Dear cali sister:

“I’m sick of going back and then acting like this whole experience here never happened”- this is what disassociation is about: To go back to/ visit your childhood home, you have to pretend that what happened there didn’t happen. Because if you kept in awareness what did happen there- you wouldn’t go there.

In other words, take a random person from the streets and implant in him your two decades of painful experience in that home, that person wouldn’t want to go there, to spend any time there.

October 3, 2019 you established No Contact with your parents- a historic day.

September 3, 2019, exactly a month before you “came back home and my therapist and I decided no contact will have to be my next step”. A month later, you made it happen.

Sept 1, while visiting your childhood home, your parents,  two days before the decision, you wrote the following (a selection):

“This is the place of my depression. A place so beautiful. But so horrid.. dark memories.. sadness and anger and confusion. A place with so much potential. But only decay and death.. Constant fatigue. Thirst. The urge to escape. Wanting time to pass.. wanting it to end.. A feeling of falseness. A fake life. A life of checklists. So many things. For no reason… So many enjoyable activities… I close my eyes. And I hear the same birds.. Feel the same air. The same sounds. I see and feel the young me… It is stagnant here. Nothing changes. It’s the same for years and years.. it’s like an alternative universe. That stays the same while you’re not here. And when you come back, you can almost see yourself also return.. when I return to New York, I put on another face.. I want it to all come together. Not to be two separate entities… I’m sick of going back and then acting like this whole experience here never happened.. It’s just how I survive. Experience this horrible thing. Then go back to work and smile and I’m all bubbly again. It’s exhausting… It’ll be Tuesday. And I’ll be composed. I’ll be fine.. smiley.. do  all my work. But inside I will be burning. Anxious… No more of this.. Living two lives”.

– As a child you had no  choice, you had to be there, even if you were away, you had to go back. And so, disassociation was a necessary physiological adjustment that had to be made. Now that you live independently, an adult, employed and living in your own (very expensive, I understand) apartment, you don’t have to go back to your childhood home. It is now a choice.

As long as you spent time in your childhood home, and as long as you communicated with your parents, the disassociation had to be maintained. It didn’t have a chance to be gone, or reversed. Now you have that chance.

Experiencing a disassociated life (“two separate entities.. living two lives”) is distressing and exhausting. This is why you were exhausted as a child (“Constant fatigue”) and why you have been exhausted as an adult.

Your childhood home is “like an alternative universe. That stays the same while you’re not there. And when you come back, you.. return” to that universe. Stay away from that childhood home, stay away from your parents, NC, and you have a chance to no longer re-experience that universe anywhere you are, wherever you go. That alternative universe can become a universe of the past.

Notice- in that alternative universe, for some time, you were very young, full of hopes and dreams, an enjoyable fantasy life, strong motivation for life (before it was sqaushed). As you move on in life, at times you will remember how it felt then and you may miss that childhood home because of that experience of youth. When that happens, remember that this youthful experience, intense hopes and dreams and fantasy and desire.. those you were born with, those were not brought about by your parents- they squashed those  things.

Again, some of your childhood memories are about the beauty of a child’s mind, that magical experience, and you may be confused, thinking there was something in that home that was magical- no, the magic was in you, an inborn, natural part of every child.

Another point, for the child that you were, hope was with your parents, however horrid they were, your hope for life itself, and a better life, was with them. Therefore you were inclined to see them, at least your father, as better than he was, as someone promising. As you go on, remind yourself of that inclination. Even though your father was not as bad as your mother, he was and is plenty bad on his own right.

Clearly it was a good choice to not socialize last night, and find comfort with your puppy.

That alternative reality you wanted to escape (“The urge to escape.. wanting it to end”)- you made the necessary huge step in that escape only a couple of days ago. There are more steps in the escape, in the ending of that childhood experience- you are on your way!

Let me know if and when you are ready for me to comply the quotes from your previous posts.

-And good Saturday morning. Do you have plans for today (and should you have plans)?

anita