Decentering

Erasing a Voice You Still Hear in Your Own Head

Every Wednesday, I open my laptop in the bedroom and log into therapy. And every Wednesday, I cut invisible wounds open and bleed.

Today was no different.

This journey over the last six-plus years has been arduous. As I sit here, in the same seat where I go to therapy and often write these pieces, I feel the raw wounds fighting me, not wanting to open onto the page. But what my heart wants and what my brain wants are two entirely different things.

We discussed the difference between isolating and intentional solitude. I am currently in a place of very intentional solitude. I owe what feels like a million text messages and emails; meanwhile, I am diving deep into trauma and lots of personal shadow work, and my body and soul are tired.

Photo by Anastasiya Badun on Unsplash

The shadow holds the parts we deny, hide, or reject—both light and dark. I’m not an expert, and there are others far more qualified to speak to this. I’m just a person doing the work.

Much of mine is tied up in ancestry and generational trauma. Ancestry showed me the body I inherited.

When I look in the mirror, I see so much of my father in the shape of my body. Broad shoulders, stocky build, thick, sensible hands. Some of this I’m grateful for — I can open any jar in the pantry. But I long for the delicate fingers and hands of my mother, and the ability to buy a dress that fits everywhere but my shoulders and back.

I have been no contact with my father for nearly three years and will remain that way for as long as I live. When I married, I moved my wedding to “neutral territory” so he would come. My first cousin gave me away as he was a no-show. When my husband Tony died, he told me he would be at the funeral. He wasn’t.

There is more to say about him — the extreme domestic violence that was part of my life until I was in the middle of fifth grade, and the ongoing emotional and mental abuse that followed. Today is not the day for those details. But the shape of that absence has been with me my entire life.

It took me nearly a year after the funeral to block his number.

Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash

He and others occupy extraordinary psychological space. When you’ve spent decades adapting to other people’s needs, opinions, moods, and criticisms, your internal compass points outward rather than inward. People—even when they’re not physically present—can continue occupying enormous psychological space. Trauma doesn’t require someone’s presence to continue its influence. My father is an internalized voice, whether I like it or not.

The difficult work is recognizing that those voices are familiar, not authoritative.

This is where the work of decentering comes in. Decentering is rooted in psychology and mindfulness, as well as social and cultural contexts, and cognitive development.

I am removing the part of him that lingers in the shadow from my emotional center. When daughters are born, it is often under the umbrella of “daddy’s girl,” and we are trained to seek our fathers' approval, which shapes us into people-pleasers. I tried for nearly 50 years to win his approval. Now, at 53, I don’t give a flying fuck, but that shadow of his specter lingers.

He will never approve of me. He is never going to show up at my front door and try to work things out. He is never going to show up at my wedding or my husband’s funeral.

My entire family told me to “Be the bigger person.” “You don’t want to have any regrets with your daddy”

I have none.

On the day I needed him most, out of all the days I needed him throughout my life, he abandoned me.

Now comes the hard part. Erasing his voice and how I have carried it throughout the years on my soul, on my physical body, and in my brain. I cannot erase the parts of him that I inherited through genetics, but I willingly choose to remove myself from his influence on my life.

I never wanted this, because at one time in my life I was the eternal optimist. But that optimism lies shattered on a canyon floor and all I can do is remind myself that I tried my best.