her father over and over and over as he desperately and aggressively sought contact. His letters displayed a strange and disturbed person. She did not let his pressures wear her down and she rejected so much that, like many people bite their nails habitually, she grew up to reject habitually.

She is not sorry.



Being able to set a physical boundary in my room, I no longer felt overwhelmed and intruded on a constant basis. I had the space to breathe and expand a little. Quite often I felt sad or was in emotional pain. I could cry in my room without being witnessed. My mother did come bang on the door and shouted, but I knew she could not barge in. I had a space to be me. Fewer toxic people came to visit, and even if they did I could be safe in my room. I was louder, naughtier and also more alive. I did numb my feeling with ciggarettes but also felt them roar with loud music.My mother was getting therapy around this time and could handle having a daughter with more presence. After having been bullied for much of my life and not having any real friends I actually made friends!!! Not the closest friendships and I made many blunders but I was making progress fast and by the end of my teens I had a normal social life.


Once in college I could make casual friends with ease and enjoyed exploring the world through conversation and travel. I did still not have much emotional closeness or depth in my friendships and frequently heard I came across as cool and distant. Nonetheless, intellect and humor were my strenths in the social world. My circles were mostly seperate and I continued to feel like bit of an outsider in each. I tried out different things in life and became more confident. I did always have to pull back in and cocoon in order to carry all the things that were coming in from the outside world. My studies were not really progressing very fast because of this combination. This worsened when my mother fell ill and suddenly needed as much care as a toddler. This was emotionally difficult for both of us, as old roles shifted and duties had to be borne. Once she started becoming less dependent, I myself started suffering from health issues that kept me in pain and unable to be very productive. I started reading a lot about physical and emotional health and the relation between the two. I also learned how the neglect I had faced in childhood could disrupt the settings of my physical body and went through my life story as I am doing now. Perhaps with less depth, and not in the company of you here in the forum. The crisis in my body was acconpanied by being fed up with my love life and choosing celibacy for a while. I started experimenting with meditation, which really did help me feel more of my body and my emotions. Recording my dreams gave me a look inside my psyche. I had a large variety of deep experiences; some incredibly beautiful and others incredibly dark and frightening.



At some point my health improved enough to have more capacity to get things done. While I had focussed my energy on taking care of myself and my mother, I still did not have a degree or a career and my finances were a mess. I found a job and made a budget to save at least a tiny bit out of my small income. My mother and I were in mutual dependence, me relying on my mother for housing, and her relying on me for care. I was in a dead end job. I had to choose between working full time and living on my own, but never getting a better life or working part time and studying for something more and living with my mother. After graduating, I moved to a new town almost immediately. I wanted to start afresh and have my own life. Looking back, I have always lived in houses where my mother could not visit me. I had to work hard and move around a lot to build a good career and feel relaxed in the knowledge that I can choose the job I want.



Now I do have a happy life. I can support myself, with some comfort, without working long hours. I have a wide and deep group of friends and every topic I can at least talk about with one person. I am happy on my own and with my friends. My relationship with my mother is now good and healthy. I visit her regularly and within my own boundaries.

I cried reading your reply.

Thank you for being a witness to my words. 
Its very healing to have a loving ear, to be heard and sen for who I was and who I am. 

I'm also sorry for all the hurts little Goldi had to live through, and it is not easy to relive through this but it had to happen and has to happen some more. 
I was indeed betrayed, unprotected, bullied, afraid and alone. I had to look out for me first and foremost.

That said, as I want to paint my mother with both her light and her shadow, I must tell you that she has hugged me often. She did not put me last, she put herself last. She is also very very wounded and essentially felt worthless even as a child and continued to feel worthless well into her forties. She also has deep programming of a servant and martyr role.  I think she wanted to believe the world was good and was not willing to see the danger early enough. She did not trust her inner wild woman, her wolf. That said, she did find the strength to divorce my father, to work and to cook and clean, to read me books and to buy me toys and also to give me hugs. I feel gratitude for having had these things in my life, not all children do. The other people were not always there and when it was just the two of us, we had a good life. I just wish in my heart of hearts that it could have been just the two of us most of the time. The knowledge that our life would have been so much better is what is behind the feeling of resentment. I deserved a calm and peaceful home where I felt safe. She deserved to spend her extra time reading her favorite novels and her extra money on more help with the cleaning. The people who got so much of her love and resources neither deserved not appreciated it.

Thank you for helping me find the tender feelings behind the hurt and resentment!! 

I'm also proud of me. I have healed so much of what has been broken, then built all that I had lacked from the ground up, even when very young.
Indeed, I'm alright. more than alright even.

I have more to share tomorrow, a deeper and darker story, but know that at the end, all is light and good. It is really difficult to write and share, but I know it is right and healing me more and more.

goldilocks, your mother and my mother shared some qualities and vulnerabilities, in their struggles as single moms with difficult partners.

My mother was on an extreme end of a spectrum, and suffered psychological illness tho. She also did her best and suffered so much.
I have reconciled with her also. It took a long time and a lot of internal work but we are at peace, and happy.
We have come full circle.

I am happy to be here for you with this.
You're doing great work. I know it's hard. Wrenching. But also liberating. And it's so loving to yourself.

it's pure.

I'm happy for us both, for all of the experiences that brought us to the place of healing we are in now!

Glad to share this experience with you here

juniper

I have noticed you have a similar soul to mine. I'm not surprised you have had similar experiences, yet feel sorry to hear you do.
❤

I'm also truly very happy you are here to witness this. 
It has indeed been wrenching and still is, but it is also beyond liberating.

My path is not yet fully walked, but the difference is that I'm not walking away from love, or towards love. 
I'm not even just walking with love.
I'm walking my path as Love.
No matter how deep it may plunge into darkness, I have all the courage, because my heart is full of light.

I too am happy for us both and the place of healing we are in is truly awesome!
Your heart is gentle and full of love.
❤❤❤