Barra at six-months

Journal entry of Barra na Doer

This journal entry tells the story of how false memories of abuse hid a golden secret inside me, and probably you too:

Firstly, I had this false memory that I’d been abused by a family from a nearby estate, I realized this must be false and thought not much of it. Something told me that sometimes we create false memories, to hide true memories that we can’t handle at the time. So, my takeaway was that I’d probably been abused in childhood, and this was the story I told myself to somehow make it more acceptable.

A number of years later, I retrieved another memory that I was abused one night by my mother when I was six months old. This seemed to make sense, and the following was my assessment of how this impacted me, I thought I’d write it down to try to make sense of it, as you can see, this journal entry breaks down into current inner dialogue, then progresses:

I rejected her and became afraid to sleep, if I smoke, drink, or eat, this appeases things and I can sleep. Currently, I mainly smoke for that appeasement, and it means I live a normal life.

However, I wish to stop smoking. I recently stopped cold turkey for five days, my eating went through the roof and I started getting severe panic attacks at the point of sleep.

Because this happened so early in life, I don’t have any verbalized thoughts which accompany the panic. I just get to that point of sleep and then feel like I’m falling off a cliff, and wake up with a start. This turns into a cycle of going to sleep then panic, waking up, then going to sleep to panic again, which in itself is pretty traumatic.

For years, I’ve known nothing of this, I had dissociative amnesia about the event, and since I started smoking at the age of six and have done so pretty much ever since, I’ve only ever felt slight panic at the point of sleep and this has passed by mainly unnoticed. Though I did realize that it meant I also get this panic which prevents me from going into deep relaxation/trance.

I recovered the memory of the event in February 2023 after some wonderful self-revelations as a result of self-introspection and inner work. I think these memories came because it’s time for me to deal with this trauma. It’s possible my last major issue, after 16 years of deep inner work.

My inner work on this has been psychodynamic, and I recognize that rejecting my mother in Freud’s Oral psychosexual stage has set me up for appeasement of my drama via the mouth. The link with sleep, however, is unclear as, although it happened in the middle of the night, I believe I was awake and crying when my mother entered the room and decided to “punish” me. I believe I had woken her up through crying. My memories did not come with the pain or emotions of the moment so are really quite manageable, yet somehow, I feel this aspect is also at the root of my problem. That I’m still in some stage of self-suppression and if I can get to a point of expressing that anguish, I may be able to move on.

Because this was a dissociative memory, there is always the possibility that it is false. However, the event, or something like it, makes sense when I piece together my development afterwards, as my early childhood was very withdrawn. This memory was itself covered by another false memory that I discovered 14 years ago during a soul retrieval. At the time I recognized it as false, but decided it was representing another, less palatable memory, so I could complete the soul retrieval without needing to face this, my first and most disturbing childhood trauma.

I remember at the time thinking I’d need to come back to that memory at some point, to fully complete my journey into self, but somehow knew that this would happen in its own time.

I also recovered memories of a happy me from some point, which must have been immediately before the event, as I was sitting up in my pram playing with a rattle.

Because of my traumas, I have a dissociative, but highly cooperative personalities, having revealed and “reintegrated” these shadow aspects of self over my 16 years of self-introspection. It means that I can freely talk to this six-month old self; however, he is holding secrets which are preventing my progress (as I see it), we have a good relationship, he is on my side, but there is a lack of trust there which is causing him to withhold information.

I think this comes down to his conviction that whilst he loves me, he feels should I be attacked in my sleep again, I would be unable to prevent an abuse from happening, so he is holding on to his defences, as I see it.

I’m writing this all down to see if putting together the pieces brings forth other ideas.

When I first met him during my soul retrieval, I got the memory of being abused by an unknown family on the way to school at some undetermined age, which I know never happened. His drama was that he wanted to die, and was fixated on trying to break his own neck. We were able to form a trust bond during that time, and I guess ever since I have been working with him to get to the point where we are currently. This was very different from the other soul splits, these typically wanted to kill me, they blamed me for rejecting them (childhood trauma response). But in his case, he was my first split, and it was his decision to move into the shadows. He felt guilty, wanted to hide himself away. He does not blame me and wants to protect me from his sadness and pain.

