lost childhood
For the last three days I have been extremely tired. I just got up from my second nap of the day and its only 6:30 pm. I realized that I am feeling sad. It takes me awhile to recognize feelings sometimes, having spent so much of my life disconnected from them. Part of me thinks I'm just having a big ol pity party, feeling sorry for myself. Another part thinks I may be grieving the loss of my childhood. Probably its both. During this same time I have been reading "Healing the Shame That Binds You", by John Bradshaw. I have known about this book for years and just never got around to reading it. Last weekend I was helping a friend clean out his car and came across it. He lent it to me and here I am. I've only read about fifty pages and it has really affected me. It's like it was written just for me. Its funny how we sometimes seem to be mysteriously guided to the right information at the appropriate time. I have been talking with my therapist and with my mens groups about shame and how it seems to be at the core of most pathology.
I wish so much that I had had a more normal childhood or a more normal family. I would still want the same people in my family, just healthier versions. I really love my family, I even like most of them as individuals. In fact, come to think about it, as individuals they are mostly OK. Its the family unit thats really whacked out. Everybody is very nice, attractive, articulate, and well behaved in public. They are all very functional in the eyes of society, with mutual funds and frequent flier miles. Everybody works very hard to maintain a pleasant outward appearance (and gets in trouble if they don't). I put that in parenthesis because its one of the unspoken and unwritten rules, and there are lots of those. There are two realities, what appears to be and what really is. It is so weird and creepy!
I played the same game with everyone until 7 or 8 years ago. Until I was raped. That was when I started to say, or tried to say: "Hey you guys, there seems to be a discrepancy here. Things don't add up, that's a problem, and we should all join together to fix it. OK?" Well, needless to say, that didn't go over so well and I became the "scapegoat" and "identified patient". Growing up in this environment was so lonely and confusing for a little boy like me. For the longest time I thought there was a big secret that everyone was in on and I would eventually figure it out.
I often feel like my life is a mistake, not that I made a mistake, but that I am a mistake. An aberration that landed in the middle of their so-called perfect world like a ticking bomb, waiting to go off. In a sense, that's exactly what happened. My dad was 52, my mom 45 when I was born and my two much older sisters already grown, one with a child already. I wasn't exactly planned, and I was told my mom is glad she didn't get an abortion. My parents had a bad marriage and fought loudly and constantly. Screaming at each other, going on and on, with my mother ending up sobbing in her bedroom. My mother made me into the husband she always wished she had and I had to take care of her every need. One of my sisters recently told me she and my other sister remember her taking a bath with me at a rented cabin one summer when I was nine. Why would a 54 year old woman take a bath with a nine year old boy when there's no water shortage?
I say lost childhood because I never got to be a kid. I knew I could not cause my mom any problems, or anybody for that matter. I was ultra responsible, well behaved, and miserable. And ashamed about being miserable and such a weird boy/man. And ashamed about being ashamed. I feel uncomfortable around children to this day, not knowing what to say to them or how to act. I generally just avoid them. I have so much sadness in me I could cry. I will never know what its like to be a child. And I know I'm fucked up because of it and I so wish I could have a better life. I am trying so hard, trying to get to the bottom of all this and salvage what I can. Seven years of relentless struggle. When does all this self-examination and "growth" begin to pay off? I know things could be worse, and are worse for many people. I am grateful to have what and who I have in my life. I guess I am grieving for my lost potential, who I could have been. Now I need to let go of some dreams and that is proving to very hard. I just hurt inside. I want the suffering to be over now so I can get on with my life.
Thanks for listening.
Roy
I wish so much that I had had a more normal childhood or a more normal family. I would still want the same people in my family, just healthier versions. I really love my family, I even like most of them as individuals. In fact, come to think about it, as individuals they are mostly OK. Its the family unit thats really whacked out. Everybody is very nice, attractive, articulate, and well behaved in public. They are all very functional in the eyes of society, with mutual funds and frequent flier miles. Everybody works very hard to maintain a pleasant outward appearance (and gets in trouble if they don't). I put that in parenthesis because its one of the unspoken and unwritten rules, and there are lots of those. There are two realities, what appears to be and what really is. It is so weird and creepy!
I played the same game with everyone until 7 or 8 years ago. Until I was raped. That was when I started to say, or tried to say: "Hey you guys, there seems to be a discrepancy here. Things don't add up, that's a problem, and we should all join together to fix it. OK?" Well, needless to say, that didn't go over so well and I became the "scapegoat" and "identified patient". Growing up in this environment was so lonely and confusing for a little boy like me. For the longest time I thought there was a big secret that everyone was in on and I would eventually figure it out.
I often feel like my life is a mistake, not that I made a mistake, but that I am a mistake. An aberration that landed in the middle of their so-called perfect world like a ticking bomb, waiting to go off. In a sense, that's exactly what happened. My dad was 52, my mom 45 when I was born and my two much older sisters already grown, one with a child already. I wasn't exactly planned, and I was told my mom is glad she didn't get an abortion. My parents had a bad marriage and fought loudly and constantly. Screaming at each other, going on and on, with my mother ending up sobbing in her bedroom. My mother made me into the husband she always wished she had and I had to take care of her every need. One of my sisters recently told me she and my other sister remember her taking a bath with me at a rented cabin one summer when I was nine. Why would a 54 year old woman take a bath with a nine year old boy when there's no water shortage?
I say lost childhood because I never got to be a kid. I knew I could not cause my mom any problems, or anybody for that matter. I was ultra responsible, well behaved, and miserable. And ashamed about being miserable and such a weird boy/man. And ashamed about being ashamed. I feel uncomfortable around children to this day, not knowing what to say to them or how to act. I generally just avoid them. I have so much sadness in me I could cry. I will never know what its like to be a child. And I know I'm fucked up because of it and I so wish I could have a better life. I am trying so hard, trying to get to the bottom of all this and salvage what I can. Seven years of relentless struggle. When does all this self-examination and "growth" begin to pay off? I know things could be worse, and are worse for many people. I am grateful to have what and who I have in my life. I guess I am grieving for my lost potential, who I could have been. Now I need to let go of some dreams and that is proving to very hard. I just hurt inside. I want the suffering to be over now so I can get on with my life.
Thanks for listening.
Roy
