The Kitten On The Hankie. Learning To Love Who I Was

I found the piece of hankie when I was looking through my linens for the Victorian Women for my “Not Going Back” quilt.

A little kitten that someone painted probably using a stencil on the corner of a hankie.   And beneath the kitten the initials M.G.

The same as my  initials before my first marriage.

I would have loved that kitten when I was a kid, with the flower and little blue jacket.  So I put it aside.  Not to be used in the quilt, but because it reminded me of myself when I was young.  Of something I might have made.

It sat on my desk for a week until I was leaving my studio one evening and decided I would burn it.   I was walking out the door with the hankie and match box in my hand when I stopped.

That’s when I realized that every time I saw the kitten and those initials, I thought about the little girl I was.  And thinking of her filled me with shame and humiliation.

I didn’t want to have to think about her, I just wanted her to go away.

For the past month I’ve been dealing daily with anxiety, panic and trying to understand what happened in my past that made my body and mind react as if my ear doctor assaulted me, even though I know, intellectually that he didn’t.

It took me days of talking to my therapist and Jon. Of being honest about what I was feeling just for me to understand that I was triggered at the ear doctor appointment. To believe that some kind of physical abuse happened to me when I was a child, that I don’t consciously remember.

The shame I was feeling was the hardest to admit, and I think the most important.   Because it felt so bad,  it was what I wanted to hide the most.

The truth was hard to accept and at the same time helped me to understand many things about my life that never made sense to me.

For the past three days, for the first time in a month, I’ve had no anxiety and no panic.  It feels to me like I’ve crossed a bridge.  Not that the panic and anxiety are gone for good. I know I will probably deal with them to some degree as I have my whole life.  It’s also possible that I will be triggered again in some unexpected way.

But at least now I may understand it better and know I have the help I need to deal with it.

The past month felt like I’ve been living the aftershocks of an earthquake that occurred inside my body.  Because it’s not just psychological, but physical too.

As the doctor cleaned out my ear, I held my body so tight, I actually hurt myself.  Walking, dancing and yoga helped until I could get an appointment with my chiropractor and then this past Friday I had a massage for the first time in years.

Now the physical pain is gone.

All those things, therapy and the work I’m doing rewiring my thought patterns has  helped to get me to a place where I am finally feeling not only as I was before the doctors appointment, but even more grounded and confident.

I know that being triggered released something inside of me that has been buried too long.   And as painful as it’s been, I’m glad it happened.  I know I’m going to be a stronger, healthier person because of it.

I already am.

Now when I think that I was going to burn that kitten on the hankie I can see how I blamed myself for what happened to me.  How I didn’t even want to think of myself as that little girl, because it hurt to be her too much.

There is a line in Anne Patchett’s book, The Dutch House where one character says she didn’t have children because she would never impose childhood on someone she loved.

I don’t believe I loved the little girl that was me until I went to her in my visualization a few days ago and brought her back to the farm with me.  Until then, I was too ashamed and embarrassed by her.  I never even thought about loving her. I don’t think I knew how.

Which means, of course, I didn’t love myself.

I still don’t know exactly what happened to me and may never know.   But it doesn’t matter because it’s in the past, and I’m not in danger of it happening again.

Now I can see the healing that I’ve been doing this past month and that I will continue to heal.

I can also see how I have made a good, safe life for myself.   I finally followed my calling and am doing work  that fulfills me, I have surrounded myself with nature and animals that make me feel safe.  And I continually discover the true meaning of trust and love through my partnership with Jon.

And now when I look at the kitten on the hankie with my initials under it, I smile.  I picture myself as a little girl, almost like a ghost,  living on the farm with me and Jon and the animals.

Finally safe, loved and home.