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End of Year Cleanup and Cleanout

SugarshackSenior Contributor28 Dec 2025, 11:19 pm AEDT

End of Year Cleanup and Cleanout

Hello Sane Forum friends,

As Christmas is fairly quiet in my life but I used to love it so much, the madness of family etc which has all gone now - I decided to spend the Christmas days off cleaning up my life and looking at old photos.

It was interesting to me how with every year of being trauma informed, trauma recovered and now caring for myself as #1 priority after being trained into being a voiceless, needless people pleaser, I can see how the layers of my life unfolded with more clarity. Where I had a lot of trauma jumbling up my memory and meanings of things, by looking at the photos I can more clearly see my own struggle against life and it is easier for me to be self compassionate, also to have understanding of others involved in the dramas of the past as the pictures reveal all the things and people I cared about and it also reveals they never cared about me.

But where I look their abuse personally I can see looking back that it was very angry and frustrated, limited people tearing me down and holding me back. Where I was told I was wrong/selfish/garbage etc I can see that it's the projections of angry, frustrated and limited people throwing their self hatred against me.

Nothing will get the time of my life back but it is easier to look at that person in the photos, and feel that I did nothing wrong in life to "deserve" various misfortunes but I was really misguided and led astray by a family who really hated me, attacked me and robbed me of opportunities. I have come a long way from some of the times of some photos and worked hard to gain not just physical but psychological independence from a very limiting family system.

The moral of the story here is family violence is a terrible thing that takes away from people and toughness or "resilience" is not a life skill it's just a symptom of being abused or having to fight too hard in life for basic survival. In the new year I will also be taking a lot of physical items to a local charity as I have found it very satisfying to reduce clutter and create space by removing items which don't have an immediate use. It is a step forward in healing to 'reduce the burden' of items and move forward into living in the moment rather than having the future tied up with chores, jobs and tasks related to various items and hobbies etc.

4 replies

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In response to: End of Year Cleanup and Cleanout

AlwaysMyselfSenior Contributor29 Dec 2025, 8:26 pm AEDT

Re: End of Year Cleanup and Cleanout

@Sugarshack - amazing! 🥰😍. It sounds like you have come a long way in being able to recognise and believe/know/accept that people acted from their own problems/hang-ups and NOT because you "deserved" it. This is so encouraging to hear!! Thank you for sharing! Your post is very insightful and lifting to read.

I want to "support" it, but my button is being tempermental. 👍👍 <-- support!

In response to: Re: End of Year Cleanup and Cleanout

SugarshackSenior Contributor30 Dec 2025, 10:07 am AEDT

Re: End of Year Cleanup and Cleanout

Thankyou @AlwaysMyself my support button broke for your post, too.

You are right yes I am having a growing understanding of "the situation" and as the years go by I can more and more understand and accept the story of how my life turned out like it did. I would say the hardest part has been letting go of BLAME for the situation or, in case of childhood neglect and abuse letting go of the idea of "how things should have been" compared to "how things were" and the unfolding of deep unfairness and unfathomable alliances within my family.

And i think all the time "life is about SURVIVAL" and if I think of my parents each trying to survive against bitter odds as very limited people, it all makes a lot more sense, and I try to process the grief properly so it doesn't affect the rest of my life.

In response to: Re: End of Year Cleanup and Cleanout

AlwaysMyselfSenior Contributor30 Dec 2025, 10:13 am AEDT

Re: End of Year Cleanup and Cleanout

Huzzah my support button is currently working this morning!

That is a really good ability to perceive you have @Sugarshack . That skill is a big strength. Even when one can come to accept they didnt *deserve it*, the *blame* as you note can overwhelm and run a persons life and dwell trapped in a negative cage of our own making.

I found that the ability to forgive (not forget or excuse, just forgive) enabled me to not worry about "blame" either, and to step out from that cage i put myself in. I can still hold them responsible for their actions, but i can also now choose how I respond and move on *despite* what happened in the past. I don't have to carry it with me, except for the useful things i have learned (lived experience benefits).

In response to: Re: End of Year Cleanup and Cleanout

SugarshackSenior Contributor30 Dec 2025, 12:05 pm AEDT

Re: End of Year Cleanup and Cleanout

Thankyou for your reply as I can see with another stroke of clarity, that "moving on" is what matters. I have been doing, talk therapy and somatic therapy and, clearing up and cleaning out, an each style has been of value for "moving on" and "becoming unstuck" emotionally. And I have hatred doing the work, hated paying for it, it has been very painful to make realisations and grieve for myself but it is very powerful to actually move forward in life. And that's where I can look to my mother's life and think, she is stuck into very rigid patterns which have informed all of her life and that has informed all of my life. By separating myself from the conflict, truly separating by way of growing and moving forward it is so painful but also giving a lot of clarity and insight which I never had before.

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