I’m not sure that there’s an order of operations when it comes to healing. I think a lot of it happens all at the same time, often surreptitiously until suddenly you realize things don’t hurt as much as they used to. My last post kind of bridged the gap between sections here, leading into trauma and development. Neglect mapped my brain to see the world as a hostile place that wouldn’t give me what I needed no matter what I did: ask, dance, laugh, cry, or beg.
It also left me without comfort.
I don’t know when I was first able to tell myself it was going to be ok and believed it. I wanted someone who knew better to do it for me. This is a childhood desire, and a natural one. We trust the people raising us to know what’s going on, to have our best interest at heart. I don’t know what that handover looks like when securely attached people take on the role of self-parenting. I do know that self-parenting can’t happen without self-trust.
While I don’t know if learning to trust myself came before learning to love myself, I think they grew in tandem, but I do know I never looked to myself for comfort before trust formed. It came in small but meaningful steps. Finding out someone I didn’t feel safe around was going to be at a party and opting to skip, where in the past I would have gone and just tried to play it cool. I felt some severe FOMO, but the next day I felt calmer. I noticed an actual change. I’d acted to protect myself, and there was a new level of trust.
This didn’t happen overnight of course. It took a lot of little steps, boundaries set, distances kept, even better preparing for trips or spending a little money on myself where usually I’d have cheaped out. My anxiety over all kinds of situations ebbed as I learned I could trust myself to handle them. As I started regularly prioritizing my own needs.
As I stood up for me the way no one else had.
For so much of my life I wanted someone to come along, hold me, and tell me it’s going to be ok. I did not want to let that hope go. Grief for all I never had was at the root of that fear, another emotion I fully understand from this side of the work. But letting go of my childhood hope, while tragic in its admission of reality, was the step toward being free to do it for myself. And in the end, who better to offer comfort?
I’d still love that hug and warm assurance. But I don’t need it like I used to. And that doesn’t make me so sad anymore.
This is a special series for Jay’s 40th year. To receive all posts straight to your inbox, be sure to subscribe.
