Defective Child.........revisited

When asked to submit something for the recent Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse, I went searching through my archives for something appropriate. I guess for me there can be nothing more powerful than Defective Child so that fit the bill even though I had submitted the piece to the blog carnival before.

Reading over that piece is always emotional for me and it occurs to me there are so many layers in the poem maybe the power of her secret isn't as obvious to others as it is to me. There was no part in my system with more power over how I functioned in the world than this defective child.

Because this part had such power, my healing was directly dependant on liberating her from the chains applied by my programming. As long as she "believed" the trick they played on her, there was going to be no real freedom from the cult's influence over my life. The deep dark hole of depression that beckoned me led directly to her.

While it might be obvious this part was well hidden, what wasn't obvious was that she could only be accessed when I was "alone." The very nature of her function was to keep me stuck in the belief I didn't deserve to be alive. What better way to assure her silence than to make her inaccessible to anyone outside and her voice only heard inside when we were so low we wouldn't question her beliefs.

I suspect this is the part of me that "should" have been the vehicle the cult intended to use for their purposes. Instead of getting pissed off and vengeful, lashing out at the world, at the prospect of never being acceptable, she retreated into a prison of her own making.

That prison seems to be what prevented her programming from being accessed in a way that would have allowed the cult to "build" their foundation as they planned. However, even though they were unable to create the slave they wanted, they did indeed put the programming in place for the self destruct necessary to keep their secret.

The defective child was indeed convinced she had no right to be alive. The pain she felt from that "realization" was significant enough it ruled the entire system. She felt no love, no hope. The void those feelings created was such a vacuum that all other feelings could be sucked away into oblivion leaving only the belief being dead was better than a life like this.

It was no wonder I had no self esteem. This deeply hidden child could not be consoled. She was so convinced she deserved to feel as she did, she wouldn't risk exposing herself for fear of rejection. She could not, would not tolerate one more humiliation. She had reached the max of what she could endure at the time she was formed.

She never spoke. It was only leaks of feelings throughout the system in freaky out of control alone times that told of her existence. It was when I was plucked from my support system, the walls keeping her feelings contained began to give from the strain making me aware of her power.

Recognizing those feelings as the booby trap the cult planted to keep me silenced, I knew I must not succumb to the urge to die instead of deal with those feelings. However, I still had no idea a small child was the source of all that pain but I did know I was loosing the controls my system had established to keep me safe.

There was no road map to her location......no clues, no hunches......nothing but an awareness of darkness.......and the fear of being alone. In all truth I didn't know I was seeking a child. What I knew was I needed to fix that "black hole" that ruled me.
Only by being willing to address what I feared most was I able to locate this child. When I did, everything became clear. For the first time since my journey of healing began I understood what made me who I am.

It was the power of the Defective Child's secret that kept me caught in the trap where I abused myself believing I didn't have the right to live. Even though her message was buried deeply in my subconscious, it affected every aspect of my life. She believed she was guilty, even though she was not, and that is what kept me trapped.Understanding that she was an innocent caught in something beyond her control set me free.

I suspect from my experience with this child that the key to freedom from cult programming of other survivors probably lies within the secret held by the part each fears the most. Those "evil" ones that are abhorred, despised and even locked up are probably the ones most damaged, most misunderstood, if the truth is ever told.

Not that I am advocating just turning those parts loose to reek their havoc, but accepting them and understanding maybe there really are good reasons they turned out as they did might just make a huge difference in healing. Being willing to hear each story with compassion and understanding might just lead to the liberation of another "defective child."