TW: inner child work; childhood neglect/abuse
I slowly started to swing the door inwards, and my eyes scanned the room. There, in the far right-hand corner, sat my four-year-old self. On the floor, knees tight against her chest, underneath the window, between the bedside table and the wall. This miniature version of me seemed to be trying to become invisible. Eyes pinched shut, mouth pursed, and face scrunched up, as if she couldn’t see me, I would not be able to see her.
As my eyes adjusted to the room’s dim light, I recognized where we were. We were in the bedroom my mother and I shared at my grandmother’s house after my… after our parents’ divorce. With the smell of the room and the coolness of the uncarpeted floor, I am overwhelmed by random memories flooding my brain. My eyes welled up with tears. Visions of me roller skating around this room, empty of furniture, at an age many years older than the little one cowering in the corner, decades younger than I am now. There is a part of me that wants to allow the memories to flow, as I have very few memories that I can recollect without the aid of a picture or story from someone else. However, I see the panic rising in mini-me, and I must help her first and foremost.
As if she heard my thoughts, her eyes opened wide, and she looked at me with suspicion. I softly stepped forward into the room and closed the door behind me. I could see the terror in her eyes. I sat down on the floor directly across the room from her. I mimicked her pose. Brought my knees to my chest and made myself as small as possible. I cocked my head and softened my gaze toward her. With that, her shoulders relaxed a little and were no longer up around her ears.
I asked her, “Do you mind if I sit with you awhile?”
She contemplated my question for a moment and studied me. Then I heard, “Who are you? You feel and seem like I know you…”
Now I was confused, I had been watching her, and her mouth never moved. How could I hear her if she didn’t actually speak aloud? Oh! Since we are the same person in this realm and time and space, we can communicate using our thoughts.
She cocked her head this time, and her little brows furrowed, and I heard, “Ah, yea.” As if, why, old lady, didn’t you know that? I chuckled. I guess some things haven’t changed; I am still a bit of a know-it-all and make surley comments.
I wondered, if she can hear my thoughts, how does she not know who I am?
She telepathically responded,” You believe you are an older version of me, but that isn’t possible. I figured you are just nuts.”
“Okay, fair. What if I told you that it is possible for us to meet and talk? Actually, in a few different ways.”
Mini-me’s eyes lit up, and a look of curiosity swept over her face, “Really?”
“Yup! Really.”
Her whole body was relaxing. She repositioned to sit cross-legged; she held Baby, her favorite doll, and her pink blankie.
“May I come to sit beside you?” I inquired.
She nodded but scootched back ever so slightly. I moved closer, put my back against the same wall as hers but left about a foot between us. A little sigh escaped from her.
“I am honored to meet you, I have seen many pictures of you, but I haven’t kept many of our memories from this time!”
She looked down at Baby and twirled the silky ends of the pink blankie through her fingers. I can remember how that felt. I had that blanket up until college; by that time, it had almost disintegrated. “We go to college?” I hear.
“Shit. I keep forgetting she can hear my thoughts.”
“That’s a bad word!”
“Damn!”
She looks at me sidewards with concern, “We swear like that when we get older?”
“Yea… this and worse, actually.”, as a sly smile crosses both of our faces.
“We do? And we don’t get in trouble for it?”
“We do get in trouble in our early teen years. However, Mom decides that I will swear anyway and changes her approach. We can curse but only at home or out with our friends. No swearing at Gram’s, or school, or work. We had to learn to swear responsibly.”
“Who is Gram? Grandma Havrilla?”
Oh wow, I almost forgot. “No, I am talking about Mom-mom. In our early teens, we started calling Mom-mom ’Gram’.” Anticipating her next question, I continued, “I can’t remember why we made that change. Probably for a couple of different reasons, but we can talk about that later.” She nodded as if she understood, and a wave of sadness washed over her. “I came here to talk to you.”
“You did?” her thoughts continue, “No grown-up ever wants to hear what I have to say.”
Again, my eyes well up with tears, and I hold my hand out to her, offering for her to take it. She looks at my hand, back up at my face, back down to my hand, down at her hands that are entwined in the blanket from fidgeting, withdraws her one tiny hand, and places it in mine. I squeeze it softly, marveling at how small her hand is in mine. “I came here to talk to you about that, in fact. I am 48 years old and have realized that I am terrified of being seen or heard. We have so much to share, but we are holding ourselves back. To break ourselves out of this cycle, we are doing all of the things which is amazing. However, I need your help.”
