Inner Child Healing After a 37-Tissue Thursday

I have been in and out of therapy for the last 20-plus years, but I started going back more regularly after my Grandmom died in January 2025. The anniversary of her death is actually tomorrow, the 18th, and I know that is part of the reason I am struggling so deeply right now. So it has been almost a year now of showing up every other Thursday for therapy.

This past Thursday was not a “let’s talk about the week” kind of session. It was a “my face is leaking and my chest forgot how breathing works” kind of session. The kind where the tissues pile up like evidence, and I am both embarrassed and relieved that someone trained for this is sitting across from me (virtually), steady and unflinching.

So, I learned that this is what inner-child healing will sometimes look like for me. Not candles and aesthetic journaling. More like ugly, snotty, gasping sobs at minute forty, followed by the rude reality of a work meeting directly after.

Here is the thing. My adult self can write about feelings like she has a clipboard and a warm cup of tea. My inner kid shows up like she is pulling the fire alarm.

When Therapy Turns Into a Storm

Some Thursdays, I show up, and we talk through the latest events in my life. A hard conversation. A parenting moment that landed sideways. A worry I cannot shake.

Other Thursdays, something in the present pokes something old. Not metaphorically. Like a finger tracing a scar that has faded but is still very much visible. Sometimes memories and fear from decades ago came up so fast my body reacted before my brain had a chance to vote.

And because life is deeply committed to bad timing, I had a work meeting immediately after. So my therapist did what good therapists do. She helped me come back into my body. She soothed, grounded, steadied. She got me off the ledge, so to speak, without making me feel small for being up there in the first place.

Afterward, she sent resources because she knows something important about me. I like learning. I like words for things. I like understanding the map because it helps me feel less trapped in the woods.

She sent information on inner-child healing, attachment styles, and deep-rest yoga. I opened all of it. I read. I highlighted it in my head. I haven’t done yoga yet, but I am going to give it a whirl.

Attachment Styles, and the “Wait, We Can Have More Than One?” Moment

I have heard about attachment styles before, but I did not realize something that now feels obvious. You can have more than one attachment style. Not in a “pick your Hogwarts house” way. More in a “your body learned different rules with different people” way.

When I read that the relationship with your mom might carry one pattern, your dad another, and your sibling another, I sat back like, WHO KNEW!? Apparently, my psyche did. It just did not send a calendar invite.

Two things can be true. Attachment patterns can start early and keep shifting as we have experiences, relationships, losses, repairs, and new information. I am not interested in turning this into a blame-everyone-else hobby. I am interested in getting specific about what my body expects from closeness, conflict, and care.

What I Notice in Myself (Without Turning It Into a Verdict)

When I feel safe, I can be warm, honest, and steady. I can handle conflict and come back to the table. When I do not feel safe, my reactions can get dramatic in a way I do not choose on purpose.

Because I expect abandonment, I sometimes push people away when I am at my lowest. Not because I do not love them. Because a younger part of me still believes needing people is dangerous, and that the only way to survive is to fix it alone. On a timer. With a brave face that deserves an award and a nap.

When I was younger, I tried to control pain by making it visible or measurable. I used self-harm, and sometimes I stopped eating. Not because I wanted to disappear, but because I wanted proof I could patch something, disinfect something, make something better with my own hands. I always hid away my cuts, wore baggy clothes so people wouldn’t worry. It was not about seeking attention or crying out for help; it was about me owning my pain in a way that I could then fix or heal without burdening others.

College was the first time I learned there were real professional avenues for help. That is when I started choosing a different path. (Sidenote: I’m very glad that mental health and well-being is talked about more freely in schools today. Kids are going through a heck of a lot, and they need to know what resources are available.)

I still swing between wanting reassurance like oxygen and wanting space like oxygen, sometimes both at once (which is adorable, and also a logistical nightmare). But it helps me to see these responses as patterns, not personality flaws.

I have beaten myself up plenty for what I allowed and for what I did to myself. I have accepted “better” as good enough, and left the bar so low that basic courtesy felt like a dozen roses. When it comes to intimate relationships with a partner, if no one was physically hurting me, I sometimes treated that as the best I could hope for.

