Running Without Legs

The last three plus years have been quite a process. A journey of immense joy and unspeakable pain. I've paid a heavy price to claim my self and learn to love it exactly as it is. To do what I had to do to be a fully formed human being. In that spirit, I have allowed my thoughts and feelings to spew forth like Old Faithful. Unedited. Without judgement. Unconcerned with the thoughts and complaints of others. It was needed. I had a lot of correcting of the record to do. My story had been stolen and I needed to say what I needed to say to get it back. It's mine and I want it. So much of what I've had to bring myself to understand is that for me there will never be closure. The process I began only ends upon my death, and even then I'm not so sure it's over. I suspect it's like that for everyone, but I can only speak for myself and hope that I'm not the only one who feels like I feel, think like I think and has the experiences I have had. I don't think anyone is exactly the same. We are all a product of all the external stimuli and internal interpretations of it that we experience in our lives. No two snowflakes are the same. But we overlap in major ways. The circle of vulnerability begins with a willingness to speak without candidly and directly about our experience as we understand it to people able to listen. That last part is key.

A very crucial lesson to absorb is that we need to defiantly protect out selves. If we go to a well ten times and ten times we are given poison water, we must accept that the well is poisoned. Even if its our favorite well and we feel connected to it, we may even call it family, if we keep drinking from it, we will die. We have to be brave enough to see clearly. We must find the nourishment we need and desire and leave the poison alone.

My father has dominated the last three years as he has dominated my life. From a silent throne with no contact. His presence in my life knew no equal. I understand now that's what a narcissist does. Look at all the problems facing the country. The world. And what is the conversation ALWAYS about? Donald Fucking Trump. Imagine that in a family system. Imagine a child's problems, the very idea of being parented, being devoured by a father's ego and need to dominate everyone unlucky enough to have to interact with him. But unlike trump he hides in a harmless mask. A yoga teacher. A meditation teacher. A new age mogul. A man incapable of thinking of anyone but himself. It was confusing as fuck.

Imagine a man like that shaping a child's mind. What that mind looks like in adulthood when that mind is expected to all of sudden address their own needs that they've never been trained to even acknowledge let alone meet successfully in this cruel world. There can be nothing but the narcissist's wants and needs. The child is taught to be a fully formed and independent life form. The child is taught to be a physical and emotional parasite and at least for me, then blamed for the results of what he was directly taught.

Donald Trump's neglect of the american people during a pandemic seems impossible. Like there has to be some other reason. He has to be doing something behind the scenes. He is not. History will show we did not have an actual president. Not if we agree a president by definition performs certain duties and acts in a certain way and not just that he is elected and called president. Likewise, a father by cultural definition is more than a sperm donor. History also shows I didn't have an actual father.

My father, as all narcissists do, put himself front and center in my life. In my mind. In my very soul. He injected his needs in the place of mine in my own mind and inner structure. I know now that was not my fault. It was abuse. I also know few people can truly comprehend the type of damage this does. If you've never struggled in this way, you most likely live in ignorance of most of the gifts even serviceable parenting absent a profound personality disorder has given you. I wasn't so lucky. His behavior as a parent was theft of something no human being should steal from another human being. When a father does it to a son there is no punishment to severe for the father. To deny a child his self is to commit the worst type of murder. I understand what he's done. I know what he took from me and I have it back. Fuck him.

One day he will come crawling back to me begging forgiveness. And I will decide what is in my heart at that moment and at no time before. I am done with him as much as I will ever be. I won't erase him or forget him or pretend he is not part of me. I accept everything that has happened. My power rests in the truth I have made real. The work I have done. The pain I have endured. He is a character in my story. A large one, but that's it. He chose not to participate and surrendered his characterization to my memory. I speak only truth as I know it and that's enough to damn him.

His role in the genesis of my life is over. I have done the hardest thing life will ask me to do. Overcome his abuse, understand what's been done and pay the cost to be free. Millions of dollars, the idea of a family of origin, and whatever the word legacy means. I am a self made man in the realest sense of the term and my power will lead me to great heights in the second half of my life. I believe that. My karmic mission in this lifetime was to overcome him and abandon money and materialism as the driving factor or my existence. In the world we live in and given the situation of my life that was a near impossible task.

