Dear Readers,
It’s been so lovely to receive your responses to my last blog about the anti-climax I experienced in the weeks that followed my book launch.
The topic resonated deeply with some of you. Because I have been feeling ongoing turmoil from what I can only describe as the void that can’t be filled, I knew it needed further attention. But I was putting it off. Escaping instead into the world of fiction.
I was enjoying the early pages of a brilliant novel called Mad Mabel until I came across a passage that made my blood run cold.
A little girl is blamed by her father for something terrible. His belief that she is capable of such a thing shapes how he sees her. And, even more scarily, how she comes to see herself.
Suddenly, I was overcome by a wave of panic.
Bloody hell. Where did that come from?
And then, slowly, a memory from my own childhood came creeping back. One I hadn’t thought about for years.
Something I’ve come to understand is that painful memories don’t always announce themselves as thoughts. Sometimes the body reacts before the mind has a chance to work out what’s happening. Our nervous system can recognise something is a threat and sound the alarm, even when we’re perfectly safe in the present.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been told to stop thinking about negative things and to just be positive.
If only it were that simple!
We can certainly think ourselves into a state of anxiety. But there are times when the physical alarm comes first, and our thoughts have to scramble to make sense of it. The racing heart, the tightening chest, the overwhelming sense of dread aren’t necessarily the result of choosing to think negatively. They’re part of the body’s stress response.
Understanding this has helped me develop more compassion for myself. Instead of berating myself for feeling upset, I can recognise that my nervous system may be responding to something it learnt long ago.
The body, as the psychiatrist and trauma researcher Dr Bessel van der Kolk tells us, keeps the score.
I won’t share the details of the memory that surfaced. They belong to other people as well as me. But the experience left me thinking about something I’ve spent much of my adult life trying to understand.
The void we carry when our emotional needs haven’t been met as children.
Children need to feel safe, loved, accepted and understood. When those needs aren’t consistently met, we can grow up believing there is something wrong with us. That we’re difficult. Unlovable. Not good enough.
And sometimes we carry those beliefs for decades without questioning where they came from.
I certainly did. And those beliefs drove me to crave recognition and validation.
For years I tried to fill that void with alcohol and drugs. Or more accurately, I tried to avoid it.
It’s crazy how much energy we can expend trying not to feel something.
When I stopped drinking seven and half years ago, I discovered that sobriety wasn’t simply about removing alcohol from my life. It was about learning to live with the feelings I’d spent years trying to numb.
And let me tell you, that isn’t always comfortable either.
This week’s experience reminded me that, even after years of self-reflection and therapy, old wounds can still catch us unawares.
But I’ve also learned that being triggered doesn’t mean we’ve gone backwards. Sometimes it means there’s something within us that still needs our attention.
So, what can we do when an old memory comes knocking?
First, settle the body before interrogating the mind. Feel your feet on the ground. Look around and remind yourself where you are. Breathe gently, allowing exhalation to slow. Go for a walk if that helps. (Moving the body works wonders for me.) Give your nervous system a chance to recognise that you’re safe in the present.
Second, get curious rather than critical. Once the intensity has passed, ask yourself why the memory might have affected you so deeply. What did you come to believe about yourself because of that experience? And is that belief actually true?
Third, remember you were a child. Children don’t have the emotional maturity or understanding of adults. We can take responsibility for our behaviour without condemning the child we once were.
Fourth, talk about it. With a trusted friend, a partner, a therapist, or someone who can listen without judgement. Writing can help too. Sometimes translating our feelings into thoughts, then getting them out of our heads and onto paper allows us to see them in a different light.
And finally, resist the urge to numb. Not because the feelings aren’t painful, but because avoiding them doesn’t necessarily make them disappear. We can learn to sit with difficult emotions, in a manageable dose, and discover that they don’t have to overwhelm us.
This week, I found myself writing a deeply personal letter that I never expected to write. Whether I send it is something I’m still considering. But the process has helped me understand a little more about the person I was, the person I’ve become, and the person I still aspire to be.
I cannot change my childhood. Nor can I change the people who shaped it. But I can challenge the beliefs I inherited. I can treat myself with the compassion I needed back then. And I can choose how I respond to the memories that occasionally come knocking.
Maybe that’s one of the greatest gifts of sobriety.
Not that the void magically disappears, but that we no longer have to spend our lives running from it.
We may not have been given every opportunity to become who we were meant to be as children. But we can give ourselves that opportunity now.
And what a wonderful thing that is.
Thanks for being here.
Love,
Gill 💚
P.S. Many of the themes I’ve explored here – childhood experiences, self-worth, sobriety and the possibility of change – are also woven into my debut novel, In a Different Light. If this blog resonates with you, perhaps you’ll enjoy meeting Aoife and discovering her story. You can find out more about the book here.
