Sometimes I feel like my inner self is a two-year-old. That inner child thing people are always talking about? Yep, I've got one, too. He's angry, hurt, lonely, self-centered, and always seems to be on the verge of either crying or throwing a tantrum--or both. He's in some serious need of love and attention today, so I'm doing my best to put him up on my shoulders, swing him around, and see if I can't bring a smile to his face.It's no coincidence that my inner child and inner addict are so similar. I write sometimes about the addict side of myself as a character named Uncle Steve. Maybe I should give the inner child a name, too. How about lil' Joshua? Ah, now I'm naming the members of the committee in my head. Still insane over here :) but none of this means that I don't take these parts of myself seriously. Giving these voices recognition, calling them by name, is a mental trick I've found useful. It's my way of accepting these parts of myself, while at the same time knowing that they are not me. An addict may be what I am, but it is not who I am. Each of us has an inner child that, again, is not who are on a day-to-day basis.
Uncle Steve is the addict side of me at its worst. Lil’ Joshua is the frightened child who never got the nurturing all children need. And just as Uncle Steve can grab the wheel of my life and start running things, so can this little guy. When he does that, the resulting chaos and wreckage in my life are just as disastrous. Relationships get ruined. People I love get hurt. My self becomes the outer child and I react to my life, the people and events of it, as a hurt, angry child would.
Many of us stopped growing emotionally when we began using and/or drinking. Instead of developing and maturing, instead of feeding our spiritual selves, we retreated and our growth stagnated. We masked who we really were and our altered selves became the way we dealt with life. Many of us experienced abuse as children. This trauma can also be a pivot point that prevents us from growing. We learned to escape and our use became a way to escape from the pain we felt inside. Being loaded was our only way to cope. We didn't know how to deal with or process our emotions, we didn't know anything about acceptance, had no experience practicing it.
Dealing with abuse is a lifelong process. Recovery from addiction and alcoholism is, too. But if we do the work, we can be successful. If we surround ourselves with trustworthy people, put ourselves in places where we are nurtured instead of belittled, we can move forward. We don't have to let our inner child and our addict selves run our lives. We can choose to do the work and improve. We can stem the pain and learn to heal. It takes time, but it can be done.
Longtime followers of this blog know that I don't have any childhood experiences of abuse that I can recall, but that I do have indicators that trouble me. To this day, I still have insomnia. It's really frustrating to be tired, falling asleep, then go to bed only to wake up again. I wonder from time to time why this is. It may be the sign of some repressed memory. It may just mean that I need a new mattress. I don't remember much from my childhood at home. Again, it may be that I've deliberately forgotten something, or it might just mean that my childhood was extremely uneventful and boring.
What I do remember from my childhood is crying all the time. It was my response to nearly any hardship. I remember not having any friends. I remember being picked on by the bullies. I remember feeling helpless and hoping desperately for rescue. And I remember, too, acting happy and spending a lot of time in my imagination. I remember an uninvolved father and an enmeshed mother. The best analysis these days is that I simply never developed a sense of self. Accomplishments which might have built up self-esteem were few and far between, and far outweighed by the torment and hurts I did experience. What I went through isn't nearly as bad as what many others had to endure, but it shaped who I became. I don’t like talking about it, because it feels like whining, but maybe there are others out there who will read this and relate. Maybe the sharing of my experience will be helpful to others.
My inner child is never going to get the love and support he needed. Asserting himself, now that I am an adult, will only undermine what he hopes to achieve. So, at the times when he's feeling lonely and afraid, I put my arms around him and tell him its okay. He cries and says no one understands. I tell him I do.
It's important for us to be in touch with ourselves. It's important to be conscious of our emotional needs. It doesn't mean we're weak, it means we're human. When we take care of ourselves, we become able to be of service to others. It is when we are able to give ourselves true unconditional love that we become able to pass it on to others.
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