Posted by Dinah on November 18, 2004, at 17:37:37
In reply to Re: Maybe it's the dolls » Dinah, posted by mair on November 16, 2004, at 21:07:31
Mair, that is very much an issue of mine as well. I see other people emoting and it seems somewhat foreign to me. Then I start feeling like I'm defective. I may be getting better at it, but it's still a big issue for me.
I wish I could say I was reliving warm loving feelings, but it seems to be those small childhood incidents that seem like crises at the time (and in fact are to a child) - ones that have a similar flavor to things that are happening to me now.
Like I am feeling really bad about not being able to do personal care for my father, and I had a whole bunch of memories about traumatic parental bathroom experiences.
Or I was upset at not feeling more distraught over the implications of hospice, and I had the memory of being a small child and how Daddy was "over there" and I was "over here". A geographical truth (Daddy stuck to the bar and kitchen a lot) but also a representation of the truth that I barely knew him and felt alienated from him. It was me and my mother against my father. That changed when I got to be ten or eleven.
There was another one too, but it eludes me at the moment.
I wish I could access the good memories. I know there were ones. I loved being my daddy's little girl at parties. Daddy was always in a good mood at parties, and he'd talk to other people and they would laugh and I'd laugh along. He'd teach me how to dance. Or vacations. We always groaned because Mother would drag us everywhere to these obscure places. Or the time he was teasing me as I was trying to build my Barbie Townhouse (anyone have one of those? they were precariously balanced with few supports and as you were putting them together the slightest breeze would send them toppling). He was pretending to push it over and I turned around before I knew it and punched him in the stomach. I was not a violent little girl - it surprised us both. And it surprised me more because I apparently made a direct hit. He was doubled over, I ran as fast as my little legs would carry me and sat shivering afraid he'd kill me for sure. But when he recovered he just laughed and teased me for a few years about my right hook. :) Or how he'd wake me up by singing "Oh how I hate to get up in the morning" at the top of his lungs.
But I just remember those things. I'd like to re-experience those too.
poster:Dinah
thread:416859
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20041113/msgs/417596.html