Self-Soothing and Safety…
12th May 2025
Hello my most beautiful and precious starshine,
I wanted to write this to you for a while. I guess I’m finally ready to start putting it into words. I never realised just how much I needed you and relied on you during my triggered and uncertain states. I relied on you to help alleviate my distress, to help me get out of my trigger, and to help me regulate my emotions. I couldn’t sit with those emotions. I didn’t know how to. I just wanted the overwhelming feelings of distress to go.
Developing some dependency in close relationships (I mean friendships as well) is normal, natural and healthy. Asking for help and talking is healthy, but it’s not healthy when the dependency is more needy. I can now see that this is how I was with you in my triggered and uncertain states. I had no idea.
I never learnt how to self-soothe. I never had the chance to because it was all about survival after my mum died. I needed to try and keep the people around me calm. I was quiet at home and needed to do as I was told to make sure I wasn’t attacked. I needed to be a good girl, but none of these things worked and they never really kept me safe.
My safety and emotions were always influenced by those around me. I had no control. I couldn’t express my needs or feelings because they were ignored, so I learnt they didn’t matter. This lead to me not even knowing what my feelings and needs were, and this continued into my adult life.
With this and my mum being the only person who soothed me and kept me safe, I think I learnt that safety and soothing can only come from external sources. I didn’t think or know I could do those things myself. I still don’t really know how to. As an adult, you and Liron provided that safety for me, and you helped to soothe me. I can see this clearly now.
There was no escape from my dad with having to share the room with him. I coped with the abuse and the distress by shutting down, dissociating, studying and escaping with books, movies, music etc. They temporarily made me forget and made me feel okay, but it didn’t last. It never did, even as an adult, the past along with the repressed emotions continue to resurface.
At the age of nine, I was still in the important stages of development, but that ground to a halt because of what I needed to deal with after my mum died. I was in full survival mode. On one hand I needed to grow up extremely quickly, but on the other my sense of self and my identity wasn’t allowed to develop. I also didn’t go through the stages of becoming independent; self-soothing and creating safety would be a part of this developmental stage.
I took on my dad’s and family’s negative views about myself and believed it was true. It became a part of my identity. We don’t really question as a child, we just accept. It didn’t matter how well I did at school, I was never good enough. The one thing that was impossible to change was how I looked, my skin colour, which as you know they deemed to be ugly. Yes, I felt like The Elephant Man, which became a core belief along with being unwanted, broken and abandoned.
The only positive thing I had in my life was school and my friends there. I could speak freely and be myself. I loved it. It was my safe space.
Both as a child and as an adult, I dissociated and tried to escape with something that made me feel good, but this meant my feelings just got buried. My brain and I never got the chance to process it, so it continued to affect me unconsciously, and would spill out uncontrollably from time to time and whenever I was triggered. That’s the only way I knew how to deal with painful emotions, until now.
With what I’ve experienced emotionally over the last six months, I’m beginning to slowly sit with some of the feelings related to my past. It’s mainly grief but the anger is brewing. My natural instinct is to run, and I still try. By sitting and experiencing the feelings, I’m learning that these feelings can’t harm me. They’re difficult, painful and distressing, but they do eventually pass. I’m slowly learning not to fear them, but it will take time.
I’m not sure if triggers in general will completely go, but I’m hoping the severity will lessen greatly and I can manage them a lot better. This is where I need to learn how to self-soothe and make myself feel safe. Self-care is critical for this. I need to learn how to ground myself. You were my anchor, but now I need to develop that anchor within myself.
This is another reason why, as much as I want to, I can’t contact you at the moment. I do need to work on myself and make myself feel safe, otherwise I’ll be solely relying on you to provide that safety for me again. I had no idea that I relied on you so heavily. Again, healthy dependency is positive, but not when it’s needy, and I was needy with you in my triggered and uncertain states. I just never knew.
This reminds me of The Doctor. I completely related to Ruby in Lucky Day, with the loss of The Doctor, PTSD and the need to be on her own for a while. There’s also been a gentle reminder of you in all of the episodes so far, which has been so lovely. I imagine you’re loving them too {} xx
I need to try and get back to how I was before November. I need to start taking care of myself and this illness as I did when you were with me. I need proper rest. That’s the first step along with self-care.
Thank you so, so much my precious angel for proving that safety and being my anchor when I desperately needed it. I love you and I’m hugging you with all my thankful and grateful heart {} xxxx