(Written in January 2007)<\/p>\n
Please help me.\u00a0 I recite it over and over but don\u2019t feel any answer.\u00a0 I have been able to imagine a safe place: it\u2019s a little room in a nunnery and a very kind old woman is sitting with me so I won\u2019t be alone.\u00a0 This is the level of despair of a child who\u2019s tried everything she can, everything she knows how to do, and still there is no warmth, no comfort, no support, so she has retreated into a cold dark place and she doesn\u2019t want to have anything to do with people because people have always meant pain.\u00a0 And there\u2019s no adult here to rescue her.\u00a0 My adult has collapsed completely.\u00a0 I can barely think.\u00a0 I freak out at the possibility of the simplest of tasks.<\/p>\n
I turn to Nancy Napier for help: \u201cIt\u2019s helpful to remember that a child in despair has tried every possible way to make things better.\u00a0 Finally she has given up and withdrawn into this dark, lonely place.\u00a0 It\u2019s just too painful to make contact with others.\u00a0 In this child\u2019s experience, any contact simply means a renewal of the pain of abandonment, the expectation that what is offered will be taken away.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 p144<\/p>\n Nancy Napier, Getting Through the Day: strategies for adults hurt as children<\/a>.\u00a0 She also has some helpful tapes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (Written in January 2007) Please help me.\u00a0 I recite it over and over but don\u2019t feel any answer.\u00a0 I have been able to imagine a safe place: it\u2019s a little room in a nunnery and a very kind old woman … Continue reading
\n\u201cIt\u2019s as though part of us can\u2019t bear to experience what it was like to be let down so horribly when we couldn\u2019t do things for ourselves, when we had to depend on others.\u00a0 To have needs that must be filled by others, and to have those needs ignored, humiliated, or abused, brings about almost intolerable feelings of vulnerability.\u00a0 It\u2019s even worse because, as children, we can\u2019t not<\/em> have needs.\u00a0 We can\u2019t turn them off completely.\u00a0 We are built to seek out cuddling, soothing, positive regard, not to mention food, shelter and comfort.
\n\u201cNo child should have to live in a hurtful environment.\u00a0 No child should have to experience neglect, beatings, humiliation, or any of the myriad ways we may be hurt in an uncaring situation.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Napier, pp138-9<\/p>\n