From my first childhood shock to my very worst last. I’ve been taking long journeys for years through my past. Every trauma I’ve had from way back to near. I’ve confronted my numbness frozen in fear. From my first birthday party when I became three. Till my mother’s last breath was witnessed by me.

What happens first when you have a great loss? There’s a shock felt within from whatever the cause. Then numbness comes in when you can’t fight or flee. When you’re helpless and shocked as a child, some will freeze. So to process numbed fear I literally shake. I sit in a chair and let my legs quake. What sometimes comes next is spontaneous yawning. Sometimes I feel cold, my teeth chatter in thawing. Until the whole process gradually fades. Til I no longer feel fearful, and, my coldness abates.

Then when I’m ready I connect my old traumas. Reliving each scene to grieve painful dramas. I say what I wish I had said when I froze. Soothing myself until feelings flow. Every time that I do this a layer releases. I feel lighter inside the more that I feel this. Because as my unconscious purges more grief, I have more forgiveness and conscious relief.

Forgetting and losing, made me feel really dumb. Defending and proving, made me feel really numb.

The shame that I felt being AuDHD, that I numbed and suppressed for years to not see, has come up again for more layers releasing. I dreamed my graduation would not be proceeding.

It’s the hardest to stay with, to feel unconscious shame. There’s no other feeling that hits you the same. It hurts like a gut punch to feel so exposed. You can’t answer back or defend against blows.

But after this dream, still feeling this shame, I woke up, stayed in it along with my blame. Then after I cried like a little lost child. I could remember, what my dream tried to hide.

I graduated early, 6 months in advance. I had the second best grades in my class. I then was a nurse, then, finally a mother. My ultimate goal ahead of all others.

To raise my own children in a whole different way. To love and protect them and help them feel safe. I spent 24 years devoted to this. And healing myself from all that I missed.

Still we’re all on the spectrum or ADHD. Finding strength being different supports getting free, from the shame I forgot, that left truth far behind, when releasing is done I’ll remember, and find.

Why keep dreaming the impossible dream? All I see playing out are chaotic extremes. Wars are exploding all over the world. Hysterical rage, through bombs being hurled.

Sometimes I want to abandon my quest. Stop believing in change when this world is a mess. But no matter how much I want to let go, my grief takes me down to depths of my soul

And I find in my heart that this dream will come true. I must stay on this quest to see my part through. Because no matter how greedy the world is today there will be a future where War does not pay.

Where intrinsic rights are treated as truth. Where Liberty and justice for all is the proof. So, for as long as I live I’ll have to keep dreaming, keep trying to reach for stars, guidance gleaming.

For even a quest by one person alone, striving through darkness they may not overcome, creates a marked path to this most righteous quest. This is how impossible dreams manifest.

When I was a child I felt unprotected. My parents were bonded while I felt rejected. I never felt part of a family of five. But when parents abuse you, you find ways to survive.

I tried to stay hidden as much as I could. Out of my house, behind doors, sneaking food. I didn’t have choices, I couldn’t be me. I dreamed of the day I’d grow up and be free.

Then I became older, about age 15. I wore a thick coat everyday faithfully. Felt I must cover up, no matter the weather. For unconscious reasons it made me feel better.

I was attractive and skinny, in fact. But I never felt this, I always felt fat. As I kept getting older, men started to notice. I got cat calls, long looks, with lascivious focus.

So again began hiding to keep myself safe. Retreated to limerence, in delusional ways. I played hard to get, became my false self. Played push me pull you, til I finally got left.

Until one man got me and I got him too. He asked me to marry, so we carried through. Then after our baby I gained a few pounds. After the next one more weight held me down.

So I went up and down with this burden I carried. My husband wanted the wife that he married. But she didn’t exist, so it had to be said, “If you don’t love me now you must find someone else.”

I grieved deeply to say this, thought I’d found self esteem. With new found self acceptance, my ultimate dream. But now writing a poem about being authentic, I realized what caused my weight gain to begin with.

From the beginning I had no protection. The beatings, berating, my family’s rejection. I had to find refuge to hide from all that. Behind doors, thick coats, or deep layers of fat.

So, now I must grieve what I didn’t receive. protection, connection, or caring relief. As my inner child tried to comfort my pain. She’d been trying for years to keep us both safe.

So, I had a big cry for my hurt inner child. That from our beginning was shamed and exiled. I looked in the mirror, said, “I love you so much.” She said, “Until you feel safe, I’ll still cover you up.”

Positive affirmations, and gratitude lists, deep meditations that seek to find bliss; these long practiced techniques are a spiritual bypass. and like drugs keeps you seeking relief once you’ve tried this. It widens the breach between shadow and light. Which must be integrated to balance insight.

The road that I’ve chosen to find inner peace is to go deep within, find my losses and grieve. All hurts, held unconscious, stem from a loss: of love, rights, and safety, these and more are the cause. The unconscious holds wounds that try to reveal, by repeating our hurts, so that we can be healed.

Any practiced techniques that we learn to do, might ease our pain but it won’t heal the wound. Techniques must be done for the rest of our lives. As the wound slowly festers and grows in denial. We have to heal wounds by grieving through truth. That we’re angry and hurt and feel shameful too.

Bring the unconscious conscious and express in some way. Punching bags release anger, crying out, hurt and shame, until we accept and forgive the betrayal, by friends, family, and lovers, relationship failures. That doesn’t mean you must leave or must stay. It means you can finally let go, a new way.

You’ll start being authentic and have boundaries to say, if you want to travel with me, there’s a way. By healing yourself just like I am doing. If you’re willing, we’ll start, together pursuing, integration of shadow and light, til we find this. On our road less traveled, with no spiritual bypasses.