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The importance of keeping the connection with yourself
I’ve been staying at my father’s house for two weeks now. Because he lives in England, we don’t get to spend much time together. In fact, we’ve been living in different parts of the world for the last almost 15 years. However, every year for the last 5 years he’s been coming to visit his childhood home and I’ve been using this opportunity to spend time with him. We’ve been through many stages in our mutual life journey. We’ve certainly had many difficult phases but somehow we’re managing to keep our relationship alive. Furthermore, every single year has been different as I’ve been progressing on my healing path. Still, in…
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The pandemic as an opportunity to continue healing – repairing what was once ruptured
It’s been more than a year since my last post. As the pandemic was taking over the world and thus dominating our concerns and worries, I retrieved into my inner world. At the beginning of it all, I was happy that I could take the time to disconnect from the daily stressors of life. I was wise enough to use the time to truly sink in the experience of continuing my healing journey. Spending the days with my son, who was at home all day, gave us an opportunity for much “repair” to be done. In attachment theory, the “good enough parent” is not a perfect parent. The good-enough parents…
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A turning point on my healing journey – experiencing an emotional flashback and remembering my past
A few days ago I had my most intense emotional flashback. Now, if you don’t know what is an emotional flashback or what it feels like, you’re not alone. For sure, I’ve read about them in my research on childhood trauma and Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) but I haven’t experienced one. Or at least I didn’t know at the time. An emotional flashback is an intense emotional reaction, many describe it as a sort of flooding of emotion, usually as a result of a trigger – an event, a situation, it could be something someone says, and how that makes you feel. Triggers could be many and they…
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Childhood emotional neglect – the hidden root of my pain
I just had my second EMDR therapy session. In EMDR we focus on a particular memory from our life – usually a traumatic one. I was working with an image of me when I was a child and my mother who was particularly unresponsive to my needs. Just to remind you, at the beginning of therapy my therapist confirmed that I was emotionally deprived/neglected as a child. Since then I read the book Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect by Dr Jonice Webb which further helped me understand my “diagnosis”. The book very well explains what emotional neglect is – it’s not about what happened but about what…
