Changing life’s patterns ….or not.

On clearing the clutter in my study, I came across my Learning Journal that I wrote whilst in my early training to become a Counsellor. It was quite revealing and somewhat alarming.

1998, I was on my 2^nd year of a 3 year Diploma and was combining this with being a Mum, a Grandmother and a wife. Not easy. I had also begun writing my life story but had placed this on hold to allow me to concentrate on the course. We had moved to Wales in the previous year, not a willing move as I was leaving family in Hampshire, but had no choice. My husband was relocating to Bristol and I didn’t want to be a weekend wife, so my youngest daughter Marie and I went with him. A new adventure although my health at that time was not good.I had been registered disabled and felt at the lowest I had felt when this happened. But then decided, it was sink or swim. I swam.

I took myself off to college to take up a hobby and found myself signing up for the 3 year Counselling course, which lead on to a Masters in CBT that I gained in 2003. Having had a tough childhood and a difficult early adult hood, I decided to try and be, the person I would like to have been there, for young Carol Ann.

Reading the Journal, took me back to happy times, scary and traumatic times, but all done with a lovely group of men and women who were interested in helping others. We learned a lot, we laughed a lot and sometimes, some cried a lot. Not me.

Part of the learning was to discover our ‘inner child’, the child who is still in us today, but to look back and see how she or he found herself reacting in the family set up. We learned about relationships mother to child being the most important. I hedged away from this many times but eventually after a grueling weekend residential, had to confront my demons. Throughout the training we were to take on Personal Therapy, to allow us to work through our own issues and worries, so being able to ‘hold’ clients during theirs. At this stage I had avoided doing this, having securely locked all of my demons away in boxes whose lids were well and truly locked. I always avoided childhood stuff until that residential.

We were almost at the end of time and I stood well back, hoping we would run out of time. We didn’t. I was placed in the centre of the circle of students and told I was 7 years old. With all the emotions of the previous students ‘acting out’ their memories still in play, I found myself a child again. The frightened, vulnerable, scared child who was me.

The idea was to place other members of the group, as our own family and name them as such. My 2 eldest sisters were easy, I had some lovely friends in the group and they played those parts. A special closer relationship I had formed, was with a lady who had been a nurse and had a quirky sense of fun, like me, I placed her as my best friend Carol. One of the male lecturers, John, I put right next to me, he was Tony, my beloved brother. Another gentle kind student was standing the other side of me as my dad, William. That’s when I became a bit scared. That left my abuser and the woman they called my mother.The emotion in the room was highly charged, the air seemed thick with something that resembled the fear I had during a lot of my childhood. What should I do? I was becoming emotional and couldn’t allow that  to happen, I was prompted to continue. When I chose a man who I always felt was a bit aggressive, cold and who I didn’t like, to be the man who destroyed so much of me.  I couldn’t speak I just  pointed to him to stay way outside of the group and couldn’t look at him.  On reaching this point, my chief lecturer and head of the course asked where my ‘mother’ was. I said she wasn’t there,that if she had been in the room, I would not have been able to say how it felt to have been the child I was. So I left her out.

It was hugely significant, how I placed family and told the groups and therapist so much about me. Later,during processing the things that happened, which I found very hard, I discovered that it was my fear as a child that kept me unwilling to process events. Having been cruelly singled out by the woman who was supposed to have loved me, I became reticent, scared, took on self-blame, became a rescuer, the scapegoat of the family. I could place all of the family in the Schema table and knew exactly where I stood. My pattern as a little girl had been  to always help when I could, never to show I was hurt or upset, never to show anger and certainly never to cry. I would never question a decision, never answer back, never defend myself if wrongly accused and always explain or try and justify my actions. I also always felt responsible for another’s pain.

I noticed in group work when we began with silence and the topic was given, I would be the first to speak, helping others to open up. If we had presentations and students were reluctant to take tasks on, I would volunteer. If there were awkward silences I would be the first to break the silence.

 If I wanted to become a good counsellor,I had to work through these feelings to be able to help clients. I knew this was going to be very difficult.