And I fucking did it.

One of the many facts that would seem almost impossible given the other circumstances of my life I am basically self educated as well. That's not to say I didn't have wonderful teachers and that school played no role in my education. That's dumb. Of course I did and of course it did. What it means is that I understand trauma now. I accept I had CPTSD from the age of 6 or 7 on. That understanding and acceptance leads to the only conclusion possible. I was incapable of studying. Its funny I love reading so much. I retain very little. When I read my favorite books over its like a new book. I couldn't study. I graduated college. Think about that. Toss in ADHD, OCD and all the other dysfunctions that were born out of my parental abuse and it's clear as a report card. I never studied. I do not have a C brain. I fought and clawed through unheard of mental illness to survive and do things that only made my family call me a failure when I've overcome more than all of them put together and I mean that. I'll discuss it too. I have more strength than they are capable of even comprehending. One day they will understand.

My family's acceptance of all my struggles as moral or intellectual failing on my part and not the obvious byproduct of my family situation is unforgivable. Every therapist I've seen with a PhD, and there have been many of them, describes me as "undereducated" due to trauma. My family, everyone, just says I was a bad student. They said it then, they say it now. It hurts even more now since I understand how much their confused and ignorant slander has damaged my life. They may not have had the information in real time, but they have access to it now. They could choose to reject the gaslighting, but it's easier for everyone but me to choose not to.

So my thoughts have moved. My healing has progressed. The monster has been slain. The next task is to assess the collateral damage. The monster himself can only do so much physical damage himself. That's the easy part to heal. The hard part is the way the abuse spreads like a wave of fire from a nuclear blast. It incinerates but it also infects. It leaves pain and suffering in its wake that comes in generational waves and overwhelms whole families.

I find myself wrestling with the people who were there. Grappling with the fact that its really complicated and has brought me to some really unfortunate but necessary places. Thinking mainly about my mother and her family. I say her family on purpose. They are hers. That's not a knock. It's just a fact. Before I start to write more about this I want to make some things clear to them. I hope they read everything I write, but I really hope they read this stuff. It comes from a place of love and understanding and acceptance. The answers I sought and found were not the answers I had hoped they'd be. That brings me sadness but the anger I feel is less at people and more at the situation. It was unlucky for me at every turn.

I want to be crystal clear that I love my extended family. l always will. I have no insurmountable issues with anyone. But I am a person and I have had a unique experience and they have not respected me as such. And made room for my needs. Not even close. They furthered the abuse. It was not necessarily intentional but given the situation it absolutely destroyed my ability to overcome my father and my birth family's emotional danger. Whatever comes out is me trying to make sense of a lot of very damaging behavior that went on for decades. Mostly unintentional and the way they treated everyone, the behavior still did immeasurable damage. No one acknowledged my situation. My trauma. Quite the opposite. They denied it. When I tried to express it I was told I should feel some other way. But I didn't feel any other way. I felt exactly as I felt. Over and over I was told I didn't get to feel the way I felt and eventually it became a massive mental health problem. That I was then also blamed for and not helped with at all. Ever. Even now.

So to tell the truth for me is what I have to do for myself. No one wanted to hear it or participate in my healing or even tell me I wasn't crazy. They told me I was. I have to establish what happened with them even more so than with my dad because I spent 95% of my time with my mom. They claim I am part of their family and I just don't see the evidence of their behavior matching that word. I need to explore it and make peace with it. I've pretty much done that so this is as much for them as it is for me. My uncle told me I needed to explain myself, I think the opposite, but the stuff I write will serve that purpose. I will explain in great detail what my experience was like now and back then. I will allow them to make up their own minds about how they feel about me. I will make them know me. As I have always been. I have no idea where it will lead. I've had a lot of ideas bouncing around my head. A lot of defiance of the narrative that's been slanderously attached to my name and I'm genuinely happy to move forward with my healing and quest for self truth.

The truest metaphor I can come up with as it relates to my family is one of a marathon runner who's never been taught how to walk and has broken legs. That was me. My family blamed me for not being able to run a marathon without ever acknowledging the original problems. It was easier to pretend I just didn't want to run or tell me I was bad at running. Anything to avoid the hard work of teaching me to walk and healing my legs. That's not my fault. It never was.