"A loss can be sudden, gradual, or prolonged.  It can be partial, complete, uncertain or unending.  It can be a single loss, multiple, or cumulative.  While it always personal, it can also be symbolic.  Loss is universal, but we encounter it daily, and we can easily overlook it.  Yet it's always there, threatening our self-esteem.  And while each loss is separate, every single ungrieved loss is felt every time we experience any loss." (Healing the Child Within)

So every single time our mothers say something nasty to us, it just compounds on top of every other time she's said something that we haven't healed from, so we feel it ten times more.  

But what has her behavior stolen from you?  What has it taken away? Make a list of everything you've lost due to abuse.  Then categorize them using the above subjects so you can see what belongs where.  

1.  My beloved keyboard was wrecked when the pipes in our house burst and flooded my room.  My parents got the insurance money for it, but didn't replace a single thing of mine, especially the awesome piano-sized keyboard I used to write music with.  I am still angry about this at times.  (personal objects)

2.  My mother put down my cats Herman and Pheobe without telling me.  It was a super shitty thing for her to do, seeing as I had had them for seventeen years.  I should had been informed or asked to go with.  (important people in my life)

3.  This year, at Thanksgiving, my mother made Christmas cookies.  She gave boxes upon boxes of cookies to all her friends, but gave us none.  Then at Christmas, a month later, she gave us all the leftovers, which were stale, hard, and gross.  (personal objects and the feeling of inclusion in my mother's life)

You can add to the categories if you find something doesn't fit into any of the above ones.  

Then when you've made your list, organize them on your page into their respective categories.  Then as you work on healing them, you can work category, by category.  

When you've done that, look hard at the list you made.  Now, what does each one really mean?  What I mean is, what part of you is hurting because of their behavior?  Losing my cats is a loss all by itself, I got them when I was 18 years old, the first time living on my own.  They were pieces of me that were taken away (granted, they were sick) without my knowledge.  But the cookies?  I couldn't give a flying fark about cookies.  What she hit upon, once again, was saying "You are not important enough to me to include you on something I was doing for everyone else."  Which boils down to "I don't love you enough."  So my loss, once again, was my mother's love, not cookies.  The same goes with the keyboard.  "You don't mean as much to me as money does."  

Then, take these insights and boil them down even further.  What are the recurring themes?  Mine are "I don't love you enough" and "you aren't good enough".  Both are pretty much the same thing.  So, most of my losses are are about not being worthy: as a human, as a daughter, as a female.  If you asked my mother on a bad day what my worth was, she'd reply "Nothing."  Because that's how she feels about me deep down.  That's the message she's always sent to me with every single action and every single word she's spoken to me.  Sometimes she tries to confuse me by giving me gifts that goes above and beyond her feelings of me not being worthy in her eyes.  But those gifts are not the reality of things.  They are nice and I appreciate them, but I am not fooled by them.  Deep down, I am worthless to her.  But if I flip those words, I then realize she's the one who feels unworthy and projects her unworthiness onto me.  But we'll get to that later.  

• You have taken a inventory of your losses.  
• You've categorized your losses together. 
• You've dug deeper into your losses to see the underlying theme(s).  

So, what do you do next?  If you try to heal your underlying theme (which is the MAJOR theme of your life: it's who you've become due to her abuse-- e.g. "I've become unworthy in every aspect of my life for so long, and it's affected my ability to do anything worthy with my life)."  Then you'll be setting yourself up for a huge amount of work before you work on the actual losses, which need to be grieved before you can move forward.  And, if you try to fix the symptoms (feelings of unworthiness, or whatever it is you feel at this moment that is fueling your actions) without treating the underlying disease (ungrieved losses), it will be futile, as the feelings will come right back again.

What happens when you try to navigate life in a state of denial of your losses?  

They manifest as destructive behaviors such as denial, addiction, projection, silence, macho behavior, addictions (sex, alcohol, drugs, food, shopping, gambling, etc.), ignoring your own needs (for medical reasons, self-care, hunger, etc.), fear of abandonment, eating disorders, trust issues, conflict avoidance, getting into abusive relationships (either as the abuser or as a codependent), feelings of incompetence/shame/self-blame/anger/rage/low self-esteem/etc., hoarding, control issues, splitting (black and white thinking), workaholism, taking on too much responsibility (or none at all),  and so much  more.  If you are suffering from issues that you can't quite put your finger on where they come from, then take a look at your losses in life.  Have you gotten over them?  Have you worked through the pain in order to find acceptance and let them go?  Or are you still angry or hurting?  Most likely, it's the latter (as we all are still angry and hurting somehow, somewhere in our lives).  And healing those losses will help you get of the negative behaviors you are exhibiting today.  

