I haven't been liking the way I've been parenting these past couple weeks. I was realizing I was very stressed out, sad, and impatient. I don't know what was wrong with me. I just know that I was having a hard time caring for the kids the way I want to. Especially Lailah. She's just being her age - a little 6 yr old child and I would feel so upset at her. But that wasn't HER fault - it was MY struggle, something I need to deal with so that I can be better for her.
So, I've started smoking bud again. It has seemed to give me a lot of insight into why I parent the way I do. It's also brought up some not so great "memories" from my past - at least I think that's what it is. I was thinking about it after smoking last night. I was wondering to myself why I don't have a closer relationship - to Lailah specifically. I am still very close to Noel - although I still can't fully commit myself to either of them. I've realized that it scares me. Thinking about having a tighter, closer relationship to them brought out anxiety and fear in me. So I searched deeper, trying to figure out where my fear comes from. And I bumped into memories that I don't think I really want to know about. They're so far back - I had to have been 3 or under. I kept feeling that someone must have sexually harmed me around those ages. I fear getting close to my own children because I think what happened was an adult got "too close" to me and because they did - they hurt me sexually. I feel as if I trusted this person and they got away with it because I didn't know it was wrong.
Why do I think this might be the case? Well, I've realized that I struggle with hugging/holding/touching/cleaning my children. It's uncomfortable for me and frankly - it scares me. I guess I fear making them uncomfortable or harming them on accident because that's what I felt when it was done to me as a young child.
I would NEVER hurt my children, ever. They are my entire world.
But now I have these feelings that I feel I need to and want to work through so that they don't interfere with my parenting and who I want to be. I don't want to be afraid to cuddle with my children once they're out of the baby stage. I don't want to feel scared hugging or holding my child or being vulnerable to them emotion wise.
I feel I could parent better if I were more on their levels with them, played with them, did fun activities with them, and got off the computer and away from talking to people I don't even know. But that scares me. It scares me and it's uncomfortable. It makes me feel very uncomfortable and I hate it. :(
I need to work through this but right now I just don't know how. How do you work through memories that suggest you were sexually harmed as a child? How do you work through feeling there was that breech of trust between someone who was never supposed to hurt you? I don't know.
The only OTHER explanation I could come up with was that my mother was sexually harmed as a child and she has these fears and insecurities and that's why she was never very hands on at all to my siblings or I growing up and it rubbed off on me. I could read her, feel her pain, and understand it - but now I feel it too. Then again this could be just me trying to ignore the pain done to me and push it elsewhere, I don't know. What I do know is that I need help sorting this all out.
I feel trapped today. Stuck in emotions that I don't know how to handle or what to do with. I guess the good news is that they aren't very overwhelming and I hope they don't get to that point. I feel like I need to talk to someone, be reassured in some way, or maybe validated. I don't know. (Yes, I realize I keep saying I don't know and I really hate that I don't). Maybe just someone to tell me it's okay and I will heal and be okay.
Part of me feels pathetic because I can't actually remember memories - just emotions and feelings. What if this sexual abuse never happened to me or my mother or whatever and something is just wrong with me. Why do I feel so insecure and scared being close to my kids then? Then where could it stem from? I need to know so that I can heal, I can fix it, and we can move forward. It's hard being the mom I want to be for them when I have all these overwhelming emotions that hit me hard as well. I have my own struggles to work through yet here I am with two littles lives that depend on me.
It's really scary being a mom. I mean - most of us can't even care for ourselves - I mean that in every possibly way too. I don't think anyone is soundly mentally stable 100% and can control their emotional reactions no matter what they're feeling. I don't think anyone is 100% psychologically undamaged. And then for some of us we aren't financially stable or physically stable. But here we are caring for these tiny new humans and trying to help them be all these things we aren't. How can we do that if we don't even know how to do it for ourselves?
My goal is to fix and help myself so that I know what to prevent happening to my children and how to help them through their difficult times and emotions. It's a real struggle though.
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