“How can I help?”
“I want to hear everything. Why do you feel no grown-ups want to hear what you have to say?”
“I don’t understand. How can I help you? I am just a little kid.”
“You are a smart, observant, very aware little person. One who remembers things that I no longer do. I believe that our memories hold the key to helping us.”
The tension creeps back into her face and body, and she pulls her hand back to fidget with her blankie again.
“I understand if you are hesitant to believe me. Adults have not been as safe as we needed them to be. Wondering if I am who I say I am and if I can be trusted is valid.”
I can feel her little heart beating in my own chest. Thoughts are racing through her head at top speed. While I can hear them in my head, in her voice, they are coming through at such a quick pace I can only catch the first couple of words from each sentence. “Why me?… How can … Is she… Mom will be… Am I… What if… What do I… Ugh!” Her thoughts spiral for what feels like 30 minutes, although it had been 30 seconds, tops. She looks at me earnestly, with doubt and hope, “Are you sure this will help?”
I shake my head yes and share, “I think this will help both of us a lot.”
“Both of us? How can this help me? You are 44 years older than me.”
“This will give you the chance to say all the thoughts and feelings you are bottling up inside to feel heard and seen. We can take that information, remember it, then either we can reframe it or realize if the feelings or thoughts should be released.”
“Reframe? Release?”
“Hmmm… How to explain…? You know our View-master?” She nods. “You know how if you are using it inside and there is not a lot of light, the pictures are darker, but if you point it toward a window where the sun is coming in, the pictures are bright and clear? Reframing is kind of like that. Taking information, looking at it from one way, then looking at it from a different angle and seeing it differently. Releasing means if we look at the information from different perspectives and either realize we didn’t know the whole picture and were wrong, or we let it go. Or, we realize what we were told by the grown-ups was wrong, and we let it go, releasing that thought, feeling, understanding, belief.”
She takes a deep breath and motions for me to sit closer to her. I move myself to sit next to her. She holds out her hand, and I take it. Her voice now sounds like a whisper in my head. I look over at her. Her head is down, shoulders slightly slumped over, and eyes closed. I feel my heart open up to this beautiful little child. A tear slipped down her cheek.
She begins, “Mom is at work, and Mom-mom is making dinner, so no one will be around for a while. I guess I have time to tell you.”
“And anytime you get overwhelmed or want to stop, just say ‘I’m done.’ or ‘I can’t.’ and we will stop and take a break. We can meet at a different time and/or place.”
“Okay, that is good…” She tightens her grip on my hand, leaning slightly into me, “where do I begin?”
“Anywhere you would like. What comes to mind first?”
“Grown-ups don’t like me much.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well… you know dad isn’t around. He left. They used to fight in front of me all of the time. Mom would tell dad that he had a responsibility to me, and he would say he did not. She had gotten pregnant on purpose; I was her problem.”
“Oh, I wish they were more mature and aware of how intelligent you are and how well you can read energy from people. They believed incorrectly that since you were a child and couldn’t speak yet, you couldn’t understand them. And this may be hard to understand, it has taken me over 20 years to understand it myself, but their fights were more about the pain they inflicted on each other. Also, as the pain others shared with them while growing up. They were not as lucky as us to get in touch with themselves, talk with their younger hurting and scared selves, and learn, grow, and heal. They were assholes.”
Her eyes widened again, quickly softened, and she grinned,” They are…assholes.” She glanced at me to see if I would get mad at her for swearing. I squeezed her hand and smiled. She continued, “It didn’t matter if I was screaming or crying while they fought. Usually, they would shove a pacifier in my mouth or a bottle. If that didn’t stop my crying, dad would stomp out, slamming the door behind him. Leaving mom alone with me. She would curse, yell, cry, and, sometimes, throw things. Then her energy would crash; it felt like she was scared and didn’t know what to do. She would collapse crying for a while and then take a nap. When she woke up, she would check on me, pick me up, and hold me. It felt like she was sucking energy from me.”
I leaned in closer, sending all the heart energy I could muster to her little body. I asked if I could put my arm around her, and she agreed. We sat there for a few moments; at that point, it felt like we were both so wrapped up in feeling our own emotions and reliving memories we could not hear the other’s thoughts. I realized I may not have much more time today to visit with 4-year-old me; I wanted to learn more.
