photo by Patrick Q

We will find the key to our liberation only when we accept that what we once did to survive is now destroying us. ~ Laura van Dernoot Lipsky

I survived the chaotic events of my childhood by minimizing them. My instincts used minimization as a coping strategy to protect me from further emotionally pain and confusion (something my parents should have been doing instead.)

As time went by and the insanity of my home life increased, I learned how to ignore my emotions and eventually, how to fall into a state of complete shutdown. Because of this, I now have difficulty connecting to my feelings and naturally, this causes problems in my interpersonal relationships at home and work, with family and friends and well, everywhere with everyone. Why? Because my emotional development is still that of a ten-year-old – the age at which I began to detach from my emotions.

So, here I am in my late thirties, resuming my emotional development from where I left off at age ten. Although, I have the guidance of my DBT therapist, the pains of emotional development are greater than if they would have occurred in a “normal” fashion because…

The world assumes I am capable of doing what people my age – who have by now emotionally matured, mind you – are doing; things like work full time, raise children, volunteer, socialize, keep up on household responsibilities and the kids’ school and after-school activities, be neighborly, drive in rush hour traffic, deal with horrible bosses and crabby clients, cook, clean, shop, give baths, do laundry, invest the time needed with my husband to have a successful marriage, etc. – all while staying relatively sane.

So, let me ask you this:

Would anyone in their right mind expect a ten-year-old to do all of these things? Of course not! What about four or five of those things? No? What about two or three? Maybe? What about just one or two on a consistent basis?

Currently, one or two things are all I am capable of doing consistently. Therefore, expecting me to do them all, like I was trying to do up until my mental breakdown three years ago, would be ignorant (as in, not knowing that I was still a ten-year-old child on the inside.)

Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace. ~ Dalia Lama

For two years following the start of my disability, I continued to expect too much from myself which only perpetuated my suffering and despair. Now that I know how emotionally immature I am, it would be cruel to go on as I have been.

Knowing the true state of my emotional development enables me to have compassion for myself and when compassion is present there is little room for self-hate. Furthermore, as the self-hate dissipates so does the depression and the impulses to self-harm.

My therapist refers to this phenomenon as “radical acceptance” which is a DBT term. Radical acceptance doesn’t mean, “Well, this is the way I am and there is nothing I can do about it.” (I like to call this my “deal-with-it, I’m hopeless” attitude.)

No, radical acceptance says, “These are the facts…. This is who I am right now and it is possible that these are the reasons I am the way I am….” Radical acceptance is the realization that due to the events of my childhood, I could not have developed in any other way. Therefore, I need not be so hard on myself.

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive. ~ Dalai Lama

Tomorrow I will tell you about what happened to me after I started to radically accept myself.

Do you have difficulty accepting yourself, others and the situations in your life? How do you cope with these things?