What are all the many things coming together to bring me happiness right now?
I just read an article on touch, any touch: embracing, massage, sexual.
I realized that this is one thing I consistently am coming back to as something that I believe is at the top of the list.
At a very young age, I started to suspect hugs from my father. I became uncomfortable w/ his touch in any way. I shrank from it. Over time, I became uncomfortable w/ touch from my mother. Eventually even my husband. Just my kids and a few close friends sort of stayed on a “safe touch” list. I just assumed I somehow was surviving without it until my kids left home.
Having that disappear from my life and be left with a cold marriage… it killed my soul.
I was already disassociating from my body due to the abuse. I didn’t feel safe inside my body and my life and largely, I didn’t feel safe around people closest to me. That came out clearly when I took my psych tests in 2016. I remember writing a few questions down that shocked me: Do you want to be around family? Do you feel safe around family? Do you like your family? No, no, no.
The test solidified for me just how unsafe my extended family felt to me.
So here I am now, very much into yoga and massage, back into sexuality, into clothes, my home, my body, my hair. It feels very, very, VERY strange to be doing this much focusing on myself and to feel this good about myself. It feels strange to be happy.
So when I think about what happened, what were the big things that have slowly made this shift, I know that connecting back into my body has been a huge part of that. I couldn’t have done that without the trauma work, but I also needed to be doing this body work. I needed therapy and also to be doing yoga, to be swimming, to be buying some clothes, to make some changes in our house.
This is what I mean when I talk about what’s missing in churches. Why go to a building when you only talk about God or spirit or theology but never talk about your bodies or things that matter? It was as much the things that are never discussed or emphasized in addition to crazy theology that killed church for me.
I just had a guy here that is selling a water softening system. He talked about the difference it makes in your clothes, on your skin, in the washing and cleaning of dishes and the house in general. I could feel the difference on my skin and thought of how dry and flaky my skin always is. It feels like a treat to myself to even consider having softer skin. I’m actually considering it!
On another note, more purging and cleaning of mom’s things today. I got the big boxes out of the trunk that were from her house/apartment. Alot of photos and an insane amount of books and Bibles. I don’t want her stuff just floating around the house and basement. I considered a storage unit but they’re expensive.
So, due to all my own cleaning and purging, there is a lot of empty space in the storage area. I just moved it all into one of the empty shelves. It’s in one place, it’s not in my normal traffic flow and someday when I want to do something with it, it’s all in one place. I didn’t want any jewelry in my bedroom either so it’s all there as well.
It made me feel good to see all these empty shelves and how I love that. I want it to stay that way. I saw a ton of duplicate photos from other places so I’m sure we’ll be throwing photos away even. I threw away a photo of my relative that abused me. Lots of history there.
Anyway, so on we go w/ this journey, and I’m so glad I’ve been recording these thoughts all these years. I didn’t want to forget what it was really like, all along the way.