Hi Tee

Sorry this is a bit of a long one. Please feel free to take your time and skip parts that you need to. 🩵

I understand, funnily enough I credit me being ready to be a parent to my health issues. Without it, I don’t think I would have been mature enough. It is strange the way that life teaches us these lessons.

You might not feel confident in your resilience yet, but I definitely see it in you! I hope that doesn’t feel too strange? 🩵

Yes, there is definitely an element of have to with chronic health issues. I’m glad to hear that your back pain has subsided over time. 🩵

My understanding is that when there is an actual injury muscles contract around the area to protect it. It is fascinating to learn that this happens at times when no injury is present and only perceived too. I didn’t know that!

There is nothing wrong with having a good cry. 😊

I feel like it might be normal to be afraid of chronic health issues when we start having them. It is a big change that takes a lot of adjustment and it is especially not easy to lose mobility and deal with huge amounts of pain.

But over time you learn to manage them and figure out coping mechanisms.
Which is exactly what you did. Yes, there will be new challenges, but you have the skills to cope with them now because you worked hard on developing them. 🩵

Thank you sharing, as well as for the resources! I subscribed and I’m going to have enjoy learning all about the techniques you mentioned. 🩵

I’m glad that you learned about the difficulties that occur with your childhood trauma and got help for it. Despite it not being recognised at the time. It is a difficult position to be in with the damaging effects of constant verbal abuse are only recently being acknowledged and previously constantly dismissed. Gaslighting, to the extreme. No one deserves to suffer alone. I’m glad that you fought for yourself to get through it all. At the same time it is a shame because it should not be that way. 🩵 🩵

Yes, it is just the early infancy phase that is really tough. Toddlers are much easier for me. I find the positive communication style that children need really helpful mentally too. I think being around so much negativity growing up taught me to be quite negative. It is nice developing a strong positive voice. 🩵

I got some news. It seems like my son is going to be starting nursery in spring instead of January. It looks like he’ll be accepted for the nursery that was picked, but they don’t have any space until then. I guess it gives me some time to process the idea of him going to nursery. It is also a really good nursery, so worth the wait. More time to potty train him as well.

I feel like in some ways, I have been exploring understanding my mother’s difficulties because I recognise that a part of her lives on in me. I’m trying to come to terms with that part of myself.

I’m not going to pretend that I got help for a good reason. When I was a child I just hated my mother and recognised that I was becoming like her. I didn’t want to become like her. She told me that I was just like her. I tried my best to change as much as I could.

I feel like my mother may not have got help for positive reasons either. She was suicidal, so she got help.

*trigger warning*

She finally stopped hitting and the sa when we were old enough to fight back. And it really was a fight. It was too little, too late.

I know that she lied about the things she did. Both to me and authorities. I know that she remembers what she did because she discussed things I did to try and put her off from the SA with her friend. You don’t remember one without the other. They were very much linked. The friend asked me about it.

She was willing to apologise to me, for whatever she did that she doesn’t remember doing. That was not enough for me. You can’t gloss over that kind of abuse. I only asked for her to acknowledge what she had done and apologise to me personally. I would have forgiven her and stayed in contact if she was genuine. I told her that if she couldn’t acknowledge what she had done, I would cut contact. She cared more about her own feelings.

There are a bunch of reasons that explain what happened. She was very young, mentally ill and alone. Her father sexually abused her. If things had been different for her, perhaps things would have been different for me. The world shapes us. But it doesn’t take away from what happened and the pain I experienced at her hands.

Life is complicated and sometimes bad things happen. Good people can make mistakes. Bad people can sometimes do good things, particularly when they benefit from it.

It is not a satisfying conclusion. But this is life. Thank you for your kindness, as well as for being there whilst I was exploring it. 🩵 🩵 🩵