Shame is not the tool for raising that bar. Shame just sits in the corner and heckles.

Inner Child Healing, and the Little Girl Who Sees What I See

Inner child healing is an “oh, so that is what that is” concept for me.

I have talked for years about the little girl who lives inside my head. Sometimes she is peering out through my eyes or listening through my ears, and the way she interprets what she sees and hears can be wildly different from how adult me interprets it.

And her feelings can be huge. Not inconveniently huge. Ocean-in-a-teacup huge. Sometimes they take over. Other times she blends with adult me so seamlessly that I do not realize who is driving until I look back and think, “Wow, that was… intense.”

It can feel like having two versions of myself inside one skin, both telling the truth from where they are standing.

My adult self knows what is real right now. My inner child knows what it felt like then. When “then” did not get resolution, comfort, protection, or care, it makes sense that she still wants it. From me. Now.

And that is both tender and exhausting.

Where I Do Feel Warm and Safe Now

I want to say this out loud, too. There are times when I do feel warm and safe, and I think it matters that I can name them.

My dad gives great hugs. In my adult life, those hugs mean the world to me. He is the one who taught me to always hold on a little bit longer. Just an extra beat. Like a quiet message to my nervous system that says, “You are here. I have you.”

My mom has her own ritual. When she waves as she drives away, or as I drive away after a visit, she waves until we cannot see each other. Sometimes she blows kisses. And when she does not do those things, I instantly worry I did something wrong. That is how fast my brain goes looking for what I did wrong, even in love.

My therapist asked me, “What relationship have you seen or experienced that taught you what a loving and safe relationship looks like?” The answer was easy. The relationship my parents have right now, today. That is one I would welcome emulating.

The way they look out for each other. The way my dad joins my mom on walks or reminds her to bring a flashlight. The way they go shopping together and get excited about discounts, or do puzzles together. The way my dad cooks dinner, and my mom cleans up. Or how he reaches out to me when he needs help surprising her. Or she reaches out to me when she wants to do something special for him. They have a routine that feels good for them, and they both feel loved and appreciated.

My childhood was not perfect. Growing up was not all gumdrops and sunshine, but is that even something anyone experiences? Still, I can say this with a full heart. I have watched my parents learn and grow. I have seen them soften, show up, and choose each other in ways that feel steady. Especially once they became grandparents. Their grands mean the world to them.

And that matters for my inner child healing, because it gives me proof. Proof that the story does not have to end where it started.

When the House Teaches Your Body to Brace

As I have mentioned, and because this is something I am working on addressing, I want to hold both truths at the same time. I have proof that love can be steady and safe, and I also have old wiring that still flinches. Sometimes my present is warm, and my past still reaches up through the floorboards. That is where the next part comes in.

I once knew a kid who tried to manage the night with words. The grown-ups were overwhelmed. The house got quiet in that way that makes a child feel responsible for the oxygen.

So the kid sat under the stars and said little “spells” out loud. Not because she believed in magic exactly, but because she believed in asking. Because begging the universe felt like doing something, and doing something felt like surviving until the headlights hit the driveway.

There’s a scene in the 1993 movie The Secret Garden where the kids, empowered by the garden, perform a “magic rite” to bring Lord Craven home. They say, “Please come to me. Send me my father here. Set his spirit free.” Let’s just say, that tracks.

If you grow up learning you might have to survive the night by yourself, your nervous system gets good at bracing. It learns hypervigilance. It learns responsibility that is too big for a child’s hands. And later, as an adult, that old training can show up in places you would rather it not.

When Intimacy Feels Like a Minefield

This is the part I want to name carefully, because I do not want to share specifics. I also do not want to pretend this piece does not matter.

When someone’s boundaries are crossed in deeply personal ways, especially when harm is wrapped in false tenderness, the body does not file intimacy under “comfort.” It files it under “risk.”

So, yes, intimacy can be a minefield for me. Sometimes my system assumes it is not supposed to feel good because it has been so wrong so many times. Sometimes I read tenderness as a trap. Sometimes I feel safest when no one needs anything from me, including me. And honestly, sometimes I crave that the most.

