When the doubt creeps in
I’ve had a good day today and achieved a lot but it’s the end of the day now and I’m playing punish in my head. Doing a postmortem of things I’ve said. I work with victims of domestic violence and it’s been SO busy since lockdown began. I am never completing all my work and constantly playing catchup. Some of the referrals are heavy duty now. They make me sad but my reward is the satisfaction that another person is protected and on their way out the hell they live in and I am grateful.
However, and this is the point where I turn the negativity on myself, I am quite immature in my communication sometimes. I crack jokes. I told a team manager today the person I spoke with was ‘pissed as a fart’. Well they were but why, why, why do I say it. I’m 63. It’s not appropriate and not funny.
I did my job well but Christ I get annoyed with myself sometimes. And I hear my mother’s voice constantly telling me how stupid I am, her fingers tapping on my head telling me I am mad, telling me I am stupid, telling me people look at me because I look ridiculous and how they laugh at me.
I am not mad, I was not mad, I was a child and you had no right to terrify me like that. Shame on you even though you are gone. It was a wicked thing to do. And see. I am a part of you. Because I play your messages in my head and when I am at my lowest, or heading downwards they spring up into the front of my memory and I remember. I remember how awful it was to live with that. To live with fighting and screaming. To have you complain about my daddy every night and not let any of us sleep.
So the doubt has crept in. I will worry about whether the Manager will report me. Of course the punishment would have to be there or I wouldn’t be repeating your shit, ma. Sorry.
So here I am writing it down. Telling it here. Wanting it to leave me, to disappear from my body, my tummy anxious and unsettled.
Making it safe for me because you are everything now. You are the next generation, the hope bringer, the granter of dreams and defender against harm. You are my way out of repeated patterns. You are the future and I love your smile. You are my grandson, child of my son, my little boy all grown and doing very nicely.
So I will write a gratitude list. And this blog will be on it. I love to put pen to paper and let the words tumble out. My outlet. My saviour.
I will go through my gratitude list and see where the sunshine falls through the window and I will claim my spot there so I can sleep in the warmth and not cower under the duvet, afraid of the storm unfolding in the next room.
I am grown. I can be sensible. I can turn this around. I can find a strategy to stop and not repeat the messages heard when I was small and unprotected in a small, medium, large way.
So thank you for my platform, thank you for the space. Thank you for the urge to write. You have helped me more than you could ever know and together we will be the sun rising.
