A lot of you have deeply resonated with what I shared in my last post, How Neglect Wires Us For Obsession, and I am so grateful. Thank you. Obsession related to childhood neglect always seem to hit so many of you and I am unfortunately not surprised.
I’ve been asking my selves what is it that I can do about neglect to actively heal.
I have shared here before that healing is about accountability, agency and sovereignty. So the practice of calling my selves in/out is something I keep going back to.
I want to start this piece by reiterating that there is no redemption from the past. We can’t go back and ask our caregivers—much less the world—to care more. Only we can (sigh).
I’ve come to realize that I’ve built a solid fortress around my core wound—the belief that I will never be loved (double sigh).
Brick by brick, I constructed this fortress with my own hands, convinced it would shield the wound from further harm. And for a time, I believed it worked. But recently, I’ve had to call myselves in (and honestly out): what once served as protection has also become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The walls meant to keep pain out have also kept love, tenderness, and connection at a distance.
Though I speak of people (people are terrifying), this fortress has also kept out the very experiences and states of being that could have softened the wound, like vulnerability.
Left unattended, wounds use the coping mechanisms we’ve created to protect them to keep themselves alive. What was once the wounded has become the warden.
