My latest reading material is: The Pregnant Virgin - A process of psychological Transformation.
By Marion Woodman.

It good. 👍

Ah this book is good. As I was reading it about false masks etc, it came to me. All these yrs when I wake up I always feel like there's something that I hide away immediately. I've told T it's got better, but not been able to work out what aspect of myself I'm hiding.
But I've got it. It's my despair. When I'm alone I feel sad but happy. Couldn't work it out. But to be able to be at home in my own body includes being able to experience my own desperation. The desperation the abandoned baby I was, felt.
I must of had to split that off

Sometimes when something is too hard to bare we have to split off and leave that part of us behind as a defense mechanism, especially as children we do this and in therapy we try to bring back the part we left behind. No wonder therapy is so hard.
I think we all forget how hard it is and don't give ourselves enough credit
Are the masks we wear are they the archetypes? I have heard them described as that before?

The book talks about that.
I use to think one should only enjoy their 'positive' feelings. I had a suspicion I enjoyed my negative too. By that I don't mean I dwell in them. I mean, being alone with my sadness comforts me too.
Why? Because they're part of the real me.
Good stuff!

Maybe because this sadness is the only feeling you really know and feel comfortable with? It's the only feeling you really know how to cope with?

Maybe, but I think it's that I learnt I had to hide it from my adoptive mother. I had to let her feel I was so pleased to have been given to her.
I had to attend to her unconsious sadness. There was no room for mine.
And my adoptive father, though my hero. He only accepted jovial emotions. That's how I related to him.

So much feelings, it's so sad that we can only be ourselves around us and our therapists and maybe our partners! This book sounds great Mouse, I must get a copy.
I hope you can be whoever you want now and let your emotions just be