Square Peg in a Round Hole - It Doesn't Fit

Square Peg in a Round Hole - It Doesn't Fit
R

relaxingpiano

Registrant
I often thought that I was adopted growing up. Even though I see my actual birth certificate and I have a lot of physical features that correlate to my family, I couldn't always help but wonder if I was switched at birth or adopted. Of course I doubt I was - in all reality. But that doesn't stop me from feeling some of the things that I do.

I don't understand how I could be born into such a family as I did and come out as sensitive and caring as I have. And yet as sensitive and caring as I am, the anger and pain lurks below the surface. It boggles my mind that I didn't turn into a person that society would throw to the wayside. But I digress.

In 1991, I ended up getting a very nasty letter from my mom (written of course to explain how I had hurt my father and her of course as a result). My mother always had to write what my father was feeling because he didnt' know what he was feeling and he was too stupid to write a complete sentance (no joke on that either). All I had written to them was that there were some hurts we needed to work through and some issues. It wasn't a threatening letter or a hurtful one. It was one saying we needed to deal with these issues. And so that year instead of getting a birthday card on my birthday like every other birthday, I got a letter about two weeks later ripping me to shreds and I mean, ripping me to shreds. If it had been a knife, I would have been carved into a million pieces. I cried for days after that and almost killed myself. If it wouldn't have been for a friend spending the weekend with me and letting me cry my eyes out, I wouldn't be here today.

But not long after that, I had so many anxiety attacks just going to get the mail from my mail box thinking there would be more of these letters. And there were. They didn't stop. Finally I made an agreement with my friend that any letters I would give to him and if there was anything I needed to know, he would tell me. He constantly told me there was nothing I needed to hear. And so at that point, I stopped all contact with my family. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life and it hurt so deeply especially with my mom. My father and older brother, I could have cared less about and still feel that way about them. As far as I'm concerned they can rot in hell for all I care.

For the lonest time, even though I knew I had to cut off all contact with my family, it felt like someone had ripped a big hole out of my body, my life and my spirit. It was a gapping hole that nothing could fill. Yes, holidays would come around and maybe someone was nice enough to invite me over and include me but even though I was grateful, it just wasn't the same. Nothing could replace what I lost. I struggled and struggled with this and fought through every holiday, every remembrance of family and every question that people always asked about my family. Those questions, remembrances hurt like HELL!

Fast forward until today. Yes, I'm creating a life with Jeff and his family has accepted me as much as they can. And Yes, I've got some pretty close friends. All of that is great but I still don't have the biological thread that ties me to the beginning of my life. The pain has lessened over the years but it is still there. The wondering about why in the HELL I had to go through all of this still runs rampant through my mind. And I'm continually left too look from the outside in at families, holidays, remembrances, and memories... only to come up on the short end of the stick.

For as much healing as I've done, I still don't feel like I really belong anywhere. I feel like a square peg trying to be jammed into a round hole and as hard as you try to jam it in, the only way the square peg is going to get through the round hole is by breaking one of the two. Some days I feel pretty positive and see how far I have come and then some days I feel like a fucked up piece of shit in society just like my father said I was. Some days, I get so damn tired of the struggle through all of this and wonder how if there is some supreme being out there...just how in the hell this could be part of any creation.

And I know I can rant and rave all day long and cry a million tears. I can scream at the moon but what does it get me. Where's the peace? Where's the rest? Where's the healing?

I so badly want to be that little boy that my mother could have taken in her arms and protected me from the evil monster, letting me know she loved me. And yet.. I was that little boy, but she wasn't able to do that.

So I go on day by day, step by step trying to find my way through what was heaped upon me at birth. The answers seem often to hide from me, but the pain is always present. I'm strong enough to keep fighting and I have the courage to keep going but sometimes having the strength to see the vision of what's ahead is the hardest part.

And yet, feeling like a square peg in the world going into a round hole...just doesn't feel good at all. But that's where life has taken me to this point. How I get from this step to the next, I have no clue. And if anyone thinks that abusing a child for one moment of their life doesn't hurt that child forever, let them come talk to me!

Anyway, that's some of the stuff that swirls around in my mind and well, I just had to get it out. Some days, it is more than my mind can hold.

Don
 
Don,

Your life story reminds so much of mine as I can relate to this feeling of having unworthy parents who had no clue about parenting, and became my first teachers subsequently, but that is long story.

Well I had been avoiding them for so long emotionally and physically but still it didnt work, I was still vulnerable to their 'attacks'. So I realised that a) I was giving them too much importance, yes they are my parents, but only in this lifetime, my original or shall I say my eternal parents have been God and Divine mother. Now they are my first family and the friends, I have chosen to make my family.

Having done that I started looking my parents devoid of their roles but as human beings who couldn't accomplish what they had tried to achieve as parents, their imperfections have some how turned into my strengths.

The next important part of the journey was triggered off by the revelation that we as soul get to choose our families. Once that sunk in, I became searching for the reason I so.

The results were startling as I found that all the good traits that I have inculcated in myself I come in becuase I have experinced their absence as a child.

Next I began to see how many traits have I inherited directly from them, as in my anger I had disconnected from them. Some traits were dormant in them but flourished in me, I am afterall a creation of their genes and my karma.

