CW neglect, trauma

Lying down on the cold floor, hugging a pillow. I'm often left alone when I was younger. I come from a household that was neglectful and absent. I wouldn't know how to emotionally regulate how I feel and would not know how to express outbursts. I was a quiet child. I would often speak to my stuffed toys or my favorite pillow for comfort, like a small child I would crumple into myself becoming smaller. It made noiseless crying easier. As I've become older, I admit I still have trouble nestling myself into uncomfortable tears or waves of emotions. But every time I do find myself cowering on the floor against a wall or a couch like seeking comfort from that walled surface, as if asking for these walls to hug me. I taught myself this gesture, a part of me didn't want to be discovered like a stone forgotten in the dark. It makes me feel my belly better actually and digging my face in a pillow is soothing, it makes crying easier or biting to suffocate the noise easier. In this video I am stroking the pillow or pressing my weight against it, sometimes I don't know if the pillow is comforting me or the pillow is the baby that is myself that is my younger self that I am comforting. I don't think it matters which is which, they seem the same to me. Documenting and recording this in my family's house in the time of a pandemic, going home after a long time away, and still finding it empty of forgiveness and change I find myself acknowledging more of my childhood sadnesses if I could coin a new word. I really have come to know that I've numbed myself so much to survive when i was younger such that renewing a sensitivity to pain is an act of care, like regaining muscles, regaining stiffness, deadened old life. Or parts of me. Also hugs is such a primary gesture to me. It's my profile picture for gmail. I'm a partner dancer and my favorite soothing dance is kizomba which is like holding a baby in a hug. I think through a lot of my projects lying down in conversation with myself, often hugging a pillow. People who are my friends know that to me, lying down is an active position. Almost reminiscent of binukots (shuttered princesses often relegated to the bed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binukot ) or women with foot binds, a part of me knows that even in stretches of time where I felt cocooned or trapped, I was and am still breathing and alive. I am swaddled, I am hugging,I am caring for myself even if no one can tell or is looking. I still hug pretty gently and can hug in prolonged manners. I still hug myself, I enjoy hugging myself. This is my primary gesture of care.