Further Explorations in Demonalia
It's an interesting time in the world and in my life. There are so many feelings afoot and they are a mix of happy and excited and sad and angry and of course my old companion anxiety. I sometimes think there are several of me cohabiting this one body. The "good" me is wise and calm and sensible. She believes in living in the present. She knows that worry is just wasted energy. She gives sage counsel to others and is a calming presence. She's also funny and generous and philosophical about almost everything. I quite like her. She finds the antics of her companions puzzling and a tad frustrating at times.
Who are some of the other me's? Well.... I think a huge component of my personality is a five year-old who feels totally needy and helpless and unprotected. I don't think it's a coincidence that I was raped at that age. Part of me is stuck there waiting to be rescued. To this me - let's call her Little Kathie - everything seems oversized. She experiences the world from the perspective of someone three feet tall. There is no way that she can see over the steering wheel of a car to drive. There is no way that she can be expected to fend for herself or be self-sufficient. Like most five year olds, she wants her independence but not too much of it. She doesn't understand why she has no parents and why nobody loves her. She is, on some level, looking to everyone she encounters for parenting and protection. She is also self-aware enough to know that she isn't really three feet tall and that nobody wants to adopt her. Still, she often wonders what's wrong with her and why doesn't anybody love her. Of course there is one "person" who has always paid a lot of attention to Little Kathie. We can call her the Dragon Lady.
The Dragon Lady is the queen of my committee of inner critics. She originated early in my childhood. Most inner critics think they are protecting us - and perhaps on some level they were. But as we grow their "protection" often becomes what we most need to be protected against. Some critics, like the Dragon Lady are actually killers. For much of my life the Dragon Lady ran amok inside my spirit. As I radiated peace and love out into the world, the Dragon Lady sat inside me directing self-hatred into every cell of my being. Her view of me was that I was worthless and ought to be dead. She whispered constantly in my head: "You are bad. You are stupid. You are worthless. You are in the way." She reminded me a lot of my mother, but she never rested and she had no mitigating qualities. She was pure hate.
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