After the unholy trinity left, Mum and I were alone and the hunted. Completely cut off and ostracised by any family we had, (she was the divorced black sheep of the family), I learned that I had to keep my sword drawn and be on guard 24/7, chronic anxiety alarming me with visions of attack and ready to defend. By now the worm had turned and I’d changed overnight into the angst-ridden, rageful, confrontatious creature although school was my only outlet for my pain and aggression- the abused became the abuser, the bullied became the bully – I’ll write about that some another time. At home, with Mum now spiralling into deep depression and neither of us able to deal with the local thugs, I’d lose myself in superhero-type mental movies where the victim becomes the victor, the quintessential anti-hero, usually where I’m donning an automatic hand-gun or wielding a big sharp weapon, and better still, being invisible as my superpower, so I can harass, dominate and scare my aggressors. “If only….” I used to think getting lost in these mental movies to abate the fear. It’s wild to think that as a teenage girl I’d be getting lost in killing fantasies of my aggressors rather than having teen sleep overs, listening to music, talking about boys whilst trying on clothes and makeup. I console that part of me when I think about her and when I cry for her telling her that it’s ok to be upset, it was really hard for her back then, that no girl should have had to endure what she went through.
It was from that time as a teen that I learned to cloak myself in defence: always. I remember being so frightened late at night when local racist thugs knocked violently on our front doors and windows, usually at midnight or the very small hours in the morning, to intimidate my mum and I, knowing we were easy prey. They used to bash so hard on the front door (which led straight into the house, no porch), I thought they’d kick the door in; and then they’d knock hard on the single-glazed glass on the front wooden windows; I would tremble with fear under the covers, just wishing I wasn’t there, unable to run away, frozen in fear that they might smash the windows, get in and attack us. Luckily for us, the windows never got smashed in but I had a vivid nightmare which I still recall today of a bearded, down and out, hill-billy vagrant type of man who probably hadn’t washed in weeks, scowling and angry ready to throw a breeze block through our front window. It was just then my eyes would open, before he smashed the front bay window in. Normally dreams float away like butterflies, elusive to catch once awake but I remember this image of that nightmare. To this day I have PTSD when someone knocks my door too loudly – I jump out of my skin and my heart beats as if it’s bursting out of my chest, and it takes me straight back, as if someone’s coming to get me.
By the time I was in my late teens to early 20’s my trauma pain body was formed and fully fledged with claws and teeth. “Why me?” is probably the most uttered question I had in the back of mind for years. Yes it was a victim mindset but I was entitled to think like that. As a product of my pain, I had unwittingly morphed into a rageful, bitter and slightly unhinged 20-something…although I certainly wouldn’t have described myself as such back then. There was an inner Hades within me, and like Persephone, I was carried away into its underworld: I had drowned in a thick, turbulent and stormy ocean within me, within which I’d formed gills and learned to breathe in. I did think that life owed me something back then and was waiting for a saviour, to be rescued from my underworld, oblivious that I needed to rescue myself. I just didn’t know how to.
Forget the rose tinted glasses the dark side was my filter; I’d become possessed by my pain. And here’s how it manifested
It was as though I’d developed some sort of a personality disorder, looking back. It made me lost, scattered and fragmented, dominated by a toxic and compulsive ‘doing’ energy enticing me like the Pied Piper of Hamlyn, taking me off-track down the wrong roads to dead ends and dry valleys. It made me forget completely who I am and abandon everything about myself that was true, all the goodness sucked out of me. I was in a hurry to get somewhere; I was hasty, always wanting the shortcut, an energy that although now dissipated and diluted, the vestiges of it still remain to this day. I wonder what opportunities passed me by back then on this hasty and aimless trajectory that never allowed me to stand still long enough to hear the muffled calls of my soul which at this point was gagged and shackled. I heard it’s distance cries but it was locked up and caged on the maybe-later-shelf. There were glimmers of the real me, it showed up fleetingly now and again but the voice of my pain body kept me on the wrong road telling me there’s something else, somewhere else, throwing away job offers or not turning up to interviews. It’s fills me with heaviness to think that she was an intelligent and talented young woman, a gifted writer and artist who could easily have forged a life as a creative, a bright spark with initiative who was completely fragmented back then, through no fault of her own, having no sense at all of her worth and abilities, waiting for some normality and for a saviour.
