Layers of Sad

I was an ugly kid. No, really. That's not just my imagination, and anyone who says differently after seeing the pictures *shudder* is a liar. Wrong hair, wrong clothes, wrong glasses...wrong, wrong, wrong.

Because of my low self esteem, the other night in therapy, we did some EFT work surrounding one particular situation that happened in seventh grade. I share it with you now so that maybe you'll understand why it is I'm so f*cked up.

We had some sort of English project that we were working on...can't for the life of me remember what the project was...and we had to bring stuffed animals into class that day. I don't know what I brought in, but I do remember what one of my classmates did. He was sitting across the aisle from me and had one of those 'Wrinkle' puppies on his desk. He decided it'd be a great idea to take the stuffed bone that was in the puppy's mouth and throw it on my desk.

"Here you go Doggy. You look hungry."

I didn't say a word. Not one word. Just felt my face get beet red as the rest of the class giggled.

We worked on that memory for awhile and at the end, I was feeling okay about it. When I thought of the bone, I could no longer feel my chest tightening or my face getting hot.

"How are you feeling now?"

"Sad.."

"Is there something specific you're thinking of?..."

"I just feel like there's all these layers of sad that I have to go through...and it's overwhelming."

"There ARE a lot of 'layers of sad' and sometimes you have to peel all the layers back and work on them one at a time to really heal..."

Sigh.