One of my greatest regrets could be not proactively seeking help to heal my emotional wounds. However, I didn’t know I could change, and before falling into healing, I wasn’t ready to look at my behaviours and patterns and give time and focus to the self-work. I certainly didn’t believe that I could heal my deep-seated self-hate and rock bottom self-worth, or that I would ever gain the self-mastery I have today. 

The motivation behind writing my memoir, The Damage of Words, is to demystify the healing process so more people take a proactive first step into healing the emotional wounds that hold them back. Chapters are dedicated to the healers who took me from a victim of emotional and physical narcissistic child abuse, to a happy, healed and healthy conqueror over my past. I transformed from being hyper-defensive, hypervigilant, lonely and unhappy, to heart-centred, calm, self-loving and compassionate, and happy.  

Grit and resilience

When I went to see Michelle Zelli to discuss my career crossroads, I didn’t know I was meeting someone trained in classical coaching, practical psychology and alternative therapies, who would help me peel the layers off my childhood trauma and heal. Certainly, neither of us knew the amount of grit and resilience required to blast through the defences I’d been layering on from the age of 3, either.

When I reflect, it is obvious to me why I didn’t initially choose coaching or therapy. Due to my child abuse, I had an overdeveloped ego; there to help me survive childhood, it became a cage, talking me out of anything it deemed unsafe or unfamiliar. Even when I later chose to attend sessions and wanted to feel better, it would try and talk me out of attending. I needed to trust the process and be willing to be guided, cajoled and even prodded when I resisted. 

There were times when I projected palpable self-hatred towards Michelle, that it’s surprising she didn’t crumble. But then, she intimately knows ego’s games and success came because Michelle has not only overcome her own traumatic childhood, but because she is ever curious and continues to work on herself. This meant she could use grit and resilience whilst compassionately nudging me to the next breakthrough; she understood that balance perfectly. We created a partnership 

Mirror to my behaviour

Without Michelle’s guidance, I would not have had access to the knowledge that meant I discovered and understood so many things about myself. She provided a safe pair of judgment-free hands and held a mirror up to my behaviour. 

Michelle spotted that I was a highly sensitive person (HSP) immediately. She pointed me to the work of Dr Elaine Aron, and I discovered I am one of the 20-30% of people with the genetic trait of high sensitivity; I am sensitive to sound, touch, light and smells in particular. Born to notice and process more than non-HSPs, and due to the multiple, ongoing and repeated traumas in my childhood, I discovered that I was suffering complex PTSD (often misdiagnosed as ADHD). Before healing it, I had difficulty regulating my emotions, an extremely negative self-view, difficulty with personal and professional relationships, suffered memory loss and had low self-esteem. 

Michelle showed me how my trauma wound, created from my mother’s narcissism and my father’s denial, led to co-dependency and love addiction. As I share in The Damage of Words, though it was uncomfortable discovering the behavioural patterns I was running, it meant I could change them! Healing my core wound, connecting to my inner child, and learning how to establish healthy boundaries ended my other self-sabotaging addictions of people-pleasing and perfectionism, too. 

Working with a professional lets you see yourself from a new perspective, which is why it's essential to create trust. If you don’t trust the person holding the mirror up to your patterns and behaviours, or worse feel that they’re projecting, it’s ok to try someone new. 

Inner child work is key

As a child of a covert narcissist, who was prone to explosions of temper and ridicule, and gaslit my reality and emotions, I did not feel safe or loved by my mother and was not protected by my father. Michelle introduced me to the concept of reparenting and my inner child, inner teen and functional adult. Today, I ensure that my inner child has what I didn’t have as a child: to feel secure, treasured, and supported. 

Understanding that if my inner child felt scared or unsupported by my functional adult, that my deeply unpleasant inner teenager would take control, was life-changing. Potty-mouthed, vicious and defensive, absent of emotional intelligence, my inner-teen created wakes of damage; behaviour that deepened my feelings of isolation and low self-worth. However, it stopped when I learned how to address my inner child’s needs. Though healed, my core wound has a scar, so I can still trigger, but the more I check in with my inner child before reacting, the calmer and happier my life is. Triggering is now extremely rare, and my inner teenager is happy, too.

In sessions, I was guided to have imaginary conversations with my “mother” and sometimes my “father”. Massive relief was created by allowing my inner child, inner teenager or functional adult to express all the words and emotions that I had ever wanted to say and knew I couldn’t. In the safety of the session and with a trusted guide, I eventually ran out of things to say and freed myself of needing their love or acceptance. It was liberating!

If you have endured child abuse, emotional neglect or a turbulent childhood, I cannot recommend enough finding a childhood trauma-informed professional to help you connect to and love your inner child. In my experience, it is the swiftest path to self-love and happiness. 

Takeaway     

In my experience, by working with a childhood trauma-informed healing professional with oodles of grit and resilience, I was able to get beyond my ego’s defences, connect to my inner-child and heal complex PTSD, once considered incurable. I lost my hypervigilance and gained self-love, care and compassion. For adults who have suffered physical, emotional or psychological neglect in childhood or other forms of repetitive abuse, like bullying at school, working with a trusted professional to connect to your inner-child work could be the key to reclaiming their lives and feeling whole and happy.