Girl In A Box

It was intentional, placing parts of myself in a box. An act of love, one I thought necessary to shield my future family. I was pregnant with my first child, going through the nesting phase, packing away the things I wouldn’t be needing anymore. And a part of that packing away was pieces of myself.

The adolescent version of me who had been hurt so badly by the world she became a dark and savage thing.

Stacks of papers, over a decade of art I had created to try and express my pain, make it tangible, decipher the reasons. Drawings, poetry, stories I had written. I tore them to pieces by hand, an act of undoing. As if I could somehow erase the wounds on my heart.

I kept the journals, some of the poetry, a few of the less morbid drawings. And tucked them away neatly into a fireproof safe, packed so tight I had to force the lid down as I turned the key. Then hid it in the back of my closet. Out of sight. Out of mind.

My children would not know my pain. They would not have to carry the weight. It wasn’t their burden to bear.

But that was only part of the reason. The deeper part, one I couldn’t quite explain or fully understand, was the shame. The feeling that I somehow deserved it. Somehow…that version of me was okay to be hurt. And if I let others know, if I chanced telling the truth about what I’d endured, I could lose everything. My partner, my home. And the absolute worse, my children.

That’s the stigma talking. That’s the idea that those who struggle in this world to meet the criteria of what society deems to be a qualified human don’t deserve humanity. Don’t deserve rights. Don’t deserve to be seen, heard, cared for.

And it was a pill I swallowed hard.

I was never broken. Even though that’s the message I received on repeat from far too many people to count. I was not born wrong. I was not hard to love. I was not a burden. I was not damaged goods. I was not all the things drilled into me from every corner of society for far too long.

And above all? I was NOT by any means an unfit mother.

But that was my fear. My biggest, scariest, most gut-wrenching thought. That I might somehow damage my own children. That I might somehow pass on my defectiveness to them. That someone somewhere would see, would find out my past, would say I was not capable of raising a child, and take my boys away.

So I hid it down so very deep, in the back of the closest and into the fireproof safe in my mind. Under yoga and reiki. Mantras and breathwork. Shamanism and ceremonies. Therapies and medication. You name it, I tried it. And little by little, those parts of myself deemed unlovable by the world, and yes, unlovable by my own standards, disappeared.

But the full picture of who I am as a person disappeared along with them. Something I didn’t realize. Something I tried to deny. Until she resurfaced around the same time every year. Tiny triggering memoires. Nightmares. Crying out in my sleep. Then entire days spent crying, cringing, flinching in fear.

Like a monster she’d burst from my chest, my own hands scrabbling at my heart, trying to get the anguishing, twisting pain to cease. Unable to breathe. So utterly consumed by the flashes of memories assaulting my mind, one after another, playing on repeat, until I was left so completely raw I couldn’t move from the cocoon of my bed, wrapped in darkness of the room and the shadows of my own subconscious.

It doesn’t matter how many times it happens. How many years go by. This time of year, I am that girl again. The one who is unlovable, unwanted, unworthy. Not just by the world in general, but also by me. Which perhaps, is the saddest part of all.

She resurfaces. Regardless of the box I locked her in.  Because the truth is, as long as I deny her existence, as long as I turn away from her pain, she will reside there, in my heart, waiting to be seen.

I know now, at least on some level, I am not the cause of her pain. I am not to blame for what she endured. But nevertheless, the job of healing her is mine.

I am opening the box. Unlocking her from the prison cell in my mind. I do not have to fear for her anymore.

She has been calling out, she has so much to say, and it’s time now to let her voice be heard.