It's Thursday again.

I've been avoiding this (writing, reflecting, sharing) so maybe I should keep it short.

Just one low-grade migraine triggered by hormone changes and stress. I have a number of huge life-changing decisions weighing on me, all inter-dependent, and it's impossible to make a decision. Instead of letting the stress escalate, I remembered the last time I felt like this. The only way out was to recognise that I couldn't make a decision and I didn't have to make a decision. Rather than become obsessed with an array of potential futures, I changed my focus to today.

Today I have physiotherapy instead of psychotherapy, and it's been very helpful in decreasing the chronic migraines. I've been mindfully relaxing rather than ignoring my body and pushing through the tension, and by the time I met with the physio for the first appointment I had already noticed a significant difference in the number of migraines per week. By the second appointment, even the physio was impressed with the difference. Will he feel the same this week?

I've experienced more stress than ever.

My parents are on holiday, but the day before they left I told them I booked a flight to visit at the end of this month. My friend Carrie wants to visit PopularCity near where they live, so I jumped at the chance to have a chaperone. She leaves after 5 days, I stay for the full week.

And yes, I've been avoiding how I feel about this as well.

Part of me is very excited. I do miss it. I do miss my parents. It's more complicated than just missing someone I've not seen for a year. I've missing a healthy child-parent attachment all my life. I see that hole, I've named that hole, and I know precisely how to patch it. It is the responsible, adult thing to do to go to my parents now, when I am feeling so lonely and scared and in need of their support and love. For the sake of this part of me, I have to trust that (1) I am able to communicate what I need, (2) they are able to provide it, and (3) I am able to accept it.

Part of me is terrified. It's the same part, loosely knitted yes, but the same part, which makes it more difficult to manage not less. Splitting my emotions into two (or more) parts made it easy to reject my parents as monsters incapable of seeing or loving me. But that also rejected the part of me that wanted to accept my parents' love, regardless of how sporadic or unfulfilling it was.

No matter how painful it is to contain such complex and often overwhelming feelings, rejecting part of my self is not a long-term solution.

I knew I was avoiding my child parts again, because I let the stress build until I was triggered and all I could do was back into my chair in an empty office and cry.

It felt good to simply cry and it wasn't simply taking a step back, because the pre-therapy me would have had a Bully Monster stomping all over my tears or a Control Freak shutting off the tap. There was no Bully Monster in sight. It was eerily quiet. Bizarrely peaceful.

I sat in my chair, not feeling sorry for myself, but just letting myself grieve. I knew it wasn't about my colleagues forgetting to include me in their transport plans. It was about my mum forgetting to pick me up after school for several hours.

It was about being bullied by my peers into missing a school performance and no teacher looking for me until several hours later.

It was about nobody following me, after running into the woods rather than endure being bullied at the children's table over thanksgiving dinner.

You might ask, why didn't I tell on them? Why didn't I once, why didn't I ever, ask for help?

My dad wasn't my protector. He was never home. He hit me, and when my peers got tired of bullying me, he didn't.

My mom wasn't my protector. She was scared of her own feelings, scared of my dad, and incapable of taking responsibility of being a parent.

I missed the school performance. I missed thanksgiving dinner. I was punished severely both times.

So when my colleagues forget to include me, even just a simple unthinking oversight, the hurt runs through a deep ravine, and I find it hard to see a world that won't punish me for feeling like that.

For a long time, I punished myself.

As the Bully Monster is no longer around, perhaps it is time to start processing some of the trauma. I like to think that I've introjected enough of my therapist to be able to do this on my own. In reality, even in psychotherapy I processed most of my emotions between appointments and reported back on my results. It is extremely difficult for me not to remain controlled/dissociated to some degree in front of other people. Rather than fight that, I searched for other ways I felt safe in expressing my emotions.

One of those ways is here. So let's begin.