Being brutally honest, my “Babadook” made me maladjusted and unhinged. It skewed my thinking. My emotions were a soup of heavy grief, rage, bitterness and anger showing up like an evil goblin whipping me to do things, say things and become someone I’m not. I never had a true sense of what childhood is really like (in a western world) and I was bitter about it, a constant undercurrent. Of course, I didn’t know that my pain body had become me. I just knew the feelings I harboured. I would fly off the handle at the smallest, most inconsequential of things; it was as though I needed to expel the thick tar of rage out of me but no amount of blowing-up would soothe it. The skewed thinking and unhinged part of me manifested as a wildly jealous and spiteful streak which drove me to do the most insane and hideously irrational things, nothing life-threatening or criminal, just thoughtless bitchy stuff like interfering in other people’s lives who I thought had it better than me, to try and fuck it all up for them and in some convoluted way, that would make me feel better. Very naive I know (there’s no judgement here by the way). That part of me just wanted to feel better but no one told me that wasn’t the way. That wounded part of me coveted other people’s lives, what they had and hated my own life and what I didn’t have; it hated other people’s success, in their personal lives and professional lives, and the ease with which some people seemed to glide though life, effortlessly. It felt as though everyone else had a much easier life, and that life was against me, dealt with a shitty hand of cards. I used to think “why them and not me?”. “Why can’t I have an easy life?”. “Why can’t I find success really easily?” “Why haven’t I found a boyfriend to settle down with?”. “Why couldn’t I have grown up in a decent area, in decent house with decent neighbours?” “Why have I had a shitty upbringing, in a shithole of an area full of racist thugs?”. “Why couldn’t I have had a normal family and do normal things that families do like summer holidays by the sea and gatherings on special occasions rather than growing up on the breadline, abandoned by our own family?”. “Why have I had a fucked up start to my life?” I’ve had a much worse start than anyone else I know!!! I could have a had a better start than this! Why me? It’s just not fair! It’s not fucking fair!!
That is the 20-something talking by the way. That’s what the inner dialogue sounded like.
I became foul-mouthed, confrontatious, impulsive and aggressive creature; I was a bitch to my mum back in my late teens and early 20’s, telling her how useless she is, screaming at her constantly that she was neglectful and ineffectual as a parent; I was deeply resentful that she kept us where we were living as a teen, feeling deprived of a normal childhood, having to take on adult roles at 14, constantly trying to hold space for and motivate my, by then, extremely depressed mother who was in her mid-late 30’s. I just wanted another role model, someone to guide me and take me under their wing. I am ashamed to say that the pain body resented my mum and wanted her gone. I wanted a better life, a better family and to be somewhere else away from everyone, including my mother. But the pain body steered me away from sensible choices; I never made enough money, fecklessly floating from rootless job to rootless job, on the dole in between and ending up in pyramid schemes where I lost more money than I made, trying to find the quick route to success, building up a mound of credit card debt and keeping me exactly where I was because I hated it so much. It’s ironic, what you hate, you get more of. What you resist, persists. I was fuelled by an unhinged “I’ll show you” attitude to the transgressors in my life, not fully understanding that the energy was totally misplaced. This is painful for me to write but rather than blaming her, or filling myself with regret of the life I could have lived or should have lived, I have compassion for that young woman who just got totally fragmented by her pain, totally lost in her wilderness and possessed by a pervasive and almighty pain body vortex that sucked her into it, all controlling and all consuming, and didn’t let her go for a very long time….but beneath theunhinged and angry facade was spiritually and emotionally broken young woman: depressed, lonely, deeply sensitive, broken-hearted and insecure young woman, fearful and distrusting of the world, heavy with grief and burdened with the toxic shame of betrayal and worthlessness, searching for someone to love and accept her so she could love and accept herself.
Things settled down somewhat from around 28 years old for about 8 years until I imploded – that’s for another blog I’m starting although I may write about it here too. It all ties together.
I’d been in fight-mode for a very, very long time. Fighting with the world. Fighting with myself. I still am in fight mode to a certain degree and have to consciously reign myself in. There’s a strong streak in me that wants justice, putting people in their place, make the wrongs right, something I couldn’t do as a child. Part of that rage still lives in me today and occasionally I’ll blow up over minor things or want to fight back about a wrong-doing (not a verbal or physical fight, my fights tend to be of the written variety, deploying legal weapons). You can see where it comes from though, what that energy body is trying to do. So life will present me with re-enactments until I choose not to fight back. It does become exhausting…how many fights will it take; how many wrongs can I right and at what expense…? Perhaps choosing not to fight back isn’t losing? Perhaps choosing me rather than the fight will assuage the pain and will take me off on a different, more joyful trajectory?
The movie ending of ‘The Babadook’ (no spoilers) is similar to what I’ve been taught in IFS therapy: I no longer have judgement or ill-feeling toward the young woman I used to be. Neither do do I berate her. I now comfort the regret with a soft blanket of understanding, soothe the “I should have’s” with a hot water bottle of compassion, warm the “what if’s” with a cuddle of kindness and acknowledge the pain that the child endured with an embrace of heart-filled love, pain which rendered her so emotionally and spiritually broken that it’s taken a lifetime to try and fix.
Isn’t this what we must do with our pain body and exiled parts? I think this is what self-love really is: to be tender and gentle with our wounded parts, feed them with loving kindness, acknowledge them in all their glory, and as as ‘ugly’ as these parts might be, to witness them, validate them, acknowledge them so that rather than metamorphasizing to become us, the pain body simply dissolves into our soul to alchemise and evolve.
If baring my soul to you (and the world) has moved or touched a part of you in any way, then your support would be very welcome. To help me on this healing journey, perhaps you’d like to buy me a coffee (although mines a tea) via the link below:
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