Thanks Guys for sharing. I keep a diary and have done for the last four years on a daily basis. I hasten to add that i am not Samuel Pepys.
Getting in touch with the little me. This was my first and best attempt at trying to reach the young me. It was very painful writing this but as they say:
"The touchstone of growth is pain"
I hate pain
I hope this/that makes sense.
21st May
Slept well. Shaved, bathed and showered all by 10.00 and after breakfast we left for town. I took the book Nanin with me to loan to Liza also remembered to take my letter to my inner child. Arrived at Frankwell and they are getting on with the river defences. Took a slow walk up Axis where I left Margaret (she's off to do her bits). Went into the usual room where Liza asked, “how I was”? I replied “ok” but owned up to feeling like a naughty schoolboy that had rushed his homework. I wasn't sure how this was going to go. With my pulse banging in my head I started:
“Hi
How you feeling? Ok after our last meeting hopefully. The only thing I ask of you at the moment is just to hear what I have to say to you. It's very hard for me to do this as I feel I have let you down all of my life. I have denied your rightful existence and I have done nothing to aid you back to that place where you feel happy and loved. I have over the years grown apart from you and again denied your rightful place in my life………….I am so sorry, I should have been there for you but I hid behind my many masks not even considering your feelings of being alone, frightened and angry. And by heck you have everything to be angry about. The masks are many and varied they have been my aid for the last thirty or so years. It was they that helped me survive. The only way I knew how. I wanted to be someone different and be somewhere else. So I used to change the way I feel and become that feeling or a physical manifestation of it. Be that masculine or feminine, happy or sad, stable, disturbed or psychotic. I became who ever I wished in drink I could be anyone as long it wasn't the real me. I hated myself for feeling the way I did. I have just finished a book by the name of "Nanin' and within the first two paragraphs. I thought what the hell was going on. This author was talking about himself within his mother's womb and could feel the abuse that was dished out to his mother and his yet unborn twin sister. After this bout of abuse he could feel his other half slipping away into death and that feeling of being totally alone must have been overwhelming. How the hell did he manage to get back that far? I couldn't make sense of the book until the very end when everything fell into context and was complete. I can see how I let you down I wasn't there when you needed me most just to comfort you and let you know that I was there for you. I left you alone, totally alone for so many years that is now imperative that I re-establish contact with you. I have to get to know the younger me and I need your help and understanding of what I am about to say. I know I have let you down but I am just warning you that those closest to you will let you down as well. They will not be there for you when you need them. I cannot change the future but I can influence the path you follow if you so wish. I can give you the hope that you will survive through the years and you will come to the place where I am now. I can begin to forgive myself as to what I did and let happen to me. It wasn't my fault I was a vulnerable child that had lost his best friend two or three years earlier. I had been betrayed by those older than me including Dad, Mum and Grandma who will blame you in the not too distant future for the death of Mum. I know your isolation and I can understand why. Plus I also remember the day that Granddad died. You were betrayed there not by him but by the thoughts and the doubts that remain with you for the best part of your adult life. Those thoughts and doubts were put there for a reason, unfortunately by others who wished to corrupt you for life so you would be theirs for the rest of your days, under their control wherever you go they will be there inside your head twenty four hours a day three hundred and sixty five days a year. What am I trying to say?…………………….. I suppose what I'm trying to say is this. I promise I will try and remain faithful to you and your memory, never again to doubt you, your feelings and fears. Fear as I have learnt is that which remains unknown, no direction a nothingness its like being lost in a dessert with out the aid of the stars and without hope of being discovered. I'm sorry for leaving you in that dessert and I have switched on the starlight and told others to be on the look out. My mind is now asking me what have I to look out for?………… ME. You will recognise me eventually as being you and you now know that you are no longer on your own and I wish to get to know you again. One thing I can give you is a sense of peace whenever you want it, you have already discovered it in fact not very long ago in Byfleet Library. What's that you ask? If I said to you Roman soldiers would you know what I was on about? You would “plus others like the Spartans and Egyptians”. Well I can tell you with great authority that one day you will be an archaeologist you just have to hang on to your dreams as without them we are nothing. You will even work on a mosaic that as lain hidden for best part of two thousand years and you are the very first to see it in all those years. It is here amongst these people will you no longer feel worthless and you will no longer doubt your own abilities. I just hope the time I'm spending with you will enable you to deal with in a better way than I did. As I said I cannot change the future but I can change the present. At the moment you feel alone, sad and frightened as you feel you're not worth anything. You are everything to me and I need to nurture you through what could be described as shitty times but we will get there I promise. Just hold this thought in your mind and know that “I will never ever leave you again and will remain forever by your side. Never again will I doubt your existence”. I want get to know who the real me is can you help me please? So I am now asking for your help. I pray that you let me in”.
I got as far as mentioning the dessert part and I could feel myself loosing it and began to cry. I carried on till the end by which time I was sobbing. To my surprise Liza was wiping her eyes as well. I said, “your not crying are you?” Liza replied “yes I am, that was a very emotional letter”. I asked for a hug something I have never done before and broke down again.
Not a lot was said really after that, although Liza spoke of the Men's group which she hopes to start during the middle of June and that it will be on a Wednesday afternoon. Liza commented that I was now on my way and next week we are going to rescue me as a little boy. I have to think of a nice safe place where I can tell him to go at anytime he feels threatened. That's my homework for the week. Made an appointment for 11.00hrs next Tuesday. That was that. Margaret was outside and asked me “how it had gone?”. I could feel those tears welling up on me again but managed to control it but I was nearly there. I don't think I'm ready for crying in public just yet.
Trouble is i still dont think he is safe as to why i have no idea.
How do we measure success in recovery?
For me to find perfect peace all i need is a trowel, brush and a trench and Im away with the birdies, what a feeling! To uncover a mosaic was pure magic for the little me, pure joy.
And all that was left was hope
Archnut
PS Today (22nd) is the anniversary of my grandfathers death and it still affects me emotionally thirty five years alter as does the six nation rugby which always reminds me of granddad Mick.
