Inscape

Windy days that escape my reality to a world of internal intrigue and outside disassociation that will be forever in my psyche.

Do I want to leave this world behind I do not really know as it has been my world for such an exceptionally long and the little girl in me loves to escape into this world away from all the chaos of the human condition, the adults that harm the adults that hurt the adults that neglect and the adults that stare at you with contempt like they wish you did not exist?

In this world of mine I do not exist in that reality I exist in my world of the wind, the trees, the nature that I see in every aspect of my being that I feel on my skin, that eases my worried mind that turns off my flight response.  Those branches of the Willow trees deeply held me, they were my parents, two big enveloping trees full of love and safety.

They deeply held me … they use to, and now… well in my mind they still do, in my inscape, they did and still do.

They imprinted their knowledge – yes trees have it so very much of it.  The connection to nature was spawned in that traumatized child who had no idea where she belonged.  This little girl had been told her whole life that she was unwanted by her birth mother, un- loveable, stupid, a burden, and very often just standing there listening to the rantings and tirades out of her father’s mouth – I wish you had never been born, the ‘lot of you’.

‘never get married and never have kids they all ruin your life this is what I grew up being told, and yet what I saw around me was so often the opposite.

I could see mothers hugging and supporting their children, fathers laughing and hugging their children…so into my inscape, I went…

There really must be something so very wrong about me if all these other children have parents, who seem to love them.  Mind you who knows what their family dynamics were like, from my eyes as that small child; those parents were fundamentally different from my own.   My parents barely held me, nor hugged me.  I often was doing chores or alone.  It felt like a Cinderella story sometimes, yet no fairy godmother or prince charming came to save me.  Later in life, I realized that no prince charming had come to rescue me.

The envy I would feel when I watched mothers and daughters, the big gaping wound inside the pit of my stomach – aching and still does sometimes.  How I longed every day to feel my mother’s love, to be held to be told everything will be ok that she would never leave me again…… ever, that no one was as important to her as her children.  That she would never give up trying.  All the essence of my being begged for this love, for this void to be filled to go away.

Yet it never did.  So, I had to learn how to push it away, how to cope with a big aching wound inside me.  I started to shrink away from so no one would notice me but hunching my shoulders and bowing my head only got me into more trouble.

‘stand up straight, head up, what the f..k is wrong with you, are you stupid, you can’t even walk properly…………get the broomstick and walk up and down the hallway, until I see your shoulders back…then get a book and walk up and down the hallway until I say.

I would do this for hours sometimes, as he would forget he told me to do it, then be angry that I was in the way with the broom ‘go stand in the f…ing corner’………. hours would go by, sometimes until dinner time and then they would realize I was not there for dinner.

‘why aren’t you at dinner, what’s wrong with you are you stupid, didn’t you hear me calling?

Me so nervous, ‘I didn’t want to move because you told me to stand in the corner and if I move you will hit me’… and just like that a big hand would come smashing down…………. this little girl was so confused.

‘you are on kitchen duty for two weeks.

More punishment, oh well ….on with it I go at least there was a window in the kitchen where I would stare out to the garden, to the trees, to the wind rustling through my big old willows.

These cycles went on for years.  Some days/weeks/months much worse than others.  The weapon of choice to hit me with, the careful consideration on where to hit me so that no one else could see especially teachers at school.  The bruises on my bottom so black and purple it hurt to sit down.

The pain at school trying to concentrate and wanting to stand up because it hurt so much to sit down for long, only to get into trouble for not sitting down and listening properly.

This vicious cycle of abuse, the climbing into bed at night in the screamingly cold and dark winters of Tasmania, freezing cold, crying quietly to myself, wondering why I was so bad and how I could be better.

I got good at being funny and I got real good at cleaning, cleaning so well that nothing could be faulted…. then I will be loveable…nope the cycle continues…

‘what’s so funny, you think it’s funny, what’s wrong with you’ ………….so as you can see, the Inscape was mine, all mine and still is.

Do I want to give this up, I do not know, I don’t really want to leave that world behind, it’s safe, it’s mine, it’s my world.

When I talk of healing and being peaceful in my other articles it doesn’t mean I am healed or found some secret way of erasing the past and the trauma it just means I have a more linear path of healing that I try to maintain and sometimes it takes a wrong turn, completely goes off the path or sometimes it’s just a small wrong turn that’s easily corrected.  At times I still get caught in the same scenarios,  overcompensating, overworking, blurring my boundaries, well in actual fact I needed to learn what boundaries were.  I started from scratch I had none, every one of my boundaries had been violated and continuously so for years on end.

So be gentle with yourself speak kindly to yourself and it is so awfully hard sometimes, I know, I still very much struggle with being kind to myself.

If you are lost and wanting to know where to start, I recommend Boundaries.  Learn about them and how to implement them.  What are boundaries are to you, what do they mean, do you have any? What ones do you want? What ones do you need?…..explore and investigate this.

Work with a life coach, psychologist, counselor, best friend, just someone who understands that your boundaries have been violated and you need to learn from scratch on how to get them in place and how to keep them in place, learn this my friends and your healing may not so arduous.

 

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