What Shall Today Bring?

I've noticed I'm rapidly coming to the point that caused me to abandon ship all the times before.  I'm starting to feel again.  I'm starting to not immediately put my emotions in  lockbox the instant I notice them.  This is a scary place.  All the negative Don'ts are coming out again when I feel them.
"Ladies don't get mad."
"Angry?  Do you want a reason to be angry?"
You're not dying, so you shouldn't be sad."
"What the hell are you so damn happy over?"
"Wipe that shit eating grin off your face or I will."
And so on.
One of the Al- Anon books suggests overriding negative self talk with positive slogans. Another suggestion is taking all of those negative self talks, writing them down, and putting them away physically.
Actually allowing myself to feel things is scary.  I hafta not only feel them, but figure out what is socially acceptable to show.  I obviously can't punch a wall every time I'm angry or break into tears every time I'm sad. Sometimes, the emotion itself is a scary one that I generally try to avoid, because it's a Bad Feeling.  It's one a regular person shouldn't admit to having. I realize most humans experience most, if not all, of these negative emotions.  I'm just afraid of pushing people away with the Bad emotions.
This is not a place I want to be.  This is not a path I want to take.  I need to take it.  I've turned away from this path, at this point, several times before. Dealing with who I actually am and what I actually feel isn't pleasant.
What is this emotion?  I recognize the heart squeezy feeling.  I recognize the anxiety.  I think this is dread. I acknowledge the dread.  Dread is brought on by fear. I recognize the fear and acknowledge it by name: fear of abandonment. I hold the dread and the fear as the tiny little rat babies they are in my hands. I recognize the worry over what comes next.
I can do this. I can be honest with myself and feel the true emotion.  I might even be able to name them. This next step is a giant leap into unknown territory.  Then again, Neil Armstrong only put one foot at a time on the moon as he uttered "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."  If one movement at a time put humans on the moon, one movement at a time will edge me towards sanity.

Memory: The Shield

Like so many of my memories, I'm not sure how old I was.  I believe I was in my early teens. Because we were cramming 3 girls into a 10' x 10' room, there wasn't much room for anything. In that room was an L- shaped double bunkbed, with one lower section being a desk, 3 dressers, a bookcase, and a nightstand. The bunk beds and one of the dressers were separated by a narrow space that led to the nightstand and the closet (we're talking maybe 24", maximum, clearance.)  Just big enough for a child or a thin adult to get through.
We had been told to clean our room.  I had sensed Dad's volatile state and was doing everything in my power to clean it up and get my sisters to help. 5- 10 minutes later, or so it felt, it was too late. He came in, saw that we "hadn't done a damn thing," turned around and left. I heard their bedroom door open and started herding my sisters towards the closet.  The sound of the tie rack on their bedroom door only meant one thing in this context: The Belt.  It had no buckle, only a loop at that end. I knew my father couldn't get through that narrow gap and didn't dare put his weight on the bed. I shoved my sisters against the nightstand and tried to place myself to absorb what blows might make it through the gap. I heard a few cries that let me know I wasn't completely successful. There was a groping hand, reaching for anything to yank one of us out.  I pressed them further back against the nightstand and closet. I don't remember anything after that except tears and a million apologies: "I'm sorry, Dad!  We'll clean it right!  I promise! I'll skip UIL and clean it, please, Dad!"  I don't know whether he gave up or sobered up, but he went away after a bit. I checked my sisters afterwards.  They seemed shaken, but not hurt (well, my middle sister had taken a couple hits.) I don't remember how badly I got hit. I honestly don't.  I remember pain, so I know I took some hits.
I remember shame. Shame at not being able to get it done right and quickly enough.
I remember blame.  Somehow, it was all my fault that the room wasn't clean to begin with. (Utter nonsense.  with all the stuff crammed in that room it would always look cluttered and messy.)
I remember fear. Fear of the belt, fear that I wouldn't protect my sisters, fear that my father would squeeze through that gap and really give it to us for trying to hide, fear of CPS, fear of marks I might hafta try and explain away.
I remember black rage, the evil twin of red rage, that wanted to yank the belt from Dad's hands and use it on him.
Mostly, I remember thinking "I'm not good enough to keep him happy and never will be.  Why can't I be good enough?"
That was the night my sister ran away to the neighbor's house, evoking a CPS call.  I blamed myself for that, too.  I caught her trying to get out the back door and made her to go back to bed. She did it later that night. If I had just stayed up and made sure she stayed in bed, that wouldn't have happened.
I think, to an extent, I still see that night and it's following drama and my fault, something I caused, something I could have somehow prevented by being a "good girl."  I know better, logically, I know he would have found some other way to target us or one of us. He was just in that mood.  I did it, though.  I'm the one that pissed him off by not cleaning well enough, quickly enough.  It's all my fault that all that happened.
I remember why I think that. I told Mom the next day that my bruises hurt.  Her response was "well, if you had just cleaned your room like you were asked, you wouldn't have made him mad." Bam.  Confirmation that I was the cause of the problem by not being a "good girl."