So let's talk about how to grieve and heal those losses.  

Take a look at your list.  Which one is bothering you the most right now?  Number each loss from 1-10. 10 being something that regularly hurts you, and 1 being something that feels mostly faint in the background, but still occasionally bugs you.

Then take all your highest number losses and put them on their own page.  This page will be the first group of losses you work on.  I know I said not to start with the major stuff, but if something is actively hurting you, it's best to get those out of the way to begin with.  

There are various ways to do this, but the book Healing The Child Within states that the biggest thing you can do to heal is to share your story with those that understand or are supportive.  I suggest joining support groups, talking to a therapist, writing your stories down in a blog (like this one) or a book, and/or just chatting with supportive  family or friends.  It's important to express your anger, sadness, or any other emotion that you're feeling.  

There are two things I will warn you about with support groups, though: 

• In person support groups can be awesome when you find the right one!  But I have had the negative experience in being in a support group for anxiety for four years, with people I trusted and cared about, only to have the group leader and the therapist who ran the group, publish a book of stories about the group members without our permission.  The stories were private, personal stories, that the leader did not experience herself, but only heard about through our mouths.  I think she was secretly recording all of our meetings and then writing them down when she got home.  Then to find out, she had been publishing the stories from our group, long before I got there, in various newsletters around the world.  Always make sure of the privacy in your support group. (Please do not let this deter you from joining a support group!  What happened to our group is rare.  And I would join another in a heartbeat, I would just take the proper precautions to make sure our privacy is not being violated, as should you.)
• Online support groups are tricky.  Most people join to get support, not as much to give it.  So you'll get members who just participate when they are in crisis.  Or you'll get some members who are always in crisis.  And others who are just negative nancies.  While sometimes they can be a great help, but eventually, when you've spent enough time in one, the membership tapers off and you're left with a large amount of people with no participation.  Also, if someone is negative, the group leaders may not see it right away and you're left with dealing with feeling awful until someone takes care of the offending member.  But if you can find the right group with the right people, then it can do wonders to help you on your healing journey!

When you express your sadness and anger, you must be prepared for someone not to understand.  And other people may even get angry if you bring this up to them (especially if they are related to the person who hurt you).  This is normal.  Do not let this discourage you from sharing your story with others.  Just let them be angry and move on (away from them).  Opening up to your experiences and losses will help bring them from the darkness to the light.  When you shine light on the deep crevices of your life, they stop being shameful and secretive, and something you feel you should hide from (which is what denial is).  It's like knowing you owe a huge bill to a doctor's office.  You know you have to pay it (or get your insurance to pay it), but you keep putting it off, not wanting to deal with it because it stresses you out.  So in the back of your mind, this nagging feeling of "Deal with me!" invades your brain whenever you're resting (which is why down times are so hard when dealing with trauma).  But if you'd just call and take care of it (or set something up to begin to take care of it), there comes a sense of satisfaction and the nagging feelings go away.

The nagging feelings when it comes to trauma and abuse are those unresolved losses yelling at us "Deal with me!  Pay attention to me!"  And taking them from the darkness (hidden in our pasts) to the light (bringing them out into the open) by telling our stories to supportive people helps dissolve some of their hold on us.  Think about how much energy it takes to avoid dealing with your traumatic losses.  It probably takes just as much, if not more energy to avoid dealing with them than it does to actually deal with them.  How tiring that must be for us!

Telling our stories, although a huge step towards healing, is only the first step.  We also need to deal with the specific losses and how to get heal them individually, one a time.  This is where your list comes in.

Take the top loss on your list, the one that bothers you the most.  Identify who's at fault.  If you feel you lost the ability to be happy, try to be more specific: what instances happened that took your happiness away?  Even if the person at fault didn't do it on purpose (e.g. your grandparent died whom you loved a great deal), you still need to identify that person as the causation of that situation.

The Exercise: 

Find a private place for you to be along for a period of time.  You can now either journal this part or not.  Start by closing your eyes and visualize the person sitting across from you.  Sit them down at a table and tell them you want to have a chat.  Now, this may feel awkward the first time you do this, but after you get into it, it will come more naturally.  Then have a conversation with them.  If they are passed away, and you have good feelings towards them, give them a hug and welcome them back.  Feel your feelings as though it's really happening.  Cry if you feel like it.  Tell them how what they did affected you.  If you aren't on good terms with them, yell at them if you like.  You don't have to talk out loud, you can do this in your head.  Or you can talk out loud if you like.  Whatever you feel comfortable with.  Just know you are safe, this person cannot hurt you again, as they aren't really there.  If things feel too heavy for you, remind yourself that you are the one in control now. 

