Saturday Stories #19 Misbelief
Rediscover a love for fiction, because stories can change the world
These fiction stories are unedited, unfiltered, and written in 15-25 minutes. Please be aware that they may contain intense material related to emotional healing, trauma recovery, and redirected fears. The today’s insights section contains information and learning from our personal journey with multiplicity/Dissociative Identities while healing from complex PSTD. We bring insights from our perspective as a therapist interrupted who is bringing together lived experience and clinical information.
Written January 11, 2016 at Berkeley Creative Wellness Center
Having trouble starting this one—she had a misbelief or belief based on her experience that everyone would hurt her, that no one in the world cared about her. That she was unlovable. This clouded her experience. The deep-set belief that she was somehow flawed. Something was wrong with her and she’d never be okay. This came from her troubled past. But somehow, she could come to see that this wasn’t true. She is lovable and not everyone in the world will hurt her.
I sat in my room by myself not daring to go out. The world was big and scary and I wanted to be safe from it. I looked out my window and saw a bird singing. I wondered what it would be like to be that bird, so seemingly carefree, just perched on a branch, taking it easy. Then another bird came and sat next to the first bird and they sang together.
Then they flew off and I was even more alone. But something had shifted, I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted to be with someone who cared. They didn’t need to be especially nice. They could just sit with me and not hurt me. That would be enough. So, I went to therapy and paid someone to be there with me, and hope that they too won’t be like everyone else who has hurt me in the past.
Today’s Insights
In this story it seems I had trouble getting started writing. I love that I can leave that part in the story and remember that even though sometimes it’s hard to get started, I was able to press on and create an insightful story, if not interesting.
Reading this today I think about how lonely I’ve been throughout my life. Those deep-seated beliefs that people will harm me or that I am not lovable still sometimes haunt me. Today I met with someone who did something that indicated that they really valued my time and what I’m bringing to the world. I was moved to tears. I realized how undervalued I’ve felt. I’m at a place now that those wounds hurt. In the past I was dissociated or medicated or just didn’t value myself enough to even feel hurt. I was too hurt to cry so to speak. I went out into the world and interacted, sometimes appearing to be confident, but really, I guarded my heart with an invisible shield.
When in March 2020 the world went into lockdown I realized how alone I was. I had no one in my social bubble and was faced with a profound loneliness that I hadn’t felt in that way since childhood when I was homeschooled and had no friends.
Now I was an adult and not powerless. I had done enough therapy and healing to make a conscious choice to choose two people out of the people I knew and really invest in those friendships. Now three years later they are my closest friends and I feel a genuine attachment with them. I’m no longer a bird alone in the tree. I have a flock to fly with.
Just as in this story, where the character decides to invest in therapy with the hopes that the therapist would not hurt her as so many others had, I’ve spent a lot of time and a lot of money on therapy. When working with therapists that were a good fit I was able to learn how to build relationships and form attachments. This has in turn translated to me being able to take these skills outside the four walls of therapy and into the real world of friendships.
Your Turn:
If you wish to continue the story in your own creative writing or prose.
Prompts for Fiction:
Write a story with the birds as the main characters
Write about the character’s experience in therapy
Write a story about the pain that caused the character to think that everyone would hurt her
Prompts for Prose:
Write a poem about birds in a tree
Write about a misbelief that you have
Write about an emotional risk you took
Examples: going to therapy, investing in a friendship, asking for help. Prompts for Fiction: