I’ve set a goal to deal with a traumatic and confusing event from my childhood that I’ve been avoiding for 30+ years.
So… now what?
I am a project manager. This is a project. And any project needs a plan. So I called up a friend who I connect to on both startups and internal work, to help me sort my mess of thoughts and fears on the issue into a more coherent process.
He asked me some very good questions:
- Where do I want to be when this is over?
- Is there a place that I need to get to, internally, to feel that I am making progress?
- What do I Need to happen in this process, and what do I Want to happen as an end result?
This helped me to formulate 7 starting goals to frame this process with. So as a part of this process, I want to:
- Establish a connection to my kid-self from 1988
- Feel something about my dad inside or outside this memory
- Understand and potentially upgrade the “if you wait for the pain, it won’t hurt as much” kid logic
- Understand and potentially upgrade the “if you weren’t alert, the pain is your fault” kid logic
- Stop processing this memory only through my mind, but include my body and senses as well
- Figure out why I “feel” so cold when I think about this memory
- Figure out why I am filled with a “ringing emptiness” when I try to process with memory
We then focused on each goal, digging deeper to understanding what was at stake, why the goal was important, what my motivation was in reaching it, and setting up some worst case and best case progress conditions:
Goal 1: I would like to connect with, and have a conversation with my child-self from that memory in 1988 USSR. I would like to give him a hug, some support, and maybe be an adult loving presence there with him, as he is going through the experience. Even if the exact healing needed feels unclear, building a connection to the part of me stuck in that traumatic loop is a necessary goal. I would like to free and heal him, but at the very least I would like to create a connection between us.
Goal 2: I would like to be able to feel something, anything, about my dad in connection to this memory. Either as a kid in 1988, or as an adult in 2023. Rationally, I know he is important to the story. This is my father doing this to me. And while I can intellectually understand how bad the situation is, I don’t feel anything about it. So I would like to process if my dad is a bad dad, or a sadist, or something else – and feel something about that. But even more than that – I would like to see him as an active agent in this memory. So it’s not just me, and my mind dealing with incoming blows. He is there as well – and I want to see the choices he is making.
Goal 3: I want to work on this belief – that I clearly already have as a kid – that if I am expecting the blow it won’t hurt as much. That if I wait for the pain, I can (if not avoid it) at least control it. This still resonates inside of me to this day. Part of my heightened anxiety is that I want to be ready and alert for any and all possible dangers, without having a clear way to turn it off. Even if now these are worries about work, money and kids, the way I approach them seems to just be a grown up version of my 8 year old’s beliefs. The belief seems to be a core part of that memory, and continuously emanates from it. At the very least I would like to understand where it comes from. But ideally I would like to change it in my current life, and upgrade this belief for my adult self.
Goal 4: In the memory I am angry at myself for getting distracted by the TV – and then getting hurt more. If only I was not alert, the pain would not be so overwhelming. My distraction is a weakness and a failing, I rage at myself and not my father, and in the end I blame myself for the pain I feel. I know this is totally bonkers. But there is a part of me that still believes this, and even in my present day, blames me for the pain I feel because of something I should have predicted, or something I should have watched out for. It’s a broken, victim-blaming logic of “if you don’t see it coming, it’s your fault” but I still have it. I would like to change it, or at least understand it better. But similarly to above, I think I will have to get a new perspective on it inside of my memory, to change it in my present.
Goal 5: In some ways this memory feels like an old tape recording. The memory plays itself through my mind, but stays only there, without touching my body, my heart, my soul, or my senses. But my body, my emotions, and my spiritual self were there as well, as they always are. Did I smell anything? What did my skin feel? What does my body remember about that day? Full integration is the eventual goal, but at the start I would at least like to re-establish a connection to some of those parts of myself, inside of that memory. So it’s not just a mental story – but an experience of a human being with a body.
Goal 6: When I think through this memory, I always “feel” cold. There is no sadness, or anger, or grief – but there is always the coldness that permeates me when I play through this string of words. It is a cold, icky, emptiness that spills out of my stomach and leaks down into my limbs until my fingers and feet get stiff and icy. I feel it now as I write this. I am huddling under a blanket, but that does nothing, the cold is coming from the inside. Is it a symptom? A block? A defense? A survival mechanism? Either way, the “cold” is a clue. A signal of something that I need to figure out. So sorting out this reaction, and what’s behind it, is a core goal.
Goal 7: With the cold there comes a creeping emptiness. It’s hard to explain. But while the cold is immediate, the emptiness intensifies the longer I stay with and think about the memory. It is if I get emptied from the inside of any substance or feeling. I get to hold on to words, and to thoughts, but nothing else gets to stay inside of me. In that, the cold and the emptiness almost have a presence in themselves, a ringing “presence” of lack in my guts. And as it intensifies, the emptiness goes from feeling icky, to nauseating, to unbearable, as which point I always move away from thinking about it.
From previous work I know that this ringing emptiness points to dissociation, where I as a kid have decided to sever my mind from my body and emotions. Many of my memories have dissociation in them, but I can usually retain my emotional self when I process them. This memory is “special”, as it makes me dissociate when I just think about it, and carries the dissociation into my present life. It is another clue. And I would like to find a way to arrest, or at least better understand this process.
———-
It’s a lot. It won’t be easy. And any progress may be sporadic and messy. But I have 7 clear areas where I would like to see movement, and where I can track my progress.
So final question from my friend: How long am I willing to work on this? To really give this my energy and time?
And I want to give this 3 months of focus in therapy, and other internal work. February to April, healing and sorting out this memory, will be my primary self-growth focus. This is my commitment to myself and the people helping me in this.
So I have my goals. I have the time frame. And I made a clearer commitment.
And by April 20th I will have to reassess where I am with this process. And decide how and if I want to continue.
Next step. I will need to figure out my guides and gear for this journey.