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It strikes me within minutes of publishing this post that I always feel that I am in so far over my head when writing the truth of what I know that I cannot endure it. The intensity of my experience when I ‘get close’ to my truth feels to be more than I can humanly bear.
I have no one to talk with on an ongoing basis who will help me downregulate this intensity of my whole-body emotional experience connected to the material both about Mother’s story and about my own.
At this moment I encounter what might be the most difficult aspect of my life: Why am I here? How did I survive what was done to me, abuse from birth and continuously forward through the first 18 years of my life? How did I not come through my infancy and childhood NOT being completely mad? How am I alive AT ALL?
As I held the most-precious pure body of my newly born grandson my awareness was complete that when I was his age I had already experienced such hatred and brutal, violent abuse from my mother that I SHOULD have – in my thinking – been removed from the realm of the living ALREADY!
My rational self at this moment tells me that in order for me to continue to endure I MUST leave what I can know and do know – ALONE.
From this point another voice within me tells me that it was ONLY possible for me to endure and to survive intact what was done to me through divine, spiritual intervention.
This voice tells me that my being willing to allow this same divine, spiritual assistance to carry me through my writing work is the ONLY way I can publish a book (books) in the same way that this assistance kept me alive and sane in the first place.
Another voice of mine says, “I never wanted that suffering! I want to keep an impenetrable petition between myself and the truth that I know so that I can remain a person intact and alive even now.”
Another voice says, “Can you trust that there is a greater and a good purpose to ALL OF THIS, that this purpose is far bigger than you are, than your mother was? Will you accept the job of making sense out of something so awful – and therefore so awesome – that few can as yet comprehend?”
At the same time this me, this woman with fingers on her keyboard writing through tears, cannot comprehend any of this. What I know, what I can in my own very small way understand and accept, is that I have books to publish that very well have the potential to grant to my beloved children and grandchildren something of value I can understand: financial well-being through financial freedom.
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This writing work, the BIG writing that I have been avoiding for one full year now, seems to require of me that I step out alone into an arena so vast that I feel like the tiniest speck of breathing life that at any possible millisecond can be snuffed completely out.
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What I WANT, then, is to find some remote, detached, objective armored self that can do this work as if she were a writing robot. I don’t want to agree to a job that demands of me that I be more wholly present during the writing of these books than I have ever been before in my memory of myself.
This is so intense. This is so agonizing. I stand up and pace and pace and pace and pace. I feel apart from, not a part of this material world that greets me in this body. The writing – my real writing – seems to exist within a different dimension where time and space and memory hold an entirely different meaning. Carry a different weight. Have a different potential to suck me in and never let me out again.
I pace and pace and pace and pace, with my right hand pressed firmly against my solar plexus. I fear I will bore my blog readers to death as I move forward into this writing direction, into this place where there seems to be no beginning, no end, and only one possible doorway of escape: The publishing of these books.
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Stop the Storm 
Dear Twin – Trauma triggers – EVERYWHERE it can seem!!!!! A part of our lives – yes, DAMN IT!!
As long as we are not hurting self/others – we can creatively react any way we choose – and then decide once we assess/learn about each occasion what we might like to maybe do – next time – instead!!
Your words:
“Last night I was reading a story and several lines jump out of the book that reminded me of something from my past. I could feel it and experience the shame and the pain so deeply that tears formed and I throw the book away with anger and unjust of simply reading a story could throw me into a tail spin. When I get to this point I shut down mentally and numb myself . That pain is so dark that I’m afraid to feel it.”
For some reason it brought to me thoughts about how FAST we are tempted to get away from these kinds of triggering events — we are NOT back ‘there’ now – we CAN find safe ways to explore what we are feeling when these things happen. It will, so unfortunately ’cause these happened to us in the first place, take our lifetime in this body to work to make something RIGHT for our own self in our own life out of what happened to us then.
