A Question of Change

An interesting question has come up – have I changed in the last few years and if so, have I addressed my vulnerabilities? If so, by how much?

I have changed in a lot of ways in the last few years and yet I haven’t. Sounds confused or confusing, doesn’t it. I have done things I never thought I could – like stand up in front of a class full of people and give a presentation. I have started University and made a new group of friends, which has given me a different experience to when I was at school and always felt like I didn’t fit. I have stood up to my brother and my parents. I have told them I’m not going down for Christmas.

Have I addressed my vulnerabilities? Yes and no, once again. I made a decision to tell my parents things now that I’m not sure I should have. Only because it has been me that has been hurt and the hurt goes really deep. I don’t think I have addressed the hurt enough to be able to move on yet and that’s one way I probably haven’t changed. I am hanging onto that hurt and I can’t let it go. I’m not sure what it will take to be able to let it go. I have a funny feeling inside almost of detachment when I think of my parents. But I know it isn’t detachment because the hurt is still there. My vulnerable spot is most probably needing my Mum to validate what happened when I was a child and to take an interest in me. But she doesn’t do that and the one time she asked how I was going with therapy, it was forced. Her concern when I mentioned something to do with my brother was for my sister-in-law. So I know it is dropping my expectations of what I want from her but there is a little girl inside who just can’t come to terms with her treatment.

I think I have outwardly changed in so many ways and most probably if I am game enough to admit it, I have also changed to please other people. And that's not a bad thing because doing that has bought change that has been good for me. But outwardly I show to the world that I’m doing all these things and inwardly I’m finding it so hard to get past what happened in my childhood. I am so angry and I’m afraid of that anger. I’m afraid of what that anger might do because one day I think things are going to come out that are going to break that connection with my family, as tenuous as it is right now. I’m tired of secrets, I’m tired of being the one who has to keep her mouth shut for fear of the repercussions. I feel very alone sometimes, like I can’t talk to anyone about how it really feels. I haven’t let down my guard enough with anyone I don’t think to be really honest about how I feel. I feel like I should be letting things go but I can’t. I don’t want to admit how fucked up I feel inside because I still think I won’t get what I really need. And I still don’t know what it is I really need and what it will take for that hurt to go. But maybe I do know and I’m never going to get what I want and that makes me lose all hope. It feels like it is too late.

So coming back to the original question, have I changed in the last few years? Yes, I have. No, I haven’t. The thoughts going around in my head tell me that there is still a little girl inside who hasn’t and won’t move on. She’s bewildered, scared, hurt, angry and she just can’t comprehend what’s happened to her. She hides, she pleases others, she smiles outwardly and she cries inwardly. She craves what she can’t have and that makes her envious of what she thinks others get and she doesn’t. She’s insecure and she’s vulnerable. Sometimes she thinks life isn’t worth living but she hangs in there.

On the other hand, outwardly the adult me is aware of becoming more interested in her appearance and more interested in looking nice. She wants to do things that once she would have run a mile from. She’s eating more healthy food and becoming aware that things said to her as a child were said from spite and hatred. And she is starting to believe her own voice now and not his. And others voices as well. She’s not cynical, although she still has a jaded view of men but that’s becoming better. She has grown in so many ways, at least outwardly. Inwardly, she's not so sure.

Kaz