You can ask them questions, and let them answer.  If you're journaling, write all this down and then write down their answers.  Keep going until there's nothing left to say.  Then as you do this, as you talk, you'll come up with new feelings and new ideas about the situation, especially because you're coming from an older and wiser place than you were when it happened.  Keep talking (out loud or not) until you break through with something.  The more you talk, the more you're exploring those dark parts of your past you've kept hidden, even from yourself.  Bring it all out into the light (even though you're bringing it out to only yourself, but this is a very important step: we can't share with others what we don't know ourselves).

Sit with what you come up with for a bit before moving on.  Did you learn anything?  Did you make a breakthrough?  Any idea or thought that you've never thought of before?  Did you find a deeper layer to your pain than you realized?  Write all this down, if you like.  Keep track of what you come up with so you can go back over it at a later date.


After you've thoroughly investigated your loss with the person you feel is responsible for it, now it's time to talk to your younger self (even if your younger self was a recent version).  Sit her or him across from you, or visit them in their safe space.  If they are a child (which most likely they will be), introduce yourself.  Tell them you are them, but from the future.  Most likely your younger self will be enthralled at the idea of a futuristic person coming to visit them.  Be as realistic as you can with these conversations: if you really were travelling back in time, what would you say to these people or your younger self?  Most likely, they'd have no idea who you are.  So tell them.  Let the conversations happen naturally.  You'd be surprised at the amount of insight you'll gain by being as real as possible.

In these visualizations, do extra stuff, like go for a walk in your old neighborhood.  Play with your old pets.  Visit neighbors.  At this point in time, time travel is impossible, this is as close as we'll ever get to actually doing it.  So take advantage.  It's an amazing feeling reliving your childhood as an adult.  Even if your neighborhood wasn't safe as a child, exploring it from the safety of your home now as an adult can make it safe, because you are in control.  You are protected.


So now you're hanging out with your younger self.  You've told them you're from the future.  And now what will you say about this loss?  What will you tell that little child (or teenager or younger adult)?  Will you tell them that they will end up okay?  That you will keep them safe from now on?  I asked my younger child what she wanted from me now, and she replied "I want to run away with you.  I want to pack a bag, grab my dog, and have you pick me up while my parents are sleeping, and we can run away so you can take care of me."  The idea of having someone come and save me as a child was the one thing I dreamed about daily.  I just wanted to be safe.  I just wanted to be loved.  So I promised her I'd love her the way she should have been loved for her entire life, and I would take care of her.  One day, I'll go pick her up, and we'll drive off into the night together (with our dog), and find a beautiful home in the forest with an art & music studio where she can live out her childhood exploring and drawing and making music, instead of having to deal with two adult-sized children who had no idea how to take care of anyone else, lest themselves.  She won't live in fear anymore, because I'll be the parent she always needed and never had.  She will be 100% safe with me.  As your past self will be with you one day, too.

I haven't picked her up yet, because I am still dealing with healing her first.  But we're getting there.  I may just rescue her soon, because she can live in safety while I work on healing our adult selves.  I would love to draw or paint a picture of the home where she can live, amongst the trees and fairies, and gnomes (as a child, I swear I saw a gnome once LOL).  She is a dreamy girl, so someplace magical would be an amazing home.

If you do this with your past self (inner child), know that you can take many versions of yourself to live in your safe house, from infant to adult.

Have a nice long chat with your past self, ask her or him what they need, and let them know that you love them with all your heart, and apologize to them for anything you feel bad about.  Explain to them about the loss you both have experienced, and tell them how you feel now about it.  Listen to their response.  Let them tell you whatever they need to tell you.  Write all of this down if you're keeping a record of these conversations.  You can even use your less dominant hand for your childhood self, if you like.   Just talk to them for as long as you need to.  Let their words help you come to terms with this loss.

Let's recap: 

• You've shared your story or plan on sharing your story with supportive and safe people. 
• Maybe you've identified some of the negative ways your ungrieved losses are manifesting themselves in your life today. 
• You identified who's at fault (even if they weren't truly at fault--as in the death of a loved one) for your loss. 
• You've talked with that person about your loss.  You've expressed your anger, your rage, your sadness, or anything else you were feeling about it to them.  
• You then talked to your younger self, the one who was present during the loss, and reassured them that they are loved and will always be loved, and said what you needed to say to them.  
• You maybe recorded all the info down in a journal or notebook.  
• Maybe you made plans to come back to visit again, as many times as you need to in order to heal from this loss.  

What next?

Reading List: 

Videos: