Learning to reparent my inner child

Uncategorized 4 Minutes

I went to an ACA 12 step recovery meeting tonight. It was about step three – “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God.”

My relationship with God is weird at the moment. Probably has been for some time now. Ever since my divorce and the affair and me being attracted to women. I just don’t know if God loves me. I’m tired of feeling judged and condemned. I once had a roomy and inclusive faith that included someone like me but now I don’t know anymore. I feel disconnected from the Christian faith but yet don’t want to leave it for fear of spiritual attack or programming. Today I went to church and just felt so alienated from the community. I really like the message from the pastor but I also want something more relational and connected where the messiness of life is explored deeper. I find it get this more in ACA but am still finding my feet there. Plus doing online recovery is weird – convenient but weird. But this post is about doing an exercise from the reparenting your inner child workbook. I just wanted to mention my grapplings with faith as I feel sad and confused about it.

“How to Stop our inner kids from Sabotaging Us:


If we do not recognize our Inner Children, they do what real children do when they are ignored. They retaliate and find ways to sabotage our best efforts. Our Inner Children withdraw when they are afraid, worried, or angry, and we lose energy, time, money, creativity, and spontaneity. We remained stuck at various life stages where we were so emotionally stunted that we stopped growing up.

Examples of sabotage include our addictions and compulsions (adrenaline, alcohol, codependence, dangerous or risky behavior, gambling, food, drugs, sex, tobacco, workaholism, hoarding, etc.) and non. productive or negative behaviors such as
Abuse of self or others (yes)
Anxiety (yes)
Attitude that the world owes me (In my teens and probs in my 20s)
Blaming others (yes but I prob blame myself more now than others)
Codependence (yes)
Defensiveness (yes)
Demand for immediate attention (yes)
Drama Queen (yes)
Embarrassment (yes often just for existing)
Emotional outbursts (not as much but yes)
Extreme cautiousness (yes)
Focus on detail, not the big picture (yes)
Fixation on slights of others (yes)
Habitual coercion of others (yes)
Low self-esteem (yes)
Lying (yes)
Manipulation (yes)
Paranoia (yes)
Passive aggression (yes)
Pretending to work a program (yes)
Sulking (yes)
Procrastination (yes)
Rage (yes)
Rescuing and fixing others (yes)
Rescue seeking (yes)
Revenge-seeking (yes)
Self-sabotage (yes)
Shame (yes)


To End the Internal Conflict
The fragments of ourselves all have different needs and wants, so we remain in constant internal conflict for as long as the parts of our fractured selves operate in isolation.


To Integrate the Fragmented Parts of Ourselves:
When we help our Inner Children complete the life stages they missed, they begin to integrate their needs and wants with those of our Loving Parents. When they are all integrated with our adult selves, we
then have solid, unified personalities. These whole people then go on to build happy, healthy, serene lives.


To Become Happy, Joyous, and Free:
When our integrated Inner Children feel safe, loved, and respected by us, they provide us with curiosity, abounding energy, and perfect trust in a Higher Power.”

Exercise – Why We Want to Become Our Own Loving Parents

  1. How does your Inner Child sabotage you (see the list above)?

I think through every area identified above. My workaholism and avoidance are big ones. Shutting down, numbing out, distracting myself, negative self talk. Shame and low self esteem. I never thought of it like my inner kids sabotaging me – to get my attention maybe? Shit. I feel bad for not listening to them.

2. What are your examples of wanting to do different things at the same time or not knowing what is the right thing to do?

Probably the biggest examples have been in my relationships. Wanting to be with the person but then not. Wanting to be single and run away and then feeling like I need security and attachment. Not knowing the right thing to do can happen at work but mostly in my relationships. I tend to switch off and avoid.

3. Share one need or want of your Inner Child.

I can sense they want me to talk to them.

4. When you were a little child, share one thing you were intensely curious about, one time you were really excited about something, or one time you had outrageous fun.

I was intensely curious about the Bermuda Triangle – that was prob when I was about 12. But little? I can’t really remember – I was intensely curious about paper bark trees. I’m not sure if they are just in Australia but they are trees that shed and you can rip off the bark.

5. What do you do today that you are intensely curious about, excited about, or is great fun?

I genuinely cannot think of anything. Everything feels like a chore.


Things You Can Do in Your Recovery This Week: Write your version of this affirmation on a notecard or poster and read it three times a day for one week:

“I am becoming my own Loving Parent
to help my Inner Child grow up emotionally”.

Published by Leni

I am a 42 year old woman and survivor of satanic ritual abuse. I have dissociative identity disorder and experience complex PTSD symptoms. Despite this, I am relatively high functioning and tend to be very active and engaged in life. I started remembering my abuse at around the age of 25. Prior to that I had no solid memory of my childhood and things just felt blank. I was programmed to keep very busy in order to forget my abuse and so I was always on the go and doing things. I was lucky to find an interest in the creative arts and filmmaking, so my pursuits have mostly been very stimulating and enjoyable, though hard work. Almost everything I did kept me away from myself and I would say that I was extremely disconnected from the way that I felt in general. I always felt something was wrong, but couldn't put my finger on it. When I discovered I had been sexually abused as a child, it was like my whole world changed and everything that I had felt or experienced prior to this was a lie. Everything, yet nothing, made sense. I wanted to pursue recovery and wholeness immediately, but the more I tried to do this, the more walls I kept hitting. Programming was inbuilt in me to 'not remember' and I thought I would die if I did. The paradox was, that I longed to die, and suffered suicidal ideation on an almost daily basis for over ten years. I had used drugs and alcohol from the age of 13 to self soothe and medicate and the turning point for me was when I hit a rock bottom with drinking at the age of 31. I went into AA and that really kickstarted my journey of recovery. I learnt how to deal with life without picking up a drink or a drug and most importantly, I was led to my real saviour, Jesus Christ. Almost a year into being sober, I started hearing voices. I had heard these voices for a long time but had stifled them with alcohol and drugs. The voices were extremely loud and negative and told me to kill myself. I sought psychotherapy and prayer ministry and it was through these experiences that I discovered I had dissociative parts of self (multiple personalities). Since accepting this, I have definitely started to get better, although it has been a long journey. I am in my tenth year of sobriety and on a very personal, determined journey to find myself within my fragmented identity. This is a blog about Dissociation, Satanic Ritual Abuse, God and other stuff. I live in Melbourne, Australia. Please stick around and share your thoughts too.

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