step Four, Part 2

I've been avoiding Step 4, regardless of how much I say I want it.  I thought the God stuff would be the hard part. To find out that discovering myself is the hard part right now kinda sucks.
Figuring out what's me and what's chameleon or defense is difficult. I guess I need to explore those.
I am a people pleaser. It is difficult for me to express something different from the general consensus or even to lead a group to a common decision. I fear getting it "wrong" or causing problems and disagreements.  I'm too used to trying to keep the peace and keeping things happy, even if it means keeping my needs and wants to myself. I guess that is a defense mechanism that can fall.
I have issues with silence. Silence was not to be trusted, because too often it was a prelude to having to comfort or find Mom or Dad's drunken requests and punishments. Silence was/ is scarier than yelling, because at least yelling let you know what was going on. Silence leads to fear of the unknown and fear of what's possible.
I fear eye contact, for the same reason a dog doesn't like eye contact: it comes across as a display of dominance, and I have trouble with dominance. I had too many displays of aggression and fear causes that came hand in hand with eye contact. Eye contact has been construed as defiance and I've gotten severely punished for "looking at [someone] like that."
I work well with children. I don't know if that is innate or because I had to mother my mother and siblings from not even double digits in age. I have seemingly infinite patience with kids, even when they misbehave or irritate me. I have more patience with kids than adults, mostly because adults should know better, and a kid is still learning.
I truly think all my issues come from two main fears and one secondary fear: fear of retribution, fear of abandonment, and fear of imperfection. If I can face those, the other, negative ones will fall.

As I Lay Dreaming 1

First, a bit of a preface.  There are certain intuitive traits (I hesitate to use the word "psychic," though they could be perceived that way) that run down the female line of my mother's side of the family.  One is the ability to see the present or future in dreams.  I have never had one be literal, but most are so close to literal it's scary.  I do not choose when these occur, nor can I force one to occur. They come to me.
I had such a dream right before I woke up just now.  It wasn't a full nightmare, but I woke up crying in my sleep.  I dreamt my Sponsor had died, and I was going to the funeral.  I could easily point out to you on  map where the funeral service was help, but it wasn't as it is now.  Another church(?) had taken over that spot.  I dreamt they spoke of her childhood, but there was a movie in my head.  I think it mixed up her childhood and her college years, just based on an address that they spoke of.  It showed her wandering about a forest in brown cords, a green shirt, and wild curly hair, clutching 2 action figures and a dinosaur(?)  She sat down to play beside a puddle that, from an overhead view, was easily discernible as a dinosaur footprint.  The voiceover gave what I thought then was an intersection but I now think was a street name of some importance when she was in college, thanks to Google.  It described lots similar to what Google maps shows for those streets.  I dreamt I came out of that reverie and someone that was her, but not her, was sitting beside me.  Whoever it was looked closely at me and said "She spoke often of you, and proudly, like you were another of her kids."  Before I could ask anything, I woke up.
I woke up convinced for a second that she had died, that I'd hafta find another Sponsor.  I know she didn't, but those dreams definitely stick with you for a few days.
I think it also provoked a realization that, while I CAN go it alone, I'd rather someone else with a torch lead the way.  While I'd sorely miss her if she vanished for some reason, I think I could handle finding another Sponsor, as scary and depressing as that sounds.
I think it may also have be a warning, for my own journey. There will be times where she'll only be able to go up to the mouth of the cave, and I'll hafta be the one to spelunk inside.  She might be cheering me on the whole way, and encouraging me, but I'll hafta face some things that go bump in the night on my own.