No Space For Me

May 19

What I know, as a survivor of pretty extreme childhood trauma is this...we grow up in situations as I did, without the love, guidance, and support of a loving and stable mother, and we feel empty, hollow, like a shell of a human, with that stone child, as Clarissa Pinkola Estes speaks about...the child that was not warmed, not kept alive by the love of the mother as she should have been...and at some point, we have to decide to love that child with all we have and tend to her in the way she should have been loved and tended to from the very beginning. This is some of the hardest work imaginable, but also the most important work we will ever do.

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No space for me…

There never was any space for me,

For my needs,

For my desires,

My truth.

It was all about you,

What you needed

What you felt,

What you wanted.

And It Still Is.

It’s all about what I can do for you,

How I can help,

How I can make things better for you,

An endlessly repeating pattern

That leaves nothing for me.

There is nothing left for me,

Nothing.

There is no space for me.

There IS no me.

I cannot exist in the world

Where my whole life revolves

around you and your needs.

It’s that ancient, old-core fear

Of nobody coming when I cry,

Of nobody caring,

Of not having my basic needs met,

And of having to be the adult

When I was just a child

So that I could feel just a little safe…

If even for a moment.

I do not need to live this way anymore.

I am an adult.

I get to put myself first now…

I deserve to live,

To take up space,

To have my needs met,

And to stop trying to save others

Who do not care

Or even want to be saved…