The Baby Inside of Me

Yes.  I wrestled with the title of this blog for a minute or two. How vulnerable do I really want to be?  Oh and by the way, if you think vulnerable, deep, and primal are not your thing, don't read more.  If you want to feel less alone in your own "stuff" then keep reading. 

What is happening inside of me right now?  I can feel a deep sorrow  - like a 100lb weight on my chest, the need to cry from a guttural primal place and yet holding in the tears in my low back all the way up my spine, like everything is twisted in tight there in my back, holding my heart up so it doesn't have me fall forward, flat on my face.  My back is counterbalancing my heavy heart perhaps.

Probably after I write this I will go sit and tend more to feelings. I have been tossed about on a wild sea today of obsessional thoughts that all boil down to "there is something so inherently bad about you that you will never be loved or loving."  I have all the diagnosis lined up, all the proof points in the way of relational interactions, facial expressions, lack of responsiveness, past screw ups on my part and then my whole being shifts from feeling body sensation and holding down the fort inside to obsessional thinking.  Of course, the obsessional thinking is so confusing the only thing left to feel is hopeless. 

In my attempt to find a way out, I called a psychiatrist, my husband, and three of my closest friends.  What triggered it all this time?  Well, I don't think it really calmed down from a week ago, first of all.  But, today I learned of some chaos in our larger playgroup that I have been a part of for 3.5 years now - a mother and father pair who were closet alcoholics and whose wounding has always been palpable to me have been outed because he has been arrested.  On the outside, these two look like the average American couple.  Of course, this stuff is taboo to talk about so no one is.  I guess it happened nearly two months ago and I am just learning about it.  I have been on the confidential receiving end of  two miscarriages inside the playgroup.  One mother has been quite public, another only told two of us and is holding her pain in silence.   And then lastly, a mother is moving away and despite my challenge getting close to her because I was always feeling less than, inside I did always "KNOW" that she had my back when push came to shove.   We shared a nanny together for a year and a half and she always had this magic way of reaching for me right when I needed her to.  We teared up a bit as she broke the news to me today.  A lot of emotion for her to show.  All of these "other mother" things are triggers and each has its own massively symbolic meaning for me that I won't go into here because I don't want to shift so radically into my head now that I am in my body. 

Of course, once I did initially get a whiff of this underlying stuff, I shot up into my head (hyperaroused) and started the mad hunt for "what other mother had left me" and started obsessing about recent relationships that are unsteady and blamed myself for their unsteadiness. Choosing a few, in particular to obsess about.  This heady obsessing about being left, diagnosing myself with mental illness.  One of my dear friends who was most able to hear me out is a friend, like me, who is woefully under mothered but who, like me, has done some deep and profound primal work on this wound.  Rather than unpacking the whole story she just said, "I really want to know what you are experiencing inside.  I don't see how diagnosing yourself helps you." and as she said that, just the invitation that someone would want to know about the pain that was going on underneath my heady interpretations and obcessing, well I burst into tears....of the primal nature.

Here is what I discovered after going inside my body to my body sensations, breath, bones, muscles, movements while my friend listened on the other end of the phone; you see, being in the presence of mothers ignited my whole trauma system. This whole "becoming a mother" has taken me for a loop because frankly, while a bit perfectionist, I thought I was pretty well on my way to being "healed".  Not too many blips on the psychological map in a while and then whamo.  And no, it wasn't having the babies or parenting that has been the hardest part for me about becoming a mother it is doing this all in relationship to other mothers.  It happened gradually. 

What I felt and what is still inside my chest as I type is a baby.  She is so tiny, still wrapped up and she is really quiet and really still.  She is waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting.  Not saying anything.  This baby is with me all the time but she has been tucked way far away for a lot of years but she is out now.  She sees all these moms and her wick has been lit. She is waiting for one of these moms to scoop her up and tell her "I see you are in pain.  I see you can't speak, you are just frozen in there." and magically take her pain away.  Long long outbreath. Long silence right here.  Being around other mothers makes the baby in me come alive with longing.

I can't express how profound it is to FEEL this as opposed to think about this or diagnose this.  There she is.  This baby.  And for whatever reason, the last few weeks, I have hated her with a vengeance.  I don't want to pick her up and hold her.  I don't feel she is entitled to feel these things.   I also blame her for making relationships so hard for me.  Why does she have to be so intense?  Why can't she just make light banter?  Why must everyone meet her in this intense place?   They don't want to be intense. Was her childhood really that bad? 

For years I have tried to minimize the pain underneath by explaining, by disallowing, by dismissing, diagnosing.  None of which, do anything towards healing.  Neither do telling her to stop it, knock it off or use some intellectual explanation without tending to her first.  My friend reminded me of that on the phone just now.   It is why I am a somatic therapist.  EXPLAINING does very little in the larger scope.  Relating to another person from our deepest felt experience heals the deep stuff - in its own time mind you.  Now that said, I needed years of explaining before I would even consider the possibility of feeling my deepest longings in my body so I still do explaining therapy too at times. 

