What I would want my five and twelve year old selves to know and not know

Lately, I’ve been looking at some pictures of myself when I was younger. I am trying to re-parent the inner wounded child of Danielle who did not get the emotional support and feelings of safety and security that she needed. This led me to developing an anxious attachment style rather than a secure one within myself.

I grew up in a volatile home and I learned to be hypervigilant. Those of us who grow up in dysfunctional families, with a parent who is in active addiction and with lots of untreated mental illness and unacknowledged trauma, often experience this.

We may later in life come to understand ourselves as highly sensitive, empathic, with a tendencies to abandon self in order to care for others. This can lead to ending up in relationships with emotionally immature people, narcissists, other toxic relationships. Or, we also find ourselves in co-dependent relationships.

When I look this picture of me, at 5ish, playing soccer in a summer league, I wonder what her inner monologue was. I wonder what her perceptions of the experiences of home were like: why dad was always angry and tense and distant. Why mom was sometimes overly concerned and attached, trying to compensate, but also seemed to have her own cloud/distance that passed over her.

I am trying to remember who this little girl was.

I do know that she was imaginative and affectionate, creative and always very interested in people and their stories. I loved talking to strangers, especially older folks, and I was already curious about people—I tried to interview the school psychologist during Kindergarten round-up, when he was trying to trying to ask me questions.

I am trying to remember when she stopped thinking she could be a kid and had to learn to monitor surroundings for tension. I am trying to play back when she learned and absorb that she needed to look out for her mother. I am trying to remember when she had to abandon self in order to shine through, despite the dysfunctional family.

I am trying to remember when her mother told her that her dad was an alcoholic and it wasn’t her fault. I am trying to remember.

Then I look at this young Danielle, with her big glasses, age 12. About year 1995.

I wonder about this child. I wonder when was the precise moment that she realized that she became so angry at her father’s verbal abuse and manipulation and volatile behavior that she yelled back, sticking up to the bully, for her mother’s behalf.

I try to remember when her feelings of the injustice of the situation and feeling trapped started. I am trying to remember the first time she tried to convince her mother to leave him, that even if we were poor, at least we would have each other and peace.

I remember my mother told this child that she didn’t think she understood just how poor and how different our lives would be if we left. I remember thinking it didn’t matter, that I still wished that she would have left. I just wanted peace.

I remember thinking if I could only get away, life would be better. I liked being busy and away from home. I couldn’t wait to go to college. Out of Panama, NY.

I think about all of this, as Danielle now, age 40, and I think of all that would come to pass in later years within my family story. I think about all the trauma that was still to come.

I am glad that this little 12 year old Danielle doesn’t know of the two suicides, the one passive one, of all her family members. Of all the pain of the years to come. I think it would be too much.

I am glad that 5 year old Danielle doesn’t even though I know she couldn’t comprehend it. I think 12 year Danielle would have a better idea that that would be very hard, even traumatizing and life-changing.

I look at both of these children and I want to hug them. I want to keep them safe and protected. To stop them from absorbing trauma and lessons that are not your fault. To help her develop a more secure attachment style. To stop her from thinking that she needed to take care of everyone.

Little Danielle never felt entirely safe. Her nervous system never entirely relaxed. I am trying to give her those opportunities now. I am finally paying attention to her, and taking better care of her. And I’m doing that by acknowledging that these little Danielles were oh so very hurt and scared and didn’t feel safe.

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I am trying to re-parent myself by addressing the inner child wounds that I carry.

We all have them, in different ways.