I’ve been working on getting ready emotionally to go back to the USA for my upcoming trip. I’m really trying to clean up some old hurts and straighten out some dysfunctional patterns so I will be as resourced as I can be for the trip.

Today I went really deep on a particular chronic pattern of mine related to taking responsibility for other people’s behavior. I believed people when they said things like, “Look at what you made me do!” Now I realize that they were responsible for their behavior and I had nothing to do with it. I was just the scapegoat.

I also worked on acknowledging that some things had happened that took away my agency over my body and the only way for me to survive it was to leave my body till these events were over. I did 5 years of EMDR treatment back in the early 2000s to reintegrate and learn to tolerate staying in my body when hard things were happening. I can do it consistently now.

I noticed a good pattern of asking for help and emotional support, though most of the time it wasn’t available. I tried to get support many times in my younger years until I gave up when I was a teen. Then, when I was a young adult, I resumed seeking support. Those were all times I didn’t give up on myself. I did take care of myself as best I could. I’m glad to notice that I had that pattern of trying to get support.

I tapped into a deep well of feelings that I didn’t have access to before and cried for a long time. I did multiple sessions today. The longest one was 20 straight minutes of crying. That’s a lot harder than one might think. I had to take a nap after that session. I feel better for having gotten all those tears out.

Here’s a painting of me with a deep well of feelings around my heart.