a new kind of hope
By: Karen Beth Courcy
Tags: Childhood, Healing, Emotions, Child Sexual Abuse, 9 Years Old

In all the years I have been writing in this blog, never have I named the subject of the post the same as the name of the blog — but today it fits! I found a new kind of hope today.

Today in session my therapist said something that latched onto something deep and it gave me tears so fast that we both wondered “where did the tears come from, and what do they mean?”.

and I opened up….

I opened up about something today that gave both my therapist and I “a new kind of hope” going forward on this path. Something that gave more understanding to why I am struggling to find the path I was on before the past “hard” year happened.

I was the adult before I was the child, and well to be honest, I dont think I have ever been the child, but lately I feel the emotions of the 9 year old child that I put away to live forward.

Being a victim of child sexual abuse I had to grow up quick, and whatever emotions I had, I had to put them away. Every tear, every bit of fear, every bit of anger, or sadness, confusion — I put deep inside of me, and I became the adult at the age of 9 — hell I became the adult when I was 5–6–7–8–9 when my choices of being a child were taken from me.

Something about this past year when things got really hard and I got re-triggered by many many things — brought big big feelings right to the surface and I feel as if the emotions and the feelings and the anger of the 9 year old child are finally coming out.

Today as the 40+ year old adult, I am confused as to why I am feeling all these confusing feelings that are painful, sad, and anger filled.

I want more than anything to stuff them back away and continue being the strong adult woman, mom, wife and friend I created myself to be since I was little, but for some reason, those tools of stuffing don’t quite work the way they used to work. I dont have the ability to build walls like I did as a child.

I took a hammer to those walls 6 years ago when I first walked into therapy and continue hammering away at those walls even to now. Those walls are pieces all over the floor, and simply they cannot be re-built.

Rebuilding those walls are no longer an option to cover the pain, and today for the first time in years of working on this in therapy, I realized I can’t build walls anymore, I don’t have the tools, and therefor I need to honor all the emotions that surfaced in order to heal.

Today there was hope that there is no fear in feeling what I should have felt as a child — just like the anger I had Tuesday.

These emotions that are here are telling me something — maybe God is trying to tell me something through these feelings.

My therapist while sitting next to me this morning took my hand, held it, and said to me “I now know whats going on inside of you, and I can help you”.

A NEW KIND OF HOPE!

that is the first thing I thought of when he said those words to me today. It’s what my blog and my writing represents. HOPE to move forward in the knowing and not the unknown.

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As I was driving home from session I felt this opening inside of me happening! I opened up to my therapist in a big way today and told him exactly how I felt inside, and he understood, heard me, and he really got it!

This wise woman name “Mary Armstong” once said to me “You have to love the child inside and honor the child inside of you in order to fully heal her pain”

Today I think I finally understand what that means. I always had this feeling of shame or guilt that I would ever allow myself to honor something I stuffed away at 9 years old — because my thought was “if I feel those feelings when I was child, it means I am not healing, I am sick, and I will never move out of this”. I can only imagine where I got that impression from, could have been the millions of times my abusers said “it’s your fault, your bad”.

Deep inside of me the 9 year old emotions want out, and, in a scary fearful way, I need to honor that, because if I dont, I will always carry around with me those emotions and feelings that never had a reason to be, and I will never let go to heal for me.

I dont think I like the idea of feeling emotions that I stuffed away at 9 years old, but I also don’t like the feelings I have right now in feeling trapped. I guess Mary Armstrong was right, I need to love the child inside of me that I was, before I can love the adult I am today.

I remember this quote I read once from a philosopher

“we all have the child inside of us, each and every one of us — it’s up to us how we let that child go. Some of us already have, and some of us are stuck from painful memories and abuse”

- I am stuck.. and I need to find a way to let her go.

I do walk towards this in fear, but I also walk in confidence that the support that surrounds me; will see me to the end of my new beginning no matter how hard the road is.