Hug Your Inner Child Some pain never seems to lessen, or go away. The sense of separateness, of being flawed beyond repair. A sadness of spirit that is a constant companion. A need for love that doesn't seem to ever be fulfilled. I struggle with these things every day of my life. I am tired of the struggle. Tired of feeling this way. Tired of feeling sad, feeling that no matter how much I want to change, I am not equipped with the knowledge or skill of how to get from where I am, to where I want to be. You know what keeps me going? Knowing that I am not alone, that there are others out here, who struggle as I do. Knowing that despite their sadness, fears, despite all the issues they have, they keep hanging in there, not givng up, not letting their private demons get them into an early grave. I have done so much thinking lately about the child within. There are many things that I understand from a psychological point of view, as an adult, and yet I 'feel' differently about. Things my mind 'knows', but things my emotions don't believe. Which is the true view? These feelings and beliefs are an integral part of me. They can't both be correct. For lack of a better term , there is a duality within us. When you talk to yourself, "who" are you talking to? What part of you feels confident in some situations, and completely at a loss, in others? As we develop emotionally, throughout the different stages in our lives, as we learn from experiences and change, what happens to that person we were before? Do all these things integrate into who we are now, who we are 'becoming'? What happens to the aspects of who we were before? Do you understand what I am trying to get at? Are we, in fact a composite of layers of personality and experience? And if so, which is the real person? Which is valid? What about the child within? All our early perceptions, beliefs, experiences, are filtered through the eyes of our inner child. When this child has seen life unfold before them that is violent, horrendous, truly of nightmare proportions and it lasts not a day here and there, but week after week, month after month, year after year, what do you think happens to the beliefs of that child? The hopes, the dreams? If the child proceeds from a false view of life, and of what 'love' is, what happens by the time they reach adulthood? Just how far off the mark do you think that person will be by the time they are reach the age of Forty? For me, this is I think, where my deepest problems reside, within the child I was. The child who is still inside. The child that stays hidden. The same one who used to run into her bedroom when company would come to visit. The child who had to be coaxed out of her room. This little girl was basically neglected, was abused, emotionally tortured and abandoned by the violent acts of a person who was supposed to be her protector. She was a witness to seeing her mother and siblings treated the same way, and with varying degrees of violence and abuse. This is a little girl who, with her siblings, used to try to figure out ways we could kill our father. That is something that I have never admitted before, to anyone outside of my mother and other siblings. However, before you consider me a sick and twisted person, please realize that as a child, the solution was to tickle our father to death. :) I smile because of the innocence of the mind of that child then. As with my siblings, we wanted the bad things to stop, but we wanted our father to be happy, to laugh. How sad is that? How confusing? I can't even fathom at this point in my life, how I felt then. From this adult perspective, I have my perception of how it seems I felt, but that is looking backwards in time. That little girl never got much credit, for anything. She grew up feeling terrified, unloved, ugly, guilty, shamed, alienated, alone, empty. Feeling everything but what she should have felt, had to have felt. Anger and rage. The fact that even from a child's point of view, I wanted my father to die, wanted to kill him, indicates an enormous amount of rage and anger. I have always feared anger. It is not a good thing, to be angry. Dangerous acts are done our of anger. For me anger and violence went hand in hand. They were inseparable, then. I have realized, just since beginning to write this, that in a sense, I have neglected that little girl that I was. Never letting her give voice to the anger, the rage, the feelings of hatred she had. Never letting her grow beyond a certain experience in life. She has been stuck back there, in time, waiting to be seen, to be acknowledged, to know that it was okay to be angry, to be enraged at the terrible wrongness of what happened to her and her family. I realized just recently that she was a courageous little girl, to stand up to her father who was in his 30's, and his parents, who were in their 50's, when she was 10 years old, and speak a truth that had been too long silent. Finally perhaps, she will come out and play, from time to time! 14:03 5/14/2006