I squeezed her and kissed her on the top of her head, asking her, “Is there anything else you want to share with me?” She started examining my hand, which was still holding hers.
Shyly she said, “I hate how they treat me like I am a doll to play with. They hold, tickle, and then hand me over to the next person. When I try to share a story about my friend with them, they laugh and say, ‘Oh, that is nice!’ without hearing a word. Then to the other adults in the room, and over my head, like I can’t hear them, ‘It’s so cute, she has an imaginary friend!’ Jocelyn isn’t imaginary!?”
“I know Jocelyn isn’t imaginary. She is one of your guides and protectors. She and I recently started communicating again. I understand why it was frustrating when the grown-ups brushed off what you were trying to share.”
Her face lit up. “You believe me!? You know Jocelyn?”
“Yes.”
A feeling of relief swept over the little one. She looked at me and then at my lap and climbed onto my legs, wrapping herself up in my arms and her pink blanket. I hugged her tight.
As she laid her head on my chest, she asked, “Do you remember Paul, the guy mom is now dating?”
“No, not really. I have seen pictures of him, but I haven’t been able to recall any memories of my own.”
“Oh… actually, that is good. He always says, ‘That kids should be seen and not heard.’ I think Mom-mom likes him more than Mom does. She keeps telling Mom that she should marry him. I don’t say much when he is around. I have started asking to go to bed early so I can talk to Jocelyn without getting yelled at.”
Slowly I rocked this tiny person as she rocked her doll. “Unfortunately, it is almost time for me to go. Is there anything else that you think I should know?”
“I hate being the only child at family gatherings. You would think it would be awesome. All the attention, all the gifts… but no! It sucks! They all sit around talking about politics and stories from the past, drinking beer, smoking, and telling me to go play in the living room. They are in the other room laughing and having fun, and I am all alone. I would probably lose my mind if Jocelyn wasn’t there!”
I agree. Jocelyn saves us in so many more ways than we ever know. I explain, “Yes, I can imagine me leaving again may feel like I am abandoning you. I promise that I am not. We are a part of each other. I will be back soon to hear more about Jocelyn, our childhood, her/me, our creativity, everything. Before I go, will you come outside with me?”
She nods and stands up but doesn’t release my hand. She follows me out of the bedroom door, down the hall, past Morn-mom’s bedroom and the bathroom, down the flight of stairs, and straight out the front door. We take a deep breath as soon as we reach the fresh air. We continue down the six cement stairs from the porch to the sidewalk. On the ground, to the right, is the manhole cover, full of water from the recent rain. I asked, “Do you want to do a little witch’s brew with me?”
Witch’s brew was a game my best friend, and I played after the rain when the manhole was filled with murky, muddy water. We would pick leaves and berries, throw them in the water and stir it all up into a potion.
She asked, “Why would we do that?”
I responded, “We can make a potion where we throw in all the messages we are getting from Mom, Dad, Mom-mom, Paul, everyone. The things they say like, our magic isn’t real, that our imagination isn’t real, that we aren’t worthy of being seen and heard. We throw it into our bubbling cauldron, and all of their perceptions are dissolved and evaporated. In their place, we (you, me, and Jocelyn) can know that magic is real. What we imagine may not be touchable here on earth, but it is real. We are worthy of being seen and being heard.”
She thought about it for a moment and said, “Yes, please!”
We picked some berries, took leaves off some bushes, got two huge sticks, threw the berries and leaves in, and stirred. Then we each picked one of Mom-mom’s roses. We took the petals off, one by one. With each petal, we would sing:
“Magic is real.”
“Jocelyn is real.”
“Things in our imagination are real.”
“We are worthy.”
“It is safe to be seen.”
“It is safe to be heard.”
The rain began to fall again. I stood there and watched my little self dance in the rain. She was allowing the joy of the singing and dancing to take over her entire being, and she beamed.
Tears spilled down my face. She looked up, saw my tears, and immediately ran over, throwing her arms around my legs and hugging me. I picked her up. Hugged her fiercely. Then I put her down and walked her back up to the porch; I told her, “I love you with everything that I am. We will see each other again soon.” With her small sweet face in my hands, I kissed her forehead and said, “Jocelyn, please keep taking good care of us.” With that, I could see an impression on mini-me’s right shoulder, and I felt the same warmth and pressure on mine. Jocelyn’s confirmation she will protect us.
I blinked and returned to my room with Jocelyn still by my side and more understanding and hope in my heart.