As I said before,I didn’t show anger, not as a little girl or even as a young woman. Did I feel it? I don’t know but never showed it. This was also a legacy from childhood. Gerry, my personal supervisor and lead lecturer, did some work with me and we identified, that the anger I had suppressed for many years, was because, having taken fear and anger to my ‘mother’ as a child, when I had been badly hurt and scared, and to have her show anger towards me, I stopped letting it show. Just took was dealt to me. The thing that I believe damaged me the most, was losing trust. From the time I went to her for help and was not listened to or believed, I stopped trusting.

Throughout my life,if I saw someone in difficulty, having a hard time etc. I rushed in to help. Whether this help was wanted, I didn’t always know but rushed in anyway. If someone was upset and crying, I would try and show my concern and comfort them, try and put things right if I could. Always wanting to be loved. But I never cried. Didn’t mean I didn’t feel but that I had lost the ability to cry. When anger, pain, fear and sadness, is not acknowledged and worked through, the person will internalise these emotions and thus become ill, depressed or repressed. I know that now and have seen it over and over in my work but hadn’t acknowledged it for myself.

Yes, I took on blame freely, always felt responsible for everything. If a family member were in trouble and I was told, I would make the effort to help. If someone didn’t ring me, or make time for me etc. I would always think I was to blame. Once when my daughter and husband were watching the news, showing a war torn country, Marie asked her Dad why there was a war. David very quickly replied, ‘I don’t know, but I expect it was your Mum’s fault, she seems to think everything else is’. Yes I took on the blame, it wasn’t always given to me, and I just took it on. A childhood of being told that all troubles in life were my fault, paid its price.

During training we looked at every feeling, emotion and one of the worst for me was shame. We were asked to talk of an occasion where we felt shame. I could think of so many. Childhood abuse, left me feeling shame. As an adult, finding out things about my parenting and parentage, left me with shame. It is easy now, to recognize these feelings as somewhat transferred from others to being my shame, when they weren’t.

There came a point during my training, that going into therapy, opening what Gerry called ‘Carol’s bloody boxes’ was essential and had to be done soon. How could I help others if my own issues around self-worth, self-esteem, shame, and fear had not been processed and dealt with. So off I went. I never actually worked with my own CSA in therapy but did work with my low self esteem and lack of self love; acknowledging that if I wasn’t loved, for whatever reason,that would prevent me from loving myself and having self respect. I was brought to accept, that not being shown love wasn’t my  fault but that of my ‘mother’. It did help me, opening some of the boxes and I would always recommend personal therapy, counselling in all kinds of situations.

The purpose of this blog is to let those who know me, understand me a bit better and those who don’t, maybe to understand themselves. As children, we form patterns of behavior. We learn when and what we can say and to whom. If we are told we are worthless, if we are shown we are unloved and if we are given the responsibility for the feelings of others, we all grow up with these beliefs firmly in place. The patterns we form to cope with these beliefs, stay with us into adulthood. Sometimes our patterns keep us safe, sometimes they help but more than often, they hinder.I have seen clients who have presented with emotions carried over from the child they were and whose patterns of behavior have stopped them from moving forward, have often got in the way. The way we are as children, the way we are bought up, disciplined, cared for, taught and most of all loved, determine the person we become. Sometimes the patterns have to be changed.

With all of that in mind, I recognized, working through the journal, that yes my way of being changed a lot but when stressed or in times of doubt or fear, the old patterns that have been often lurking in the background, come in without us realising it and off we go with the behavior that was us. We become our inner child.

Over the past few weeks, last blog included, I have regressed to childhood habits of explaining myself, in defence. Not exactly as I would have as a child, but still feeling I need to justify what I had said and done. I shouldn’t always do that. But habits are hard to break and when they are our childhood patterns, formed when we are most vulnerable, they are never very far away. The past 6 months at least, little Carol Ann has been present where the adult Carol Ann should have been.

My training was valuable in many ways. I understood myself so much more but had forgotten whom I had become during this past stressful upsetting time. De cluttering my study was hard and painful but necessary and productive. I am back now and will use the new me on Social media at least.

Thank you for reading x