This is where attachment stops being theoretical and starts being very, very practical. If my nervous system expects abandonment, harm, or being left to clean up the mess alone, it makes sense that I might cling. Or, usually in my case, withdraw. Or, also likely, do the push-pull thing where I reach for closeness and then slam the door because the room feels like it is filling with smoke.

And there is another layer. Some people are still forced to share space, community, family systems, or even digital rooms with someone who hurt them. In those cases, it is not “in the past.” It is a living trigger. It is being asked to “move on” while the danger still has a name, a face, and a way of showing up without warning. Even something as simple as a group message can light up a whole body with dread.

So many of those tiny doors I have talked about before open when I want them nailed shut and burned to the ground. I can be drinking coffee on a normal day, and suddenly, I am back there, not in thought, but in my body. That is why inner-child healing matters to me. That younger part of me is not being dramatic. She is trying to keep me alive. She is still coming to terms with what happened and with what should have happened after, but did not.

The Body Does Not Care That I Have Good Insight

I also need to say the practical, unglamorous part out loud. I have lost 15 pounds since Thanksgiving. I am not hungry. When I do eat, I do not eat much because I feel yucky or get heartburn, and I am anxious and depressed, which impacts all of it.

I am not offering this as a fun plot point. I am saying it because this is what stress looks like when it moves in and starts rearranging the furniture.

If your body is waving a flag like this, please take it seriously. Not as a moral failure. Not as “I should be stronger.” As information.

My body is not being dramatic. It is doing data entry.

Parenting Guilt and the Words I Could Not Stop Saying

During that session, I used 37 tissues and kept telling my therapist I will never forgive myself for the times I know I let down my kids.

I meant it. I felt it in my bones.

And also, later, sitting on a Saturday morning watching a fine snowfall, I can see the fuller picture. Parenting is brutally hard. There is no guidebook. There is no crystal ball. You are trying to do the best you can with the knowledge you have and the resources you can access, and those change day by day.

That does not erase harm. It does not erase mistakes. Compassion and empathy have to show up through action, impact, and accountability.

What I want is repair. With my kids, when it is needed, and with myself, where I have been punishing the wrong person for being human.

Snowfall, and the Kindness I Can Sometimes Access

This morning, I am mesmerized by the purity of the snow. The color. The sound. The way each snowflake is wildly different and unique, like we are as people.

That quiet, steady snow makes me remember something I forget in the heat of a trigger. Healing is not a one-size-fits-all project. There is no timeline. It is not linear. It is okay to take two steps forward and five steps backward as long as you do not stop moving.

I need to go easy on myself, not as an excuse, but as a strategy. Because I cannot bully my nervous system into safety. I have tried. It is not effective. It is just loud.

And honestly, I do not have the energy for loud right now.

What I Am Practicing When Adult Me and Kid Me Disagree

I want to understand, and I also need specifics.

So this is what I am practicing right now, imperfectly, as in still getting it wrong more times than I get it right:

• Noticing when my inner child is in the room before she grabs the microphone.
• Naming the feeling without letting it write the whole story.
• Choosing one small, grounding thing (water, food, a window, a hand on my chest, the floor under my feet).
• Letting my adult self speak to my inner kid like she deserves tenderness, not a lecture.
• Remembering that repair is a skill to be practiced, not a personality trait.

Also, I am giving myself permission to be a person who does deep rest yoga and also cries like a busted fire hydrant. We contain multitudes. Some of them need a nap.

An Invitation, Not a Finish Line

If you are in a season where you are doing the work, and your body is still having opinions, I see you. If your adult self understands everything and your inner child does not care, I see you. If you are trying to forgive yourself, and you keep tripping over the same memory, I see you.

Maybe the goal is not to “get over it.” Maybe the goal is to keep coming back to yourself with enough steadiness and honesty that your inner child starts to believe you will not abandon her.

Not perfectly. Not quickly. Just consistently.

And if today all you can do is watch the snow fall and breathe, that counts as coming back, too.

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