Daring to explore – not always safe, I certainly know. But perhaps you have read some of my past posts about becoming able to let all the CRAP that was NEVER ours — GO — back to the people who hurt us. OURS is the beautiful in our own self. It’s all scrambled up. We are left buried in rubble and wreckage.
Yet every time we can even find our self in our memories and work to get our self OUT of that wreckage empowers and frees us – a little bit at a time.
I don’t, of course, know what kind of memory of trauma ‘attacked you’ out of the blue – but we all share those same kinds of feelings. We KNOW one another that way.
There is also a beautiful, pure, gentle set of feelings that we can find as we work to heal. It is a work of a lifetime…..
Which also brought into my thoughts how firmly I believe that THIS lifetime in this body is really VERY short in the span of eternity – and there is NOTHING BUT love and healing on the ‘other side’!!!
much love to you, dear Twin – and thank you for writing today!!
Thank you ALL so much for your wisdom, kindness, love, support and encouragement on ‘this project’!
and, the alone thing, the self-care thing
I again caught a bug from my 2 1/2 grandson when I was up there, a daycare bug
I finally went to the doc – admitting I could not kick that thing by myself!
antibiotics, steroid treatments, etc – now to take the meds and get well
so already I am feeling a tiny bit more chipper, thankfully – but DANG it is hard for me to ‘connect up’ – to get help, to accept help – etc!
SO
What I recognize in these amazingly positive comments about ‘the project’ I can now name as ENTHUSIASM!
That IS what we are sharing, along with all the rest – but it’s the ENTHUSIASM that will sustain my own work, along with courage – but I need confidence in myself, as well — and I can feel the confidence I have in my readers, why not share some with myself!?!?!
So, also
I just popped off an email to my daughter I just visited who will when the time comes be working on the editing, the business and publishing end of all of this….
about the CHARITY hopes I have should these books – WHEN these books are bestsellers
the thought that my ideas can reach fruition is incredibly inspiring to me. Hopefully all of my family will benefit financially – but we are very humble and reasonable people. We can begin with a certain percentage for charities – and increase that amount vastly once our own basic needs have been met
my ideas have to do with creating a growth chart for parents – not like the ones that are common with ‘when baby will sit, roll over, stand, get teeth’ etc
but rather what attachment relationships are contributing to the development of the infant BRAIN, emotional regulation patterns, development of immune and stress-calm response system – the REALLY important info that newest neuroscientific developmental research tells us – everyone needs access to THIS kind of info!
Also, perhaps forming a research program to find a way to get the Adult Attachment Interview out of the ivory towers of academia and research into the public hands. The assessment of adult attachment and an understanding of what adult attachment means in terms of how it passes on unresolved family traumas or does not – is also extremely important
Another area of particular interest to me is getting the facts about how early trauma alters the entire life course of survivors. The Center for Disease Control’s Adverse Childhood Experiences research findings are a MUST for the public to know!!
I have always hoped to donate to super parenting classes in some way – but as I just wrote my daughter parents who suffered most need this and so much MORE – like an assessment of their attachment patterns, explanation of where those came from, what they mean, how they impact parenting — and how to help FIX the insecure attachment patterns – as well as how to identify when those patterns are causing troubles
If these books – and my own story – become bestsellers, it may be that our family can help form some kind of very specific ‘charity’ that can combine all my hopes and interests into a one BANG UP operation to cover these things NATIONALLY – getting the right critical info to the public is vital
I know that California has done MUCH in the way of forming and supporting (with their tobacco taxes) Infant Mental Health programs. They have models – they have practice – etc
If our family forms the exact non-profit tailored to what I want we can control against waste of money, for efficiency and effectiveness
So
ENTHUSIASM. I am feeling within myself today that what I want to accomplish with this difficult writing is all a GOOD THING!! There is much potential here
My mother always wanted to write her Alaskan adventure book. As I organized and transcribed the boxes of paper mess of her words I realized her dream could not possibly have come true to write and publish BECAUSE of her mental illness
Talk about adventures…..
Thank you, Sandy – with all my heart.