Explaining the shift here! ⚠️ This comes with a TW for abuse and pedophilia! ⚠️

(Background: I was severely mentally and sexually abused by my father from birth to 16 years old. At 16, I kicked him out of my life and have not had contact with him since.)

Something that has come up in my therapy a lot is this feeling like I'm waiting for some sort of permission. Permission to be. To exist. To be happy, to enjoy things, to laugh, to have things I want. I felt like I wasn't allowed to do things that my younger self wasn't able to do. Like it was somehow me rubbing it in her face. This solid understanding that I have to remember the abuse always. Like everything I do requires an asterisk next to it that is the abuse. Everything I do has to include it in some way. It has to be injected into every aspect or it's somehow a disservice to my younger self. If I don't always have that asterisk present, it gives people permission to say it wasn't real, I'm faking it, or my happiness/laughter is fake. I cried many a time in therapy about this idea of permission and not understanding where it needs to come from. Of course, when I talked to friends or family, they would say "well that's easy, I'll give you permission". But it never felt like it did anything. Or "it has to come from you." But that didn't work either.

I realized this week that it probably was inserted in my brain when I was a teenager. There was this man at my church who knew what was being done to me. For some reason, instead of helping me, he took it as some way to be superior. Gods, he looked at me like I was trash. When I would be with my friends, he would make subtle, weird hints to my abuse that no one else but he and I would understand. Or if I was laughing and enjoying myself, he would give me this look and it would stop me dead in my tracks. It was like "oh, look at you. You enjoying yourself? They don't even know what you've been doing. You're disgusting and they don't even know it. You're lying to them. I could tell them. Would they think the same of you? Do you want to find out?" It made me immediately shut down. It made me believe that I cannot exist without my abuse being my tag along. My ex kind of reinforce that. Every time I said something or reacted in any way other than how he wanted, he would tell me I was reacting from my trauma and I wasn't thinking reasonably because of my abuse. So it was like my abuse was still there even if I didn't think it was. I was so intertwined with my abuse that we were just one and the same. You can't know me without knowing my abuse because it's always there and speaks for me and warps my thinking.

This past week, I had a major shift. I had this thought that if I were to sit down with my younger self and just talk to her, I would be telling her that I don't let myself be happy or enjoy things because she wasn't happy. How incredibly unfair that seems to both of us. Instead, I would want to tell her that I am happy, that I am having experiences, that I'm living a life she would want to live, that I have things now that I wasn't allowed to have, that I'm laughing, that I have friends, that I am exploring, that I am living. I can give her what she didn't have and give her things to look forward to. Instead of not getting something because she didn't have it, I can get it and hold it up and say "look what we finally have!" I've been wanting to buy a Squishmallow for a long time but haven't been able to bring myself to actually do it because I felt so guilty. I'd go to the store, look at them, and then leave.

It finally became clear, I was waiting for her permission. To know that she'll be okay and she's ready for those experiences too. I've been working so much with her for a while and have made immense progress. She doesn't feel like I'm leaving her behind now. Before there was a feeling of "please don't forget me" that's been replaced with "I've been seen, I've been heard, I'm able to move forward now." And it really feels like losing my asterisk and the extreme weight of it. I don't have to remember the abuse at every moment now. I can smile and not have to remember. I can laugh and it be from the depths of my gut and be completely devoid of any trace of my abuse. I can have friends and not feel like I'm somehow lying to them if I don't tell them what happened. I can finally get things I've wanted without feeling guilty. I can talk to people on dating apps and not worry that they'll think I'm hiding my baggage. Those are astronomical changes.

I'm no longer Amori*.

As soon as I can afford it, I'm going to the store and buying a Squishmallow 🥹❤️