Everything bubbling up

Bea,

There’s too many pieces right now for me to sort through.

There’s the mom piece of her not seeing and not protecting me.

There’s the mom piece of I can see why pretending was easier.

There’s the hurt and grief that I put myself in this dark and twisty place for Kat and I wasn’t enough for my mom to do that for me.

There’s the little girl with the nightmare. I think it’s the first time he…..the R word. I don’t know, but I think.

There’s the little girl with blame and shame of being the one to start something that even you have said wasn’t something any kid should experience. That’s the movie reel with snapshots of everything bad I ever did, all

leading up to this memory with the itchy tights.

There’s this mad feeling. Not just mad. Big mad. Huge mad. I hate this.

There’s fear that it’s my fault these things happen to Kat. Like I passed on this….this thing of being hurt like this and no matter how hard I try I’ll never ever be able to really keep her safe.

There’s this fear of being grounded in the present. That old fear of being really present is not safe. It is not safe to be here. Much better to be far away.

There’s the teen, and all these confusing thoughts and feelings that I can not even begin to sort out.

There’s this part that feels like Kat is going to….ugh. I don’t know. It’s the part of me that blames myself for everything and hates myself for being naughty, for being….I don’t know the right word. Ugh. Never mind.

There’s this *I’m far away but every stupid thing triggers me* thing happening right now and I don’t understand how I can be so far away and still feel so jumpy and hyperaroused.

~Alice

Bea wrote a long email in response to my list, but she only asked one question: Just one thing I want to really stress to you right now—the things happening with Kat are definitely not your fault. You didn’t do anything to cause this. The boy’s parents may have contributed to his behavior, but I don’t see any connection between anything you’ve done and the stuff with Kat. I’m interested to hear why you feel there is a connection?

I don’t have a reason. It’s more of a feeling. Like maybe  I infected her or something. I just don’t know. It’s kind of a HUGE, just general feeling. It’s messy. There’s a half formed thought that I made these things happen to myself, I did it, caused it because of something that is just so wrong with me, something that is just broken inside me and always was and that thing, that something wrong with me made him do…..well, you know. And if it is something inside me, some broken and damaged thing inside me maybe I gave, or caused that same damage in my daughter. I don’t know. I know this doesn’t make a lot of sense. The parts and all of their thoughts and feelings and experiences are so HERE and real, maybe more real than anything else right now. I know I have crazy head, I know this but I can’t seem to stop it. It feels like everything is bubbling up all at once, and I can’t latch onto one bubble before another one bubbles up, and its all just bubbling over and I cant stop it.

Bea responded with reassurance she could understand the little girl logic driving those feelings, but that objectively, this wasn’t the truth. She said that I wasn’t damaged and there was nothing wrong with me that caused those bad things to happen. She reminded me that we have been in messu spots before and that together we will grab onto one bubble at a time and start to sort through it all and process it.

I hope she’s right. All I really want to do right now is pop each and every bubble and rinse them down the drain, erasing them forever.