Around my dad as a kid I was terrified. I was saying yes to all that s how I stayed safe. I would let him lead our space, my space. Space to space to talk, space to process hard things with an adult support. and finally I would also let him be in charge of who he is how defective that was and who I had to be around him and when his back was turned too. I didn’t have to do any thinking he thought for me and for each us individually. My moves, my actions my words accommodated his needs and neglected mine. I could only agree with him and I had to disagree with what my internal compass told me. What was safe, around my dad, became unsafe altogether. Accepting gifts, compliments, kindness, from others or myself even, was not safe and unacceptable. Getting close to me and others was a threat. Talking my mind was forbidden. There was no me around my dad there was an isolated disconnected little girl who had to puppet my dad’s mindset so he didn’t feel threatened. His sense of self was ever so broken and hurt that anyone with a sense of self was a threat to him, and before I was able to develop my own sense of self he crushed that opportunity for me.

Thinking for myself with clarity and understanding then being able to deliver or express my clarity to others even today doesn’t feel safe.

These last days I am noticing a struggle I had no clarity and was blind to most my adult life. I will either have to go along and agree with what ever the other person thinks and push my own thoughts aside or fight my thoughts through with an intensity that will cancel out the integrity of my reasoning and push away the person in front of me. When someone takes the lead in thinking or in having a conversation or an interaction and has a strong or a even a closed view and opinion on a topic we are exploring and how we move through the conversation, a massive wave of energy comes crushing at me like a sense of panic rushing through so fast that I get really lost inside. With some distance to some of these situations I can now clearly see that I regress back into the way I was as a little girl who s freedom to truly think and advocate for herself was taken away As a result I go back into a trauma response. I feel too much of an intensity inside me that the fight flight freeze reaction takes the better of me and I disconnect with myself and the other person I have in front of me. Then what happens next is that what comes out of my mouth sounds a lot more like I have just been attacked and I have to stand up for myself not to appear as the weak one or the one who doesn’t know what it is talking about. Instead of a clear effective and connecting conversation I every time