Strategies for dealing with memories when it gets hard

I have been one to avoid counseling although for many it is great, some efforts nearly 20 years ago left me traumatized unable to work.

In recent years the why question has caused me to investigate my life.

One of the things is, that I have survived pretty well, especially considering my childhood.

At a workshop a few weeks ago we were asked to come up with ways we have used to "survive".

Was interesting to here some of them there and I am hoping people here will share theirs.

One woman mentioned her extensive library. I asked if she reads the same stuff she read as a child,
and she confirmed she did.

So time for me to confess. I am a comic reader. Not a collector, as I bought to read and basically still do. When I was a kid superhero comics and my childhood fantasies were one of the things that kept me sane. I stopped reading at 16 as I felt embarrassed to buy them or have any kid at school see me with them. However when I was late 20s I started to buy the stuff of my childhood.

It featured two main comics, with DC's FLASH being my most treasured. As a kid from 10 -16 Marvel comics were the things some of my friends were into. In Australia very few DC comics were sold here, as DC licensed the artwork to a local publisher who did them on cheap paper in B & W. Compared to Marvel it was a poor relation.

I have often wondered why I chose the Flash as a favorite against so many colorful Stan Lee creations. I believe it was because the hero, Barry Allen was so extremely normal. All Marvel characters captured teenage angst. But Barry in the 60's had a crew cut, worked in the police force (how incredibly uncool was that in the 60s) and only ever had one steady girl Iris West who he married, who unlike all other DC women actually preferred Barry to the masked hero.

Now looking back through my nostalgic eyes I love Infantino's artwork and John Broome's writing but back then it was Iris's solid support, Barry's morals and integrity, and the stability of life that the showed somehow screamed to me.

It gave me a social structure to aspire to and belief that happy relationships were possible.

Now if I am having a bad day as I continue to explore the "why"of my life, all I have to do is pull one of these of the shelf and everything is once more okay. Powerful stuff.

anyone else want to share.

Taking care of 'me' by nurturing myself with loving self talk the way I never received from my parents. I even have a stuffed bear that I curl up with and I Will cry ad needed and use self soothing techniques like saying to myself what I as a parent would say if I had a child in distress, stuff like: it's going to be okay. You're a strong person and you'll be alright. It's okay.... or other specific stuff that might be more like talking myself through it. Then I sometimes add in the shoulder tapping technique from EMDR self help, not the eye tracking but that specific shoulder tapping, and those things help me to process the memories and traumas in a soothing way that serve the dual purpose of healing/soothing me while giving me a feeling of love and care I never had.