A part of me—smaller than it once was—still doubts my own story, while the part being doubted keeps telling and retelling her story, waiting to be believed.

My brain refuses to relive the fear I felt back then—it still pushes it down, burying it as deeply as it can. That’s dissociation: a mechanism of survival, shielding me from what feels unbearable. But fear doesn’t simply disappear; it reshapes itself. In its place, I feel persistent anxiety and physical tension (Tourette’s) —restless, uncomfortable, but (according to my brain) still safer than confronting the raw terror of the past.

The fear, the shame, the guilt, the hurt—the unbearable devastation of being exposed, of my vulnerability laid bare and attacked. It was too much then, and perhaps my mind still believes it would be too much now. So it holds the door shut, even as the weight seeps through in different forms.

I want to open the door.

I want to retell parts of my story here, with the door slightly open—letting myself feel more deeply than before, so I can trust my own truth more fully.

I will revisit my words from my March 2024 thread, Fear, Anxiety, and Healing, quoting them and reflecting on how I feel now—letting my thoughts flow in a stream-of-consciousness style:

“I was stuck living with a predator, nowhere, no way to run away (Flight), and no chance to win a Fight. Being alone facing the predator, no one with me, no one together with me facing the predator.”-

I just felt such fear that I wanted to end this post immediately. As I felt the fear (now pushed down again), it felt like it was going to last forever, very scary, like being trapped and needing to escape IMMEDIATELY. It felt these things without the words I am using to describe it. It was just a feeling, strong, SCARY. I don’t want to feel that again!

Only to feel it long enough to believe it really happened to me.

“My mother was my monster, not a mother. She or it was not for me, it was against me. I craved- deep inside- to one day make her a mother, stuck in a vacuum of love, stuck in the absence of a mother. Here is a proposed definition: anxiety= the condition of being stuck in the absence of love.”-

Stuck in fear, frozen in fear, paralyzed. Terribly scared. frozen in place.

“I say monster because of all the people in the world, it is this one person who took it upon herself to personally and directly inflict massive pain on me. It was just me and her alone in the small apartment when she did that: the family members who abused here weren’t there, politicians and criminals who created wars and crime that harmed her, those people weren’t there. It was just me and her alone. And so, in my life, she is the monster.”-

It looked like, it sounded like she was going to kill me. I don’t think that the word “kill” or “murder” crossed my mind. It was an instinctual fear of death or demise. She was BIG and STRONG back then, physically powerful, and that powerful creature was going to kill me!

I feel the fear, not as intense as earlier in this post.

All the RAGE that she expressed in those sessions of rage, that rage scared the hell out of me as it threatened to physically destroy me.

“Notice I used the present tense: she is the monster, not she was the monster. To not accept the severity of what happened causes what happened to keep knocking on my door, so to speak, insisting to be fully seen and heard.”-

She was my monster. I WAS there. She WAS there. It really happened. She was going to kill me!!!

That she didn’t- don’t know. I think it was a miracle that she didn’t. She certainly looked and sounded like she was about to kill me. All the energy for killing was in her, about to explode more. Imminent threat.

She used to threaten me: “I will kill you!”, “I will murder you!”. I am surprised she didn’t.

“Why, how did I get to be this old, when I didn’t even get to be YOUNG??? All my ‘life’ was under a thick, dark cloud that kept the sunlight away from me.”-

I was stuck in a cloud of fear and dissociation.

* From an online study:

Dissociation and Self-Invalidation are deeply connected, often reinforcing one another in complex ways.

Dissociation is a coping mechanism—the brain’s way of detaching from overwhelming emotions, memories, or experiences. It allows a person to disconnect from reality, numb feelings, or distance themselves from traumatic events. When someone dissociates, their ability to fully process and trust their emotions is disrupted.

Dissociation acts as a defense mechanism, pushing overwhelming emotions out of conscious awareness. When painful experiences are suppressed, the person may intellectually know something happened, but emotionally, it feels distant or unreal.

Self-Invalidation is a byproduct of Dissociation.

When self-invalidation becomes ingrained, a person may feel stuck—waiting for someone else to confirm their experiences rather than trusting themselves. This can keep them frozen in time, unable to fully move forward because their mind hasn’t acknowledged or processed what truly happened.

Healing involves reconnecting with emotions, learning to trust and validate one’s own experiences, and allowing oneself to feel without retreating into dissociation.

anita