Little Girl Alone

I did something I said I would never do. I started group therapy. Every Tuesday I sit with a group of women who have lived similar experiences to mine and we share our thoughts, experience and resulting struggles with mental health. I thought I was learning a lot from individual therapy but really I wasn't getting much from it all this time. Until I sat with this group of ladies and realized that our normal is so similar I was really blocking this process at every turn. I also realized that this is why my therapist suggested I do group therapy, she was probably just as frustrated as I was at getting nowhere.

Each week we have to leave our group session with a plan for what we will do good for ourselves in the week ahead. I have come up with some pretty simple, easy stuff but this week I decided on one that is massive for me. I committed to allowing myself to cry this week. I can cry about lots of things but I never in front of people and never allow myself to cry about my childhood. It hurts to much to feel it and so I avoid it at all costs, even in therapy.

I am proud to say I did it. Today I let myself cry while thinking about my childhood specifically, reliving parts and letting myself feel it. Then I wrote what I learned.

Little Girl Alone

She felt so scared
to feel so special;
She felt so guilty
when it felt good;
She felt jealous
she didn't want his attention;
She felt so lonely
surrounded;
She felt like screaming
terrified of punishment;
She felt so mischievous
she knew it was wrong and wanted to tell on herself

She was scared of him
while she was so special to so many people
It did feel good
that's how God meant it to be, at the right time with the right person, not him
She wanted to be someone's special little girl
not his, not like this
She was never alone
in a school full of teachers and students with secrets of their own
She was screaming
silently on deaf ears and blind eyes
She was mischievous
manipulated to fear punishment

She was a little girl, surrounded yet very alone.

The most important piece of being able to identify, write and feel these facts is that I learned again; I am not that little girl anymore. Every day I am reminded that I cannot erase this from my life. Some days that brings overwhelming frustration and sadness, some days it brings me motivation and perseverance.

I am now a grown woman that nobody has control over but myself. There are so many women and men out there that would read this and say it explains them perfectly. That's why I write it, hopefully it helps one of them understand that we heal, we cope and life is worth living. We are never alone.