Healing On The Boulder

I'm going to be honest here...therapy sucked tonight.  I'm feeling really shitty and not in a good place at all.

This morning in the shower I had a body memory.  I remembered hearing my mother screaming at me...and how my entire body tensed up, waiting for her to shake me...or slap me.  I put the memory out of my mind and went about my day...or so I thought.  As the day wore on, I felt a massive migraine and the beginnings of a panic attack coming on.  I wanted desperately to cancel my therapy appointment...wanted to just go home and crawl into bed, listening to the hum of the air conditioner.

But I went.

And she had me invite Five to my boulder.  Five was able to throw her scared feelings about our adoptive mother into the water..and after what seemed like an eternity, was able to toss the crap of the screaming and the pain of the stinging hand to the river.

But while her pain dissipated, mine was multiplying...inexplicably I was having a hard time breathing.  My therapist had me try and connect to my Wise Self...trying to help me see that I was safe..and that nothing bad could happen to me on the boulder..but it didn't work.

It felt like there was a wall in front of me, and my chest couldn't expand out enough to take a deep breath.

Suddenly, as my breathing got more and more shallow, I realized why I couldn't breathe. 

When my mother and sister would go off on a shopping excursion, they'd leave me at home with my father.  Not realizing that instead of saving me from a day of walking from one end of the mall to the other, they were leaving me to the Big Bad Wolf.  I'd run from him...and he'd corner me...pressing me up against the wall. 

I began to cry and explained what I was remembering to my therapist.  Gently she guided my thoughts back to the boulder and I threw the panicked feeling of not being able to breathe into the river.

Eventually, the feeling was washed away..and my breathing slowed...inhale..exhale..inhale..exhale..

...but I'm in pain tonight.