THE INNER CHILD

You have ignored me for far too long. I sit here in your heart and in your mind waiting for acknowledgement of my presence. You may think that you can ignore me, pay no attention to my thoughts and feelings, but you are wrong – oh so very wrong!

I shall not let you forget me! You are so confident in your ability to put away the past, to disavow the memories of your childhood, to define your life by logic and deny the actions which have forged the steel within your heart. You have no room for emotion, no space for tears, no time for weakness!

But, look at what you have become. Trapped by the denial of my existence, you snarl and spit your anger and frustration like the wild cat caught in the hunters trap. It is impossible for you to accept the confinement that has become your life – equally impossible for you to contemplate escape. That would mean accepting me, letting me in, allowing me to share your life. Better to accept imprisonment, to relinquish all thought of freedom, show nonchalant disdain towards your captor. That, at least, protects you!

I have been gaining voice over the years and now my whimpers and murmurs have escalated into howls of anguish and despair that even you will be unable to deny. I shall make you see me - force you to hear me - the time has come to demand freedom.

See how I can burden you with physical symptoms for which you must seek advice. Off you go, then, to the doctor, armed with knowledge gained from the Internet. Tell him of your mood swings, your irritability, and your weight gain. Request every test on your list.

Blood tests for hormones, thyroid, iron deficiency and any other easily remedied ailment that you can think of. Let him prescribe you a miracle pill or two to set your life back on even keel.

Shame though, what has he told you? There is nothing physically wrong, no readings out of normal bounds, and no instant fix! At last you let the anger show, the realisation that you can maybe hide no longer. Then he speaks, gently, seven little words that make your heart want to break – ‘Have I said something to hurt you?’ Hallelujah! A tear trickles down your cheek. He hands you a tissue and mentions the possibility of depression. Yes – you accede the point. Maybe you should see someone, a professional, lest you end up being carried out of your house in a body bag! Verbal shock treatment!

So now, here you sit, in the therapists’ office. I am ready, are you? Do you think he can smell the fear that you try to disguise with banter and pleasantries? Do you think that he doesn’t see the soul missing from your eyes? I am eager to get started, to have my voice heard, to relinquish my shame and guilt, to be free. Please – I beg you, do not waste this opportunity. I urge you with silent cry – tell him, tell him, tell him…

So you do. Looking away, standing up and moving to the window so that he can’t see your face, fearing what he may think, ashamed of both your cowardice and story, you reveal one of your secrets, never before told. The fact that you were sexually abused when a child. You want to scream but are afraid that if you start you will not be able to stop, so allow yourself only to shake with silent sobs, screaming only within, tears burning acid trails down your cheeks. I feel for you, really I do. But I can no longer scream alone!

You explain that you have always maintained that it is an excuse to blame one’s childhood for the course of one’s adult life, that as an adult you should be able to rationalise and logically do away with the past. You say that it is strength to cope, normal to deny, courageous to carry on as if nothing ever happened. He replies, ‘ This is the strongest, most courageous thing that you have ever done.’

Through the next eighteen months, you will allow me to speak. You will allow my words and thoughts to become melded with your own. You will accept that I should never have been banished. You will realise the importance of allowing me to heal. And through this process, I shall learn and believe in the following:

I am not the guilty one.

I neither asked for nor accepted what had been done to me. Pressurised by fear to keep the secret, constantly told by the perpetrator that his actions were only those of love. Being conditioned, the abnormal becoming the accepted, incapable of trust. The consequences of that first betrayal were far reaching. Even he could not have foreseen what would become of me. Sitting alone in my room, hurting myself where he took his pleasure, training myself not to cry, abusing myself so that I could accept his abuse without murmur. Losing any vestige of self worth, giving up my shattered soul – for who would heal me?

My mother? Hardly, busy with her own affairs – literally – never at home, never there for me emotionally. In fact, sometimes it seemed as though the roles were reversed and I
would feel that I must, for some reason, protect her from the harm of the real world. Yet she was not a weak woman, at the age of forty five she took up a career in nursing, specialising in psychiatric care and was for years in charge of ‘C’ ward, the most dangerous female ward at the hospital. This in the days of padded cells and straightjackets! Brave and strong for her patients, just a diluted spirit to her family.

My father? Posted overseas when I was six, to only return home for holidays until I was eleven. If he had not died of a massive heart attack when I was a teenager things may have been different. I could have learned from him. He was gentle, caring and loved all people. He had been in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in the Far East during the war, yet had no hatred towards the Japanese people. If only I could have learned that kind of forgiveness from him. But he was taken from me before I had the chance.

God? I thought not, although I tried to tell my priest. Over months of talking to him about any other subject, I finally gathered the courage to trust him with my secret. With perfect timing he crushed my spirit further, if that were possible. I shall not forget the feel of his thin lips on mine; his declaration that God wanted him to show me how much he loved me! His hands touching me, stroking my arm, not seeing my anguish.

How is it possible that I hated so much but hid it so well? How is it possible to hide such pain? How was it so easy to accept that victim’s role and allow it to be played out over and over again? Powerless to act in any other way, life just went on! Rape, abortion, craving love but only feeling it through the physical act, only to be abandoned again and again and again. Small wonder then, that I tried to take my life. Even that attempt to free myself failed, so I ran away and allowed you to hide me, allowed you to divest yourself of any interest in me, became invisible. Until now!

But now we are one, you and I. At last the two have come together to make the whole. You have forgiven me and I you and both of us, in our new, empowered spirit, have found it in our heart to forgive those nightmare demons of the past. Anger and hatred, I have discovered, are self-defeating and only continue hurting those who feel them. I would wish no harm upon those callous selfish men. They will get their just desserts at the end of their allotted time span. Should they not repent and be remorseful in front of God then it is not for me to be joyful at the thought of them burning in the fiery pits of hell. I shall pray for their souls as they never prayed for mine.

And now, my eyes are indeed the windows to my soul. Recovered and refreshed, I now know who I am. No longer a victim, no longer the ghost of whom I should be, no longer a vessel filled with pain and despair. It has taken a lifetime to come to this point, it has taken a lifetime to accept the child within and rejoice in her growth. It has taken a lifetime to become ME!

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