Yearning,

My heart is breaking for you ... and for me, because I can relate.

I went through this in therapy recently. Flooding back memories and the sense of things being my fault and reliving things that I had forgotten. ...I almost quit and I lost a lot of sleep and we had to slooooooow the therapy down considerably, just so that I could function in my daily life.

Last year, I told my T that I really hated myself and I confessed all manner of bad behavior that I did as a kid. And T still affirmed that I didn't deserve what happened to me.

She also talked about the brain development of children and I was able to view my own childhood actions with a little bit more sympathy. Of COURSE I wouldn't have had the understanding at age 8 that I had at age 25. Of COURSE I was badly behaved, because all the neighborhood kids were also badly behaved and I wanted to fit in.

I had been holding my younger self to too high of a standard. And I had concluded that I deserved the pain that I got.

When parents are abusive, one of the most insidious things is that they distort everything. EVERYTHING. Right becomes wrong and up becomes down. And what we think is normal really is NOT. Our way of making sense of the world doesn't fit reality.

*healing strength to you*