Originally From Childhood

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

We all "come from childhood" and each of us has his own Parent, Adult and Child, according to the theory of Eric Berne. Our inner child has a definite impact on our real life. And for many people, this inner child was injured by those adults who were in their immediate circle in childhood. Working out these wounds will help remove those negative influences that provoke adults who seem to be already people to some inappropriate emotions in the present. I would like to share with you the story of one such cure.

Sofia came to me about "emotional imbalance, resentment, anxious sleep, which have been throughout her life, but have recently become aggravated, and the usual means: antidepressants, sleeping pills, massage and swimming, do not help." When I asked her to tell me about her childhood, she was very surprised, but she told the following.

“I hardly remember my father. I know that he was a bitter drunk, drank himself to delirium tremens and ended his life in an asylum for the mentally ill, hanging himself in the toilet on a chain of a toilet cistern. Mom didn't go to bury him. There are several fragmentary memories of him, of being rocked on the bus we took to visit him in an insane asylum. Every trip was torture for me. I remember how he came to visit me in the hospital, where I thundered with poisoning. I was there all alone, I was three years old, crying and asking him to kiss me. There was a net on the window and he helplessly spread his hands and said: "How can I kiss you, there is a net on the window." I remember my sobs right from the depths of my soul then. When I found out about his death, I did not experience any feelings: I never had a father to regret who or what I had lost.

Mother? As long as I can remember, my mother wanted to sleep all the time. From early childhood, I knew how to sit quietly and hardly breathe when my mother was asleep. This was due to the fact that my mother worked in a hospital, she often had night shifts, after which she slept at home.

I had two older brothers. There was no relationship with them. First, they were much older than me: seventeen and ten years old. Secondly, I was from another father and they considered me a stranger and even called me “this girl” or “your girl” if they turned to my mother on my occasion. Thirdly, they did not love my father, moreover, they hated me and transferred some of this hatred to me. Yes, a lot, what else. For example, it was difficult for both of them to study at school. The middle brother even stayed for the second year, and I studied easily, jokingly passed from class to class with commendation sheets. Both of them studied at a boarding school until the eighth grade, and I categorically refused boarding school and enrolled in the nearest school myself, taking my birth certificate. Mom only then had to go and write an application for admission.

Relations with them could not work out. After my mother's death, while I was running around the authorities, filling out the documents and organizing the funeral, mind you, the youngest of all - they were sharing the inheritance. At the memorial table, they tried to force me to give up my share in the apartment, for example, on the grounds that I was not included in the warrant. There was a scandal and as a result, there is no relationship."

Then Sophia said that her mother very often repeated the same phrase to her: “I should have strangled you all when we were little, but I left you on my own head!” Now, in a situation of intense excitement, she experiences bouts of suffocation and her voice is lost. Until now, when she recalls her childhood, she has a lump in her throat and starts to cough. We have worked on this problem with the help of psychocatalysis. Not the first time, but the attacks are gone and now Sofia knows how to cope with them if they suddenly return.

Sofia talked about what dreams she would like to dream: often in them a little girl runs from someone terrible and tries to hide. At the climax, Sofia wakes up and does not know how the dream ended and then does not fall asleep for a long time.

In the first step of working with the inner child, I used the Persona metaphoric cards. I offered to choose from the offered cards three, which personify her inner Parent, Adult and Child. Then I asked her to think about what this character could tell her on his behalf and what she would like to answer him. It turned out interesting dialogues, and then an even more interesting thing: she could not console her offended child.

The realization came that in some strange way it was the resentment that made her more feminine, weak and defenseless. Thus, being offended, she seems to increase her femininity and sexual attractiveness. This was the first discovery on the path of healing my inner child. But who and how can help to cope with childhood grievances? I had to take one more card as "helpers". It was a map that looked like a professor. The professor said that femininity and touchiness are different things. Femininity is mostly mercy and selfless service to close people, tenderness, the ability to understand and forgive, etc. The offended child returned to the deck and his place was taken by another, if not cheerful and happy, then calm and peaceful. This completes the work with the cards.

Additionally, I asked Sophia to keep a dream diary so that we could analyze the images that she most often dreamed and remembered by her. This assignment took a week to complete and, oddly enough, helped her understand her mother better.

The woman was left alone, with two children, in a strange city, there are no relatives. Potential men, whom it was possible to marry, were killed in the war, and the rest did not want to hang a "collar" around their necks in the form of two boys. She worked in shifts at the hospital and at a construction site to somehow make ends meet. Then she married a man younger than herself, gave birth to a child, so that the family was, as it were, complete. But the husband began to drink, the psyche undermined by the war could not stand it, and he lost his mind. And so, instead of a happy fairy tale about family well-being, there is another object of responsibility, and even such a late child: people at this age are babysitting grandchildren, and she is a daughter.

Sofia decided that in fact, this girl in a dream, who was running and hiding all the time, was her mother, who suppressed some childhood dreams and desires in herself and devoted her life to the well-being of her children. Sometimes, suppressed desires manifested itself in her irritation, when in her hearts she threw offensive words against them, continuing to take care of them as best she could.

At the third stage, answering the question: what can you thank your parents for? - came the acceptance of their parents as they were. A feeling of gratitude came to Sofia that her parents met and gave her life. She has good genetics, good health, a sharp mind - this is all from her parents. Even if a happy family did not happen in their life, she herself managed to create a strong family, give birth to healthy children, and become a good specialist. What lesson did Sofia learn from her family?

Being a good mother is not easy.

Having children is a big responsibility.

Children are also responsible for the happiness of their parents.

Brotherly love is a myth. Love requires shared values and interests.

At the penultimate meeting, Sofia talked about her recent dream: she is already an adult, walking through a military city, hears a crying child and goes in search of someone who is crying. In a broken house he sees a girl of four or five years old, who sits and calls for her mother. She is surprised to see that she herself is at this age. He takes his little adult into his arms, strokes the head, saying: “Calm down, now I’m your mother, everything will be fine”. The girl calms down, hugs her neck, and they leave the house on a green meadow. Sofia woke up with a feeling of mild joy and relief.

In fact, this is a very important stage in healing your inner child: stop waiting for help from others, but work hard and give yourself what is lacking.

Your parents only gave you what they could. Stop waiting and hoping that something will change by itself. Your parents gave you invaluable life, and you do everything else in life for yourself. You cannot beg bread from a beggar. Others cannot give you what they do not have, and never had. If care and love did not happen in their life, then how can they share this with you ?!

At the fifth stage, it was necessary to find a source that would help to get what was needed without the usual forms of response and behavior. What needs could not be met by parents and brothers? It was a need for love, acceptance and support.

Can't you get these feelings in your family?

And, are there really few people around who need our love and support?

Finally, we did three exercises:

- "Achievements", where everything that has been achieved to date is written out in order to assess the scale of the individual.

- "Dialogue of subpersonalities" to assess the dominant line of behavior at the moment.

"Forgiveness", in which you have to forgive yourself for your actions, feelings experienced, etc., let go of the "tail of past disappointments"