I really and honestly felt and feel sorrow for my doll. The one I spanked so horribly. The one that I loved and the one that represented me (I represented someone else, someone evil, when I spanked her).
I have yet to feel sorrow for little PA that probably suffered the same treatment. Nothing there. No emotions. Blank. See, I'm tough, and strong, and no one can do anything to me that can actually hurt me. I might feel a bit angry. Just a bit. But, you know, only in general, because, on principle, it is wrong to horribly spank very little children for no good reason.
But I do feel bad for that doll. If I could have her again, I'd hold her and hug her and tell her how sorry I am for what she went through.
Me? I'm fine.
I don't even know for sure what was done to me. But I know what was done to her.
Oh, PA, I feel sorry for that doll too, and mostly for you. If we're representative of the ACON population, our crowd isn't very huggy. But hugs to you.
ReplyDelete"I'm fine" is probably a defense mechanism. For what it's worth, it was only when I dropped the "I'm fine" that I really started feeling emotions other than anger and sometimes fear, in relation to myself. I could feel sad for other people, happy for other people... but nothing in relation to me. With the grieving and even feeling pity for myself, joy, hope and other positive emotions also came in. Just saying :).
How does one do what you did?
ReplyDeleteI find it hard to even LIKE little PA - she seems to me to have been unlovable, spoiled, weird. I know it's conditioning that's making me feel this way. But I can't make myself just drop it.
I know; I felt the same way about myself as a child and it caused me to throw the same comments my daughter's way when she acted in ways that drove my mother crazy. I'm not saying you do the same, just for good order :).
ReplyDeleteYou are a great person - both the intellectual, discussion-loving part and the other, feeling part that you're just exploring. You really don't deserve to feel that way about yourself.
How does one do what I did? I haven't got a clue! I started feeling that my past was a stone, pulling me deeper into the water and bringing me ever closer to drowning. Once I realized the stone was a reality that I could no longer deny, I decided I wanted to get rid of it. I actually had dreams where my adult self took my young self by the hand, as she was waiting for Predator to show up in the school yard. I told my young self: "Listen, this sucks. But I want to give you hope. Your life will be an interesting, really exciting journey and there will be healing from all this shit too. Keep on living in hope."
Feeling means experiencing the pain, crying, being a wreck some days. But once I allowed myself to unlock that key, like I said, the positive stuff also came. Funny to imagine that I was feelingless for more than half my life - since the abuse started - and perhaps even before that.
Feelingless. Yes. I functioned like that until I had kids. But you can't paret feelingless. Not really. So I had PPD.
ReplyDelete