“Trauma isn’t just the bad stuff that happened. It’s also the good stuff that never happened.” Dr Heidi Green

Just like we all have physical needs, we all have basic emotional needs.

We need to be loved.

We need to be understood.

We need to be heard.

We need to be paid attention to.

We need to feel safe. Safe to feel and show our feelings. Safe to be ourselves.

We need to feel protected, that someone has our back.

We need to be respected.

We need to be valued.

Every child needs to hear:

I love you

I’m proud of you

I’m sorry.

I forgive you.

I’m listening

You’ve got what it takes.

We need to be touched. My physiotherapist tells me that loving touch is an even more powerful pain reliever than medication.

Many of us missed out on some of these. Some of us missed out on most. When I was on the ground screaming the other day and that other patient helped me, I finally felt like I was getting what I had been missing all my life. I cannot explain how shattered I feel to have it slip away, to know I will never see this person again. I am left with this familiar feeling of starvation. It is an emotional kind of starvation, that leads me to want to physically starve myself. As Florence + The Machine sings in “Hunger”, “At seventeen I started to starve myself. I thought that love was a kind of emptiness. And at least I understood then the hunger I felt. And I didn’t have to call it loneliness.”

Every time the nurses take my blood pressure and it is too low, I’m secretly happy because finally there is some physical sign that I am not ok. Finally someone is showing concern about me. Finally they can see something is wrong. Finally I am getting some attention. I have a mother who’s approach to life is to get on with it when we are emotionally unwell. It’s only when I’m unwell physically that I get some slack. I am allowed to spend a bit longer in bed, and I was given treats like lemonade icy poles. My mum is no good with emotional stuff. She thinks the answer is so simple. Fix my sleep, and I’ll be right. I rarely get any empathy, just unwanted advice, judgement or no response at all. I will never forget the time I was lying on the floor as I was so crushed by life. My mum came in, set up her oboe and started playing as if I wasn’t even there.

I have been in a terrible situation for a long time and I never received any help. I think that is the point where my self split into different parts. I remain frozen at certain ages, and I will feel the emotions of those parts in the present like the past is still happening. I look to nurses and therapists to care for me. But their care is incredibly limited. I long for someone to rescue me, just like Rapunzel. I know how sick it sounds but I get jealous whenever there is a “code” in the hospital. I wish the code was for me as I have long been in a state of emergency and no body has come for me.

I still think healing can come from adult baby/caregiver relationships. But it seems much more difficult to find a caring female than a male or “daddy”, and the whole scene is incredibly sexualised. I had to change my privacy settings on Fet Life so I didn’t have to look at disgusting dick pics all the time. I try my best to love my younger parts myself and in private with childhood toys, clothes, and activities like cartoons. I think that is the best I can do for the time being.