A child ignored, lessons learned

We are all products of our perceived experiences. As I've untangled my compromised thought process and inner life I've had to deconstruct how these mental habits and mental constructs were formed. The external stimuli of my childhood was all bad. As I've broken it down the pattern was abandonment and chaos. It led to learned helplessness. When a child isn't taught to participate and have agency in the world around him, he will turn into a broken adult. I have to catalog this because I have to make sure I understand that none of this is my fault. That all I did was respond logically to world that was not kind to me. To a lack of the type of protection everyone assumes all children with living parents have. It's a difficult thing to accept that I got lost in the madness and anger of my parents relationship but it's the truth. It's not blaming to put everything in it's right place. I'm not blaming anyone, I'm saying I will no longer accept responsibility for not parenting myself as a child. I will accept the responsibility of doing the work now, but I will not pretend anymore. I will not accept gaslighting. I know the truth and I will live within it. No matter the cost.

When I was 6 months old my mom let me fall off a changing table and i broke my arm

When I was 5 my dog "ran away" and I never got another one

When I was 6 my dad left and he never came back

When I was 10 my mom remarried and stopped being my mom and became someone's wife

When I was 10 we moved away from my friend and I lost touch

When I was 13 my two new best friends moved away and I lost touch

When I was 15 my house burned down and I lost everything tethering me to my childhood

When I was 15 I lived in a hotel by myself because my dad didn't want me

When I was 16 I quit playing basketball and the little love I knew turned tough

When I was 17 my mom needed a break from me so she instigated a fist fight between me and my stepfather and kicked me out of the newly built house

When I was 17 my father and his wife didn't want me, didn't make a home for me and gave me back as quickly as they could

When I was 18 I begged not to go to college. I said I wasn't ready.

At 18 I was thrown to the wolves when I wasn't equipped because my parents never wanted to be parents alone

At 18-20 I did about as well as a developmentally stunted kid could possibly do on his own and everyone hated me for it

At 20 the first person I loved broke up with me

At 20 my unacknowledged abandonment issues kicked in and I melted down

At 20 I dropped out of college

At 20 instead of comfort my family provided further abuse in the form of a an "intervention"

At 20 I as abandoned again.

At 21 I was supposed to be living at home according to the doctors they told me to trust

At 21 my stepmom didn't want me there so they kicked me out

A couple things have struck me as I have pondered all of this. First there was no family therapy. I went to therapy alone. This was another brick in the wall. It explicitly told me that there was something wrong with me that my family couldn't fix. The accurate reading for me 13 would have been there was something wrong with my family that I couldn't fix. There was nothing I was dealing with outside the dysfunctional and abusive family system in which I was trapped that I was abnormal. In fact, I was responding logically to the external stimuli around me. Did my therapist tell me this? Of course not. The problem with sending children to therapy alone is that the therapist then reports "progress" to the parents. The parents pay the bills. They are the real client here. I believe this is commonly referred to as a conflict of interest. I would even go so far as to say in my context it was further abuse at the hands of a well meaning therapist. That's the thing about psychological abuse, when it's invisible and unaccounted for, normal parenting tactics become abuse. Like if a child has been repeatedly physically abused you wouldn't pretend box with them. You would account for the products of abuse. Psychological abuse is the same way except there is no physical evidence, laws against it or any real way of determining it that doesn't involve the victim having the right words to understand what is happening to them.

The second thing I noticed is the common doubt we all feel about our experiences. We gaslight ourselves. I look at that incomplete list and think I'm being to sensitive. My natural instinct is to judge the child version of me for not handling very adult emotional situations before the age of 8. Its total bullshit. When I look at this list as individual events they seem innocuous. It's like a headline I saw about Trump yesterday. It said something like "Trump lawsuit is a subtle attack on the rule of law". It's an absurd headline. Just like its an absurd thought for me to minimize my experience by missing the forest for the trees. Nothing happens in a vacuum. Whatever I have felt, I have felt. Honestly and earnestly. Just like Trump is attacking the rule of law on every front he can, my family attacked my agency. Through overt and covert means. It's important to trace our thought patterns and see how this has compromised our relationship with ourselves. Then we need to work to change them. I have found that by doing exercises like this to map out our truth we can begin to assemble a new, more accurate narrative for ourselves and eventually keep this type of doubt at bay. Another very valuable tool is vulnerability. We may minimize our experience but others may see the scope and may give us the gift of validation. That gift remains elusive is we remain silent. Find a tribe of people who understand and let them help you grow your confidence.

Brunch time. More to come...