Canvas of Heart

WOUNDED HEART

Isabella watched her mother suffer brutal beatings, then watch her father offer apologies and promises to change, which kept her with a man who continued to abuse her. This instability eventually caused her mother’s health to deteriorate. Severe depression led to the development of a host of other health problems.

But the unrelenting pressure eventually took a toll on her mother, culminating in her death following a particularly severe beating exacerbated by an underlying medical condition. ‘She lost her mind, ‘She lost her dignity. She lost her life.’ Isabella plummeted into a grief storm of her own, a maelstrom of rage and confusion about the relationship that had cost her mother her very life.

But her mother grew up in a much more chaotic environment and learnt to navigate a perimeter around issues by way of appeasement and avoidance. This was a parent who couldn’t really speak out because she internalised her pain. She seemed to be stuck in a transitional space between fight or flight that oscillated between fear and submission. maternal inheritance ended up in this toxic mix: her father’s aggression led to her mother’s passivity, and her mother’s avoidance would only stack up her father’s frustrations.

Isabella had already experienced this dynamic as a child, and taken in with her gulps of air all the tension and fear they both endured. She learned to walk on eggshells, to try to read their minds to know when they were upset and to brace herself for their angry eruptions. Always quietly attentive to the adults in the room, she never felt able to be candid with them or express her dissatisfactions, because she learned that they would only explode. She felt her feelings were her responsibility: if they were unhappy, it was somehow her fault. These dynamics that she enacted without yet necessarily having recognized them were a form of hyper vigilant hyper arousal, which kept her stuck in a developmental loop and impeded her capacities to form deeper attachments.

She was unable to trust other students at school, and became withdrawn, fearing that if she opened up to them, they, too, might flip or abandon her. Isabella’s childhood trauma drug her down a runaway train of anxiety and depression. But was it really all her parents’ fault? Of course they hurt their kids, but why did it impact daughter son but not the other? Could Isabella’s childhood trauma of distrust be a product of who she inherently is? Her temperament was set (at the start of the runaway train) by her genes, her early brain development, and her initial environment and attachments. Yet as headstrong as a horse, she eventually derailed. This complex gene-environment interaction theory of epigenetic explains how newborns, with heightened plasticity caused by the mother’s environmental influences, can have different developmental trajectories rather than ones of chaos. During transitions in life, insecurities or adverse life events can trigger a cascade of processes in our epigenetic basement, either preventing them or triggering an avalanche of change.

As she entered her teens, Isabella started to notice the familiar rhythm of how her parents related to one another, and how that rhythm coursed through her. From that vantage, she began to look for ways to change the story she was living into something healthier. She sought therapy and support. Learning her parents’ stories helped her empathies, but it also spurred her resolve. ‘I didn’t want the same thing to happen to me; I don’t want this for myself. So I had to start seeing this whole pattern and being like: “I have to be the hero in my own story.”’

traumatic relationship with her parents, and her complicity in it, were fundamental steps to help her dismantle the negative beliefs she had developed about herself.

Isabella learned simple coping techniques (to help with anxiety she liked mindfulness and journaling) and slowly started putting together a support system, reaching out to friends who she knew she could trust to understand her. She soon realized that out of her isolation, amazing people slowly flowed in. ‘I learned how to set boundaries and became more assertive.’ She’d been a meek, compromising person growing up. But then she had to realise: ‘I was a very shy and insecure person because nothing was acceptable. I never thought I was good enough. If I was, I wouldn’t have to keep apologizing all the time.

Eventually, Isabella recognised her triggers and the red flags in relationships. She realised she deserved respect and soft kindness, establishing relationships based on trust and communication. Her ultimate goal was not only to leave the darkness of the past but also to live beyond it.

Although her scars might remain, she’d embrace her tale and tell it. She would share it with others and, in doing so, bring awareness to her travails in the hope that she would help them in dealing with a similar plight. She had the courage to face her past, and because she did, she had the power to alter her memories and start again to create a different future narrative of love, safety and survival.

Isabella went from relationship to relationship that started with hope and liking, and then Each partner offered exciting possibilities, but the story line remained the same: poor communication, feelings of emotions and always showed up for the connection, yet many times she felt that she wasn’t really understood, and the relationship went south. With each breakup, while she experienced pain and sometimes shame, she learnt more about herself. Finally, she reached her realization that her path was one of gaining strength and healthier boundaries. Falling in love one time after the next only to move on and repeat the cycle seemed like episodes on her but once done with, channeled to the next story. Failure has become a step closer to success, a well-worn path to self-love and wholeness.

Every so often, though, she entered into a relationship that felt like eventually she would be able to love that person. She usually got it wrong. Isabella met men at parties or in other social situations. She felt the spark, especially if she was already in a place where she felt good about herself. He was also all about having fun. ‘He was a livewire. At first, I said, OK, this is actually great because he really pays attention.’ Jake, however, neglected some deeper emotions, and as the relationship evolved toward intimacy the pair faced confusion. ‘He would stomp away,’ Isabella said. ‘He would say, “Well, you always overreact!” I said, “No, I don’t,” and he would say, “You do a lot of the time.”’ She came to believe that he was unwilling to probe his own feelings, much less hers, Meanwhile, Isabella’s need for emotional attention and closeness grew. When she shared her feelings, he would roll his eyes. She realised the injury to her vulnerability to be fair, Isabella said, she was needier than the average woman. None of the neediness surface at the beginning of a relationship, only the urgent drive to kiss and get to know one another. But eventually intimacy arises and it’s that intimacy that intrigues other people about how Isabella feels. Is it clear to love another person only when the other person is in love or attracting you? When you come looking intently at yourself right?

In the aftermath of Jake, Isabella started to unpack what hadn’t worked. She accessed study material on Codependency and saw that she was always trying to make others like her, or be happy, hoping to ‘earn love’. Isabella began to journal and to see a therapist. She kept digging and it started to resonate with her. She realised that she always swept red flags under the carpet; she always hid the good stuff’s always him. ‘The breakup brought my fears to the surface and I actually saw that I was sitting in a lot of shame. Now I get it,’ she said. She realised that she missed the signs and was fearful of being alone. With each revelation, she wrote, she grew stronger. ‘The more I realise how my past actions aligned to the lousy state of affairs, the more empowered I feel.’, and ‘those save me qualities are mine to not torture, to learned how to utilise more kindly’. Is assertive in her responses, gutted, but fully committed to the person she wanted to be. She had transformed the pain of her first heartbreak – about setting and reinforcing healthy boundaries – into a messy-accepting epiphany. As someone on the verge of falling in love again who believes that she is worthy of a relationship – in which both partners ‘can respect each other’s boundaries and communicate what they need without needing the other to take care of their feelings’ – the previous hurt was no longer a fraught trigger. Isabella had turned the tables.