Self-healing

[Genevieve Simperingham]

Tell us a little about your journey of self-healing. Has parenting heightened your awareness of unresolved feelings and issues? What has helped you in your journey? What hasn’t? What have you learned on the journey so far? Big questions I know, but just a place to start.

[Eveline]

Hi Everyone, just copy and pasting into the right place! 🙂

Wow! What a group!
Something about my journey. I am still trying to self-heal, which is why I started reading Parenting Inside Out by Dan Seigel and Mary K.
One of the things that I realised from parenting is how I have a few major issues.
First is how my mum was not emotionally available to us. One of my earliest memory was of me crying and talking to a photo of my deceased grandfather, asking him why did he die, now no one is around to love me. (I am not sure why I reached out to him. He passed away when I was 2 years old).
I love my mum but I think my mum were depressed. I remember how she would retire into her room very early in the night and whilst physically there, mentally she was not there. My sister remarked a while back how we grew up without a mother and that she acted as our mum. I guess similar to your experience, Wendy. Except my sister is the eldest and she took charge of us (three siblings, I am the youngest).
My father was our shelter. I remember him helping us with homework, sharing what we have read in magazines or storybooks. I even remember him giving me a hug before sleep and kissed me on my forehead!
I guess when I realised how my mother could have been depressed when we were growing up, I wanted to be present for my children and show them that I love them and that they have me when they feel lonely, but I always find myself saying the same words that my mum said to me when i was growing up, like “don’t cry, crying is no use”, or “if you don’t keep, I’ll throw away your toys”.
Second is how I wasn’t allowed to have negative emotions. Crying was a definite no no. I only realised this very recently… from this course.
So, with those two pre-conditions from my childhood, and add in a miscarriage, I had the most horrible 2012. I was in a very very bad place. 2012 was the year I stopped breastfeeding Oliver (who was 2.5 years old), and had relationship issues with my husband and changed jobs three times in one year.
I came out of the horrible year/resolved it by meditation, yoga and keeping everything simple.
I also had a proper psychotherapist twice, which introduced me to books like “Attached” and the fact that I am a highly sensitive person. Reading on my attachment style lead to be realise how a lot of my problems with my husband stems from how i was parented and how I was afraid of feeling abandoned again. I understood it intellectually but haven’t really realised it (if that makes sense). I felt that I haven’t really resolved it completely.
I guess that’s where I am now. Sorry for the ramble.

[Genevieve Simperingham]

Evaline, what a journey you’ve been on. 2012 sounds like such a nightmarish year 🙁 Such strength of will and commitment to do all the meditation and yoga and psychotherapy sessions to pull through. Reading it gives me a reflection of my own strength of will to pull through again and again and to heal the old patterns.

Please don’t apologize, your sharing is so rich and real and valuable!!

Huge realizations about your attachment patterns as a child creating the patterns of relating with your hubby. A really great book on healing relationship patterns based on an understanding of each person’s desire to meet their attachment needs in the relationship is “Hold me tight” by Sue Johnson.

[Eveline]

Thanks Genevieve for your reply.

Yes, 2012 was a nightmarish year, the year I lost my will to continue on. It’s interesting how, the more I think about that year now in the past few days, the more I realized how I should have allowed myself to grief for the miscarriage more. And that it made me think that if I had been kind towards myself and not think that I was “defective” because I was sad, a lot of the other problems that occurred that year might not have occurred, or at least it might not have been so bad.

Thanks for the book recommendation! My psychotherapist recommended “Hold me tight” too! I am yet to read it but will start to read it soon.

[Genevieve Simperingham]

Yes Evaline, I hear you, your grief at how much better you might have navigated through, how you might not have reached such rock bottom, had you been able to grieve. I so wish there was more awareness and value in our society of the necessity and the value of the grieving process.

I remember when I had a miscarriage (before having children) I was absolutely shocked at the darkness it plunged me in to. Getting pregnant had been an accident yet we decided to keep the baby and I hence got so attached so fast and then the shock of miscarriage. I blamed myself, was it that accident on the bike, I shouldn’t have used my partner’s bike, was it lifting that old bath that caused it, was I not welcoming enough. The salt in the wounds was the lack of empathy from family, they were clearly glad that my “mistake” had been rectified because I had only been with my partner (my now husband) for a few weeks, yet I already knew we’d be having a family together. I don’t remember people actually enquiring into how it was for me and when I volunteered it I just felt more lonely. That was 20 years ago and I can still feel some pang when I think back to the lonliness of that time.

[Eveline]

Oh Genevieve, I so understand how you must have felt. I, too, blamed myself and second guessed why the miscarriage could have happened! was it because I was still breastfeeding Oliver? was it because I jumped or walked too much?

I know what you had meant by being lonely.

Thank you for listening and thank you for this space! I really appreciate it.

[Author]

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