I don't want to leave her right now though. She is still there while I get heady again.  This baby. Oh this baby.  This aching longing for a mother inside...a mother who knew to put her arms around me.  God.    I need to mourn with her and help grow this little baby up.  She has been waiting all this time for someone to come get her.  Can you believe that?   I don't want to say more right now.  I am noticing I want to tie this post up into a neat bow with some moral of the story type of comment.  I will just say, as I sit with more people as a therapist and as I relate to my friends, I am aware that we all have babies with varying degrees of need and tending internal babies, I am happy to say, is my life's work.  I feel grateful for my work with clients as we stretch each other in going deeper.  My work has grown with them as I have gone deeper inside of me.  I am proud of my courage as well.   It is dark, murky, complicated and unusual to be in relationship to me in my regular life.  Especially if you are a mother and well, here is where I am.  Doing my best.  I love me, even if you can't.  I don't believe it all the time but will repeat it often.

I Think You Are Crazy

Yep.  A mother in our longstanding playgroup has said on four separate occasions that "When I first met you I thought you were nuts." loudly in front of the whole group.  Once, funny - multiple times, one starts to wonder.   It sort of is the "worst case scenario" for me with other mothers.  It IS what my own mother has told me verbatim the whole of my life.  I have mentioned elsewhere in this blog that I went ahead and wore the "crazy" hat with my own mom because if I did, then my connection to her was not in jeopardy or it wasn't nearly as exhausting. 

Many years of therapy later what I have learned is there is nothing crazy about me.  As mentioned, I get hyper aroused in trigger situations that send me into fight, flight, freeze, submit or attach (cling) responses.  I made a best attempt at what is biologically wired in to all humans; to attach to my mother. What looks crazy is highly intelligent.  Learning about being in authentic connection, my triggers and how to calm my nervous system  have been my life's work.  I notice as I type this I am hyper aroused.  My sacrum is clenched as I hold back the fight/flight response.  So I will close my eyes and ; track very subtle body sensations and breath, then see myself quite literally pushing against that sentence "You are crazy" - push it out of my boundaried space and look squarely at the person saying it.  If needed,I will have the wise adult self in me hold the fighty and frighty kid that has gotten so aroused so she can be helped in calming down (or ask my husband to throw his arms around me as he is sitting here next to me.)  Will pick up writing in a second.  

Ok, did above and then husband held me, then we moved to a position where I just laid on my back while he had one hand holding my sacrum and the other holding my hand as I just released.  Lots of sadness came up there in releasing my sacrum.  I got an image of a little girl leaning forward, hands on her hips, enraged, screaming "you can't talk to me that way."  She was seven and while well defended yet she was alone.  As if this screaming were hapening in a sound proof box, no one really hearing seeing or getting her.  An angry and alone seven year old was what was all being held tightly and quietly inside my low back.  Yep, I know her all right.  Come sit in my lap.  I know how to hold you, sweetheart.  And by the way, thank you for holding on to this anger.  You made sure inside we didn't get squashed!

On to this playgroup mother.  I am writing about this because writing about it is another way to clarify to the world that I am no longer interested or willing to ingest "crazy" judgements from others.  I am also no longer interested in being in relationship with folks that need me to hold that for them.  This most recent run in happened on valentine's day and as I have been successfully pushing the comment out of my body/mind what I have reflected on is a lot of empathy and clear seeing about the other woman.  Prior to my own sequencing work with my nervous system I would have bounced around in an obcessional circle of I suck to she sucks until it got exhausting and I would then ride around in hopeless land.  Sensorimotor psychotherapy really has changed my life.

Reflecting back on my first meeting with clear seeing, I realized that this first meeting with this mother took place at a Shaman led sharing group three years ago.   This woman dropped in to this group that was intensely deep but loosely held and discovered it wasn't for her by judging it because she herself got hyper aroused.  Her drop in occurred precisely the day I announced to the rest of the group that I had "divorced my mother".  I remember what a landmark proclamation this was and I needed the support so I took a risk.  I felt good.  I felt embodied.  I wasn't even overwhelmed and shaky as I can get when vulnerable in groups.  She left early and I didn't see her around for a year and did not remember her when I met her in our sort of "vanilla" playgroup. 

Spending a life time trying to either make my mother or other people wrong, as I had, in response to their hurtfulness is such a long suffering road.  It is the stuff of hyper arousal though.   I am proud to say, I am not interested in making this mother wrong for her experience or even for what she keeps saying to me.   I can simply send the judgement back, say no thank you and calm myself.  In cases where I am committed to the relationship I get curious and see what I need relationally.  In this woman's case I haven't gotten too curious just because our social interactions haven't been inspiring enough for me to want to deepen connection. But for other relationships my curiosity and empathy lead to a clear "Oh they see the world differently than me and I need this in order to stay in connection."  I can work out any relational nits when I can calm my nervous system making room for empathy to lead the way. 

Blogging creates another avenue to "send it back", have a voice, show empathy, set a boundary be vulnerable and try out safely relating... and maybe along the way I will feel less triggered around other mothers to do the same face to face - even if it means getting hurt.  After all, mother's are my favorite people to project this "I think you are crazy" story the fight part of me has held so dearly for my mom.  And many of them will willingly pick it up and mirror it right back to me.   No wonder I am on high alert around them.  I am deeply grateful to this woman.  The pain I experienced by her comments lit a fire under my ass in my own therapy.   It has given me lots to work with.  And it motivated me to start this blog several weeks ago.  Really, her comments were the beginning.  My own therapist deserves the credit for my blog name.  She said to me "Wow.  These mothers are your dojo."  I expanded that.  Mothering is my dojo.