I just wanted to introduce myself and tell a nutshell version of my story. My handle is Klarity Belle and I live on a small island in the UK. I used to use the handle 'Nelly', an old nickname of mine from adolescence, but at the end of last year once I knew I was finally on the path to 'real' recovery, I put a lot of thought into my new handle. I chose it because one day in the future that's exactly who I want to become - a clear bell who can offer hope and wisdom to others through the experience of my own recovery. I only use this handle on 3 forums including this one, the other 2 forums have been instrumental in helping me on my way and in supporting me through the first tentative baby steps. I am extrememly grateful to the people like yourself Peter who have created and continue to run these forums. You give of your time and life experience to run these valuable sanctuaries. Now I am fortunate enough to have three sanctuaries to visit when I am feeling lost. How many lives you must have helped and even saved is a wonderful thought and inspiration. I am so grateful to have found this forum and would like to thank you Peter for creating both this and your self help website.
I am very much a GWC and have spent my life until fairly recently as a people pleasing co-dependent. Thankfully over recent years due to hard inner work this was no longer prevalent in friendships or with my children and only reared its head in romantic relationships. My wounds were brought about by the sudden death of my much loved father when I was 7 (he came from a high nurturing family but had faced much illness and life trauma). I was then reared by my mother (a GWC) who was an emotionally cold, distant, angry and very driven businesswoman with a razor sharp tongue and zero patience. Thankfully I had a very loving paternal grandmother who I spent all my school holidays with. She did her very best to fill the void in my life and guide and nurture me as best she could - if it wasn't for this wonderful woman I don't think I would be here today, sadly she died when I was 16. I felt huge guilt at not having been by her side through her illness and death.
My only sibling and fellow GWC, my older maternal half-brother grew into a delinquent and an aggressive alcoholic gambler who was reared in Scotland by his co-dependent grandparents (alcoholic grandfather) until he was 16 but came to live with us shortly after my father's death. My parents had moved to our Island when I was 2 (my bro was 10 and 'chose' to stay in Scotland at that time) to build a better life for themselves. My brother was jealous and angry with me for having what he percieved as 'nurture' from 'his'mother that he hadn't had. Our mother died from cancer when I was 22. I nursed her through her illness and her true self started showin through, finally i got a glimpse of the woman I had always looked for growing up, she apologised to me and shortly afterwards she died - I was numb with grief and abandonment issues and could not handle my brother's anger and fallout of his alcoholism & gambling, after mum's death I became his 'victim' to punish for his own pain. In deep pain and confusion I jumped into a very extreme spiritual lifestyle where I was emotionally abused and bullied by my authoritarian & puritanical superior.
Since my brother's sobriety (now 15 years dry) we have slowly built a 'healthier' relationship but many issues are still there on both parts. Due to my mother's drive to succeed in business, materially I am very fortunate and am often viewed as such. I am currently 'stuck' running an emotionally unfullfilling business with my brother who is very much a 'sleeping' partner, his wife carries his 'share' by doing the bookwork. His selfishness and lack of involvement drives me crazy. My dream is to one day to break away from the 'family' business and run a health and wellbeing centre. For now I need to focus on and 'work' my way through my own recovery, in time I know the business situation will change too. I am frequently told by peers how fortunate I am and to be grateful for what I have. Over the years, this has only fostered my guilt and shame for having my own aspirations and from actually feeling the emotional deprivation that I have held inside for so long. I have denied myself these feelings and the right to pursue my own dreams and achievements my whole life.
Age 28 I left the spiritual organisaion with many feelings of guilt and failure, I have since then been stumbling around and struggling in the self help arena for over 20 years. I have also had a string of unsuccessful relationships with emotionally unavailable men, fellow wounded! Thankfully I have two beautiful daughters and my determination to get better is as much for their sakes as it is my own - in spite of my own wounds, nurturing them as well as I can and improving on it is what keeps me going. Thanfully their father is now very present in their lives and in the same way as me, does his best to nurture and parent the girls as well as he can. He pulls me up on my 'softness' and I pull him up on his 'authoritarian' ways, we make mistakes but we strive for balance in our opposite parenting styles and strive for relative consistency across the two homes. I am proud of us both for 'choosing' to be parents who strive to break the chains of the past so as not to continue the cross generational damage of our family histories.
I hit a pseudo rock bottom a few years back and it seems the 'healthier' of my subtypes blended together so successfully to help 'heal' me that I actually believed I was better! I was so falsely confident at the time that I went on a ski holiday on my own where I met a lovely man and fellow GWC who I falsely believed was aware and healed too! The result, I hit my true rock bottom about 6 months ago when I had to end the relationship with my 'soul mate' and face up to my illusions about us both and recover from my painful fall through the glass ceiling of my falsely perceived rock bottom of a few years before. My achievement in this relationship was that I finally met a truly beautiful human being who shared many of the values and aspirations I do, sadly due to his own painful childhood he became the most emotionally unavailable man in all my relationship history. I have no contact with him now, as I know this is the only way either of us has a chance of recovery independently. I try not to fantasize about a future with him when we are both 'well' but I often find myself doing it anyway.
After coming to terms with my strong co-dependent traits I recently got myself into 'real' therapy with a Jungian Analyst, I have also been practicing mindfulness which is a breath of fresh air compared to the austere spiritual path I walked previously. Since reading part of Peter's website I have realised that the resistance and fear I have been feeling in therapy is because my dominant subselves have been up in arms about it, they are frightened of ceasing to exist now that 'I' have started to recover. The wounded me has been absolutely terrified of going back into the painful emotional soup of my past and the fear of being overwhelmed by it, the fear of not being able to resurface again has been huge. I've been looking for a lifeline to go in there with so that I can get back out again. I have been standing on the edge of my own abyss with nothing to hang on to.
In our last session, my therapist wisely said that I have already survived my life to this point in the only ways I knew how and now I need to process these painful emotions I have repressed all my life. As you can probably tell, I am adept at intellectualising and analysing and I can articulate my stuff well in writing - now I have to actually connect with it and 'feel' it - terrifying! My therapist's comment wasn't enough to give me the courage I needed to go in there, there has been huge resistance from the inner 'team' to the point that I wanted to chuck in the towel and revert to using the 'pseudo-healthy team' again and make a pact with myself just to steer clear of romantic relationships for the rest of my life! On top of this I have also been projecting a lot of my 'mother issues'/spiritual superior' issues onto my therapist and just haven't been feeling 'safe' with her because of this transference.
By stumbling across your site Peter, I have found the lifeline I need to keep going. I am hoping that with this new knowledge about myself and patience I can get passed these current blocks I have been experiencing and also the transference issues i've been having in therapy (good therapists are rare on my small island). Now, I understand my inner family better, I have managed to pacify them somewhat and I also know what team members to focus on now I've got some idea of the current 'self-help committee' who have been pulling all the strings. Thanks to your website, I now understand that 'I' have to work patiently with these 'guardians' and win their trust before I go diving into 'my abyss'. I already knew that I needed to start integrating lost parts of myself, I just didn't know how to and didn't trust that my therapist knew how to help me do it either. I finally found the faith I need to start grieving for my ever so wounded childhood self and words fail at expressing my gratitude for that.
I'm hoping that by sharing what I have found with my therapist that she will be able to help me process my grief and abandonment issues in a way that helps me to still feel 'safe'. I have never met another GWC who was parentally bereaved in childhood and so I have never had anyone to empathise with regarding this. I would really like to share experiences with any members here who have had the experience of parental bereavement - at any age!
Delighted to be here and I'm looking forward to hearing what brought other members to this forum and sharing the journey with you all.
Klarity Belle