Now my task is to recreate my self out of my choice, by turning their weaknesses into my strengths.

I started searching for their life story what made them so incapable of loving themselves, as well as me.

Now having been thru all that I could forgive them, but that didnt mean they became any easy, for they were just the same, and difficlt as always, the only difference was that I was no longer giving them so much importance, I knew them so I knew exactly why they are saying or doing what they did, that freed me from their clutches as now I was responding to them rather than shutting down or shivering.

Today I know who I am and so do they, they respect me and know where do I draw a line.
 
Don, i feel for you, and am sorry your family doesnt recognize your gifts. i often feel like the outsider with my family, so your post touched me. i havent gone as far as to break off all contact, but we dont have much. it seems you have put yourself into your new family, as i have done. i dont know how to make your biological family want you in thier lives. heck, i can't pull that one off in my own life, but i just keep reminding myself that i have a family, my family. you have Jeff, and you are a member of that family now. maybe one day your real family will realize that there is a piece missing as long as you arent in the picture. i dont know. i wish you all the peace and happiness in the world, and feel your pain.

Jeff
 
Don, you sound so similar to me any many ways also. I am amazed (and so is my wife) that I turned out the way I did. Id consider I am gentle, quiet, understanding, caring and sensitive. That might sound egotistical to some for me to say that about myself but its a far better record to be playing rather than the one I used to play in my own head of how useless bad and no good for anything I was.

Although not alienated from my parents, I find it very distressful to be around them. They are simply horrible to each other. My perp brother well, I havent had any contact with him for over 7 years I guess. No love loss there!

Ive not had the hate letters from anybody and Im sad to hear that you have. I can only imagine how that must feel. It does sound like there is some level of caring and connection in your life now and thats a great thing. Im happy for you.

I make myself content with my own family (my wife and I and our dogs) plus our friends. They are my circle of accepting people who love me and I them. You and I may have slim pickings compared to others but I cant change them and I wont let them rob me of the happiness and connectedness that I have even if they are not as complete or as extensive as I might like them to be. Ill take what Ive got and cherish it.

Take care Don.
 
Don,

It's a natural inclination to look to our blood family as our safest and most reliable source of protection and support, and of course that's how it should be. Unfortunately it just isn't that way in many cases.

That brings me to a key point that Grunty makes:

I make myself content with my own family (my wife and I and our dogs) plus our friends. They are my circle of accepting people who love me and I them.
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The idea of "family" means not just blood, but respect, love, trust and safety. If there are family members who are a dead loss or positively toxic in these areas, we have every right to exclude them from our safe inner circle. I have many blood family members whom I consider to be safe and part of my inner circle, but others I would never trust not in a thousand years. I don't like that fact, but there it is. I simply can't allow myself to be battered by their selfishness and idiocy. I don't spurn them or devote anger or resentment to them; I just have zero expectations and make zero effort of my own anymore. On the other hand, I have three people who are not blood relatives but they are "family" all the same.

I guess my point would be that if bad luck deals us a crap hand where family is concerned, we aren't stuck with that. We can keep searching for safe people until we find the ones we need.

Much love,
Larry
 
I never got along with my parents because they are not nice people to each other nor to us, except to the outside world which sees them as good, respectable citizens. That is when I decided that I dont want to become just 'good and respectable' citizen I want to become me.

They used to get some feeling of control in thier chaotic lives, and stepped on us to build thier fragile self esteem. When they felt angry or disturbed they vented it on us.

So we also learned unhealthy way of venting anger.

So now I have decided I no longer want to become like them at their age, sad, unhappy and unhealthy human beings, I want to do better.

They wanted to turn us a victim of their dreams, their vanity. I am glad I failed them completely as I did exactly the opposite to what they expected me to.

Sadly my elder brother succumbed to their pressures, he is far more gullible than I am, though I too believe when they said you are worthless. Actually it was just a reflection of thier self worth.

my brother did everything right, and still tries to please them and doesn't even know what has happened to him, why he cant express and why the only emotion he can feel is anger, I think if not for my abuse I also would have not dealt with my pain and shhut it in, because mine was too great to shut in, at least for long, so I could vent it all out. and be free of the influence they set foot in my life.

......
But I do get along with other people, relatives and friends. But there is something about blood relatiionships that makes us feel secure, you know they are forever, permanent you dont have worry about pleasing them or being someone else. That is the comfort we all want in our relationships, unconditional love and acceptance to who we are. It is sad that growing we never found it, and I still keep on looking for it.

Growing up I so much wanted someone to come over and adopt me, take me under their wings, I would dream of living some where else, in some nic house with happy people and loving parents, my parents hated when I spent so much time at neighbours who loved to pamper me.

But then one of best thing about your family is that you know them inside out, no surprises now, and that is safe for me, you know what is coming... and no matter how much you might hate them, they still remain your family and by the way that includes my parents.

But then again, we should what makes us happy.
 
thank you to everyone who responded. I just don't have the strength to respond on this topic any more than this right now. It's kicking my butt pretty hard. I'm seeing a energy healer on Saturday that hopefully will help me move past what I'm up against. Hard to explain but just wanted to say thank you for the comments. It helps so much.

Don
 
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