My inner child and me (II)

Yesterday I wrote about my process with my inner child, and this process continues. Unfortunately, it is a very painful process, with a lot of fear and a lot of pain, and I can't do it without crying. Yesterday, before going to bed, I had to stop the meditation, as very painful images of my inner child came to me - new images, related to the topic of sexual abuse - which I prefer not to mention here yet, as it is not at all clear to me what relation to reality these images have. Just thinking about these images now gives me a knot in my stomach and I have to cry.

This morning I also connected with my inner child again. I sat on the floor in front of my inner child, at a sufficient distance so that they don't feel trapped or threatened, and I stayed like that for a while, talking to them that they don't have to be afraid, that I will protect and take care of them, that I won't hurt them. I felt their impulse to flee, to run, to try to escape, but they just sat there, afraid, keeping an eye on me without taking their hands from their eyes. Little by little. There is so much fear, so much pain.

I also tried to explain to them that I couldn't protect them then, as I was them. Because I feel that they blame me for what they suffered.

I also understand their mistrust, as I had abandoned them for almost 50 years. So, they need their time to learn to trust me.

I had abandoned them, I was dissociating, running away to my own world, to the world of model trains when I was younger, then to books, to music, to activism. Running away from myself. When I read, recently, in FORGE's Self-Help Guide for Trans Survivors of Sexual Violence about the inability of trauma survivors to play, this touched me deeply: "Almost invariably, clients are unable to play, finding that their capacity to experience pleasure, exuberance and joy in playful interactions or activities is diminished, has disappeared altogether in the wake of the trauma, or is experienced as paradoxically dangerous and threatening". I think this had already happened to me at a fairly early age, this inability to play, and, so far, I have never recovered this ability.

Sometimes I still run away. To a good book, for example. Activism also sometimes allows me to run away from myself, although now, since the beginning of the pandemic two years ago, this outlet is almost non-existent. And since I can't run away (maybe better), I have to go back to myself, and I am in this painful process of reconnecting with my inner child.

I don't know when we are going to talk, my child and I. I don't know when I can get closer. I don't know when they will trust me. I don't know when they will tell me how they feel, what they are afraid of, where their pain comes from. I don't know when they can tell me how they feel about being a boy, a girl, a nonbinary child, or ... We are not yet at this point. I thank them that they don't try to run away from me, that they allow me to come closer, although keeping a distance, that sometimes they look at me. With all their fear, there is also curiosity. We are on a path, my inner child and me.