November 7, 2021

14. Healing from the Cinderella Syndrome

Part 1

I read about the Cinderella Syndrome on the internet
Woman with the Cinderella Syndrome:
* want to be cared for
* don't want to make decisions by themselves
* want to be depend on others
* don't want to do anything by themselves
* don't have a negative self image

When I read this, I felt an intense anger rise
The way psychologists describe this, feels like: she is lazy, stupid...
What nonsense!!!
Okay, I can't speak for every woman with this syndrome,
but I'm sure most of these women will be wounded even more by this sort of description

When I think about the Cinderella fairy tail I see a young woman who is a slave! Just let that sink in.

Cinderella is a slave! 

She works very hard, she has to do that
She is not able to do something she likes
She is not able to do something that suites her
She only has to do what other people tell her
And... at least as important...
no matter how hard she works, she only gets negative comments
She's treated like she's a dumb ass

Cinderella is emotionally wounded, imprisoned many times over in a terrible way by the people around her

And THIS is why she is UNABLE :
* to take care of herself
* to make her own decisions
* to depend on herself
* to do things by herself
* to think positive about herself (so yes, she definitely has a negative self image)

And... in addition... the few times she does something by herself, for herself, she gets a load of misery thrown at her!

Whatever women (and I guess even men) with the Cinderella Syndrome struggle with, is absolutely not their own choice
It's the result of how people have treated them
It's the result of very deep en complex emotional wounds
These people are victims, no porcelain dolls that wanted to be cared for
This diagnoses, this describing of symptomes, deepen their wounds
The psychologist that give them this describtions, make their wound even more terrible, in stead of healing them...

 

Being said this, I come to my own "being a Cinderella"
I didn't know, but I find out in a special way!

Part 2

About two years ago I was in our kitchen, cooking.

Suddenly a voice, very clear in my head, started chanting, in a taunting tone:
Cinderella, Cinderella, Cinderella
Cinderella, Cinderella, Cinderella
Cinderella, Cinderella, Cinderella
It went on and on till I couldn't take it anymore and screamed:
I'm not a Cinderella!
I'm not a Cinderella!
I'm not a Cinderella!
The voice in my head stopped, but I cried, cried, cried...
The pain of being a slave
a slave in the household
a slave to the people that had been around me
a slave to do everything they ad expected me to do

I recognized that I have been such slave from my childhood on...
And the pain was terrible!
I cried, sobbed...

Yes, that moment was terrible
The pain was deep
But didn't take very long
As I calmed down, the crying subsided, I felt strangely empty, as if a great burden had been lifted from my body
This was a start and a big part of my healing of this Cinderella Syndrome

Do you notice that I didn't have to do anything?
The chanting just started in my head
It touched that immense wound so that I felt the pain of it and began to scream and cry.
And after that there was a serenity, created by the removal of a large part of that burden
I didn't take it away myself, I didn't proclaim it away
It just left! It just healed! 

So I didn't have to do anything
That's how it felt, and that's how it turned out to be ever since

Well... my soul did... so in some way I did it myself, but without knowing, without starting a part of process consciously

 

This was my first clear part of healing from this Cinderella Syndrome

 

More than a year later, I started to recognize something

My soul made me aware of something
It was hard for me:
* to ask William if he wanted to help me
* to tell him that I didn't agree with something (and therefore had my own opinion)
* to share my feelings with him
I did ask, tell and share them those stuff, because in my mind I knew I was safe with him
But every time I did something like that, I felt myself sort of cringe inwardly, and sometimes I felt my body even doing the same
So deep down there was still a wound, a pain, a fear of the oppressors that had enslaved me

There is so much going on in my healing process, that I even don't remember how this second clear part of healing from the Cinderella Syndrome started
It was not that special as the first time, I guess


Most time my soul starts with increasing the pressure
I get tired, I don't feel well physically, it could be anything
I recognize these kinds of things together more and more, so that I know that "an emotional pimple is going to be popped again", so to speak

And even though I feel it coming, the moment of touch always comes completely unexpected
And I think that unexpected factor also contributes to the healing process

So, since a few days I already felt what was happening inside, that I cringed inside
And as I already told, I don't remember what the trigger was, but somehow the wound was touched one more time
It was heavy, but not that heave as the first time

I shared with William what had happened for days and especially that last day
Unlike previous months, where I myself was unable to feel from withing what was going on, where William could and had to explain to me what had happened (I recognize that Cinderella symptom, being depend on, unwillingly, I couldn't help it!), I now was able myself to feel what was going on, I was able to hear my innervoice and I was able to tell William what had happened and what it meant in the process of innerhealing
That alone felt like a huge liberation to me
And I still remember that I concluded my explanation with: I am curious what I will notice in the coming weeks, months...

Part 3

And now, a few months later, I don't rarely feel that cringing anymore
I just can ask Wiliam, tell William... whatever, everything!
That feels great!
I'm no longer a slave
I don't feel a slave anymore
at least not in this cringing way

I can tell you, since then, there is more power in what I say and do
What I say and do comes from my soul, which makes it powerfull
I don't have to organize it by myself, it just happens
I can feel that what I say is powerful (where before, almost all my life, it felt mostly powerless)
I feel it when I write this story, I have something to say!
I feel it when I'm working on my book
The story is so much deeper than the stories I've tried to write before

Yesterday I read half a chapter to William
Then he asked me to stop and read on another time
It was too much for him, too touching, to powerful
He was full for that moment

I recognize that, I have all the books by Nora Roberts, and I read them one after the other (yes really, and it's not boring at all!). I have read for months and had to stop in between, do something else, because I couldn't take it anymore, because I was full. Her words have power, touch your soul, heal. I have already received a lot of healing just from reading her books. But that's another story, a story in itself!

And, last but not least...

Yesterday William told me that he enjoyed it so much that I was acting so girlishly free.
I am cheerful, make jokes, am naughty in all kinds of ways and I have a lot of fun!
When I was that Cinderella-slave, that wasn't the case at al!

By the standards of this world, I've been an adult for decades
But I never was as I just described here
I was most times powerless
I didn't live, I was lived by others

 

I wonder... just think with me...


Being an adult in a healed way,


isn't that like being a powerful child


who lives from his or her soul?


I think so... Ha!  I know for sure!

 

 

But... I'm not ready with my old (hated) Cinderella
I'm still not 100% healed from the Cinderella problems
I feel there is still something to do about
"being obliged to do things"
"I need to do more than William"
That is slave-thinking, a Cinderella-thinking
I know it's stupid, I know it's a lie, I know I don't need to think so!
But because it is the result of emotional Cinderella-wounds, it has no use to tell myself that it is stupid and I don't have to think and work this way
That wouldn't help me a bit
Positive thinking, proclaiming general "thruths"... all that stuff don't heal!

I know there will come another part of healing, maybe even more parts
I feel the pressure growing since a few days...
maybe today?
tomorrow?
And even where that moments
sometimes only a few minutes, sometimes longer,
are absolutely not fun...
I can tell you I am looking forward to that next touch,
for I know... 
it will give me more healing!

To the index: Personal Healing Blog

To the next chapter: 15. Responsibility