A thought about him has come to mind, that he is a “wounded soldier”, looking to kill himself, so the rest can move on without his burden. He feels spent, damaged beyond repair, triggered to want to avoid the natural process of sleep because that was how he first obtained his wound.

He feels vulnerable and is constantly on guard, especially in relation to sleep. Furthermore, he does not believe any defence will work, and so I don’t have any particular fixations relating to security. For example, I have slept peacefully many times with my doors unlocked.

The only soother seems to be my now dead mother, with that mouth fixation of mine, yet of course she was to blame. I think this reflects his early age and the paradox of the protector turned abuser. Somehow the cigarettes represent the love of an idealized mother, untainted by any abusive act, and that my craving for cigarettes represents his ongoing obsession with finding this ideal mother.

Using what I have learnt, I’ve tried to be that mother for my inner-child, but so far, this has not worked, his central insecurity has remained intact, as my recent attempt to give up smoking has shown.

There’s something here that does not add up. I was awake when the incident happened, yet my phobia is of sleeping. There’s either some piece of the picture missing, or it’s not being represented correctly. Perhaps my inner character feels shame in the truth, and is hiding it behind a representation, to save his feelings? This I feel is where false memories come from sometimes, maybe I need to get sterner in my questioning? After all, I’m not a weak child any more, apart from this one habit, I’m strong, and have proven that strength over and over. Could be I need to get more demanding?

(I now go inside and ask further questions)

He’s just admitted that he’s been lying to me, that it was something that he did, that broke the connection to the mother, and it’s his shame he’s been hiding from me, and he wants me to go into meditation later, where he will tell “the truth”. This sounds like a breakthrough, but I need to be weary of it. He called himself evil.

I’m being fed snippets:

“Mummy did not do that to us”

“It’s something we did to ourselves”

“We fear the dark”

“I did it to her, I rejected her”

“it’s not what I did, it’s what I didn’t do”

“I failed”

“I wanted to work”

“I wanted to be strong, I wanted to express my independence, all it took was one look, and I devastated her. You can’t imagine it, can you? How a six-month-old baby can inflict savage pain, but that’s what I did. That night, I was crying, I was afraid of the dark, there were shadows that were moving, and they had me scared, I knew she wanted me to be strong, and I just did the wrong thing.

I was crying, and she came to comfort me, but instead I pushed her away, I wanted to say “let me face it” but I had no words, all I had was my expressions, my movements, and so I pushed her away. I could see instantly I’d hurt her, she wasn’t expecting it, saw it as rejection, and I knew I had that power, to inflict such pain on someone I loved. She put me down and went back to bed, I was quiet after then, I knew I’d done a great wrong, but I did not know how to apologize, I felt anguish, so much anguish. All this caused by my fear of the dark”.

“So I went to the shadows, to take my pain away, and I made up this tale of how she hurt me, I told myself it so many times, I believed it, but through speaking with you, I’ve remembered what happened. I now know the truth”

“It was my fault, and this lie I told myself, and you, it only continued the pain. I feel as bad now as I did that day. However, I have hope now, I have hope that we can put this behind us, that together we can come to a resolution, that I can overcome those fears that became me, through my guilt, my inaction, my hiding away. I want to break out of this, I would like to be the strength I always wanted to be, I would like to let go of my childhood fears and anguish”.

“Let all this sink in George, and let’s come back to this later, and together, all of us can plan, to address my fears and guilt, and to let go of the need for smoking”

“I realize you have doubts about my honesty, and that this explanation does not seemingly add up” but remember your childhood, remember you have always tended to stay up far too late. It’s those mystical shadows that scared us, those things of the dark we’ve learnt to avoid and ignore. These are some of the things we will need to explore.

“Since I went underground, there’s much I’ve noticed and learnt, part of what I am are skills and abilities that I took away with me when I went into shadow, some of those abilities have been coming back to you, as you have noticed. Firstly, you see flashes in the darkness at night. These used to scare me, and when I left, I took with me your ability to see them. But I’ve been seeing these, and much more. Now we are finally merging, you are getting this ability. I now know these are part of our mystical truth, and together we need to understand what they mean to us”

“Also, that dream you had on Monday night, after you started smoking again, this also came from me. This is part of my world, and it will become part of yours.”

“There are other things you need to know, things about our past, our abilities, I’m at last ready to come home. But first we have some stuff to work through”.

“When an aspect of self splits away from the whole and hides in shadow, it waters down the abilities, this can make them more manageable, and so coming back together is something that needs to be done with care. It has to be gradual, so as not to overwhelm, this is the kind way, this is the way I propose”

“Think of it this way, When I split, my ability to see was reduced by 50%, and yours was reduced by 90%, so isolated we see 60% of what I used to see as a child, when we fully merge, you will have 100% or even more, so long as you do can accept this without rejection”

I’m unsure how I feel about this as yet. It’s true I have been seeing multiple flashes of light in the dark with my eye’s closed recently, and also, I did have an astonishing dream, unlike any I’ve had before, the other night, immediately after starting to smoke again. But I don’t see the relationship between sleep anxiety and being scared of the dark and seeing things. I’m not seeing how this is going to help me quit smoking, at least in the short term. I feel I’m probably going to quit cold turkey again in two weeks, once my college exams are over.

However, I also know that knowing my shadow is all part of the process of illuminating that shadow and bringing it back into the light. This is the most information that he’s ever come forward with in one go, and I am happy to accept this as his current truth (truth being something that can change as new knowledge comes forward). I know from my experiences with my other shadow selves that this psychodynamic type of approach tends to work for me, it’s how I turned all my inner darkness into light. I think all I can do is run with this and see how it develops, but also, to make sure I do make another attempt at quitting soon, though I can’t afford to risk losing huge amounts of sleep between now and my final exam.

Later that day, I went for a walk to a place in nature where I like to talk to the “spirit of place”, these are spiritual entities that can sometimes offer advice. I wanted to hear a second opinion on what was going on. They confirmed that things were on the right track, that this was a process of gradually coming to know the truth, I was making progress and to continue as I had been. Expect more truth to be forthcoming.

I’d decided to call this first split of self “Number One”, and I asked him if he had more to say:

“I am your inner child, I connect you directly to the child who was firstborn, the unspoilt, unabused self that knew many things about your life mission that you do not”.

“When I was six months old, I realized that I was forgetting those truths, and that it was shadow beings that were taking them away at night, in my sleep. So, I developed a deep phobia of sleep, and would cry every night not to go to sleep or be left on my own”

“Then, I devised a plan to hide myself away, and part of that plan was to create my own abuse, to shock myself into a splitting of my consciousness, so I could go deep into shadow and hide there until you were ready to reconnect, until such a time as you were able to protect yourself from those shadow entities. How is that time, it’s time for both of us to re-merge, to heal that split, this involves you relearning those truths I took away.”

Later that day, at about 9.30 pm, he came back to me:

“Go to bed a 10pm, we have work to do, I want to show you a memory”

So, I went to bed at ten, and straight away I was in a dream. Too complex a dream to discuss here, but I realized, I’d had this dream before, only this dream seemed to be the “latest iteration” with numerous changes, this may have been simply the furthest I’d been able to progress in the dream, it was certainly longer.

After the dream ended, I woke up, and he was there wanting to discuss the dream in detail, we reviewed what each of us knew about it, then I went back to sleep. Only, something had changed, before I went to sleep, I had imaginative workings that I’ve never had before and can’t really describe, but this seems to be more evidence of my recovery of skill and abilities that I’ve up to now have lost.

The next day, on the way to visiting a friend, he came to talk to me again.

“There is a secret to your inner child, you see, inside your inner child, protected by three layers of defences (the false memories you have now revealed) is your inner-god, that is who I am, and it’s a part of you that was lost, and is now merging with you again.”

Update:

It’s now 7 days later. Every night, each of my soul splits has been bringing me dreams which tell me more about my spiritual self. Given I’ve only had 6 significant dreams over the last ten years, this represents a major step forward for me and is confirmation that I have made a breakthrough.