Many of us are having problems being in healthy loving relationships with someone else - primarily because of the relationship that we are in with ourselves. It's not them ... it's us.
Many of us are blinded by childhood pains, feelings of rejection, and abandonment. We've experienced childhood traumas brought on by abuses, which spurred feelings of guilt, shame, and fear. We hold on to these feelings. Many of them have become our swords, our armor, our shields. We leave the nest that our caregivers provided unprepared, dragging with us all of those unresolved emotions. With all of that stuff, we go into the world to deal with other people's fuckedupness through the lenses of our own.
Some of us were molested by a neighborhood friend, as in the case of several people I've met. Molested by the boy next door, the girl around the corner. Molestations were committed under the guise that you were playing house ... but you were ... NOT THE FATHER. Others had brothers who were molesting them, or their uncle, their father. Others even their aunt or sister molested them, touched them inappropriately. Hell, sometimes even the freakin babysitter.
Maybe you're one whose mother or father was an alcoholic or on heavy drugs and all the shit that came with it. The beatings, the verbal abuse, no food, heat or water. Maybe you had to become the adult and take care of your parents and your siblings because your parents couldn't ... or wouldn't.
Some of us are among the fortunate and none of this vile shit happened, but maybe your father or mother died when you were young. My mother's mother died when my mother was nine. It was an awful experience for her. I witnessed how it affected my mother throughout the years. How alone and unprotected she felt. How angry she was. How hard she had become, even to us, her children.
We became hard too. Talk about generational curses. Anyway, I digress.
All of these events have an effect on our world view, on how we self-interpret, how we see the world and our place in it. We lose the quality of not knowing about the bad things in life. We lose our innocence. No longer could we be children. No longer could we be in the experience of childhood, fun, games, softly being loved, protected or feeling safe.
Allow me to tell you a story, it's bit long but hang in there:
At the age of 14 I was raped as so many other women and girls have been and continue to be. I will spare you the details, save to say that when he was done with me, I went out into the night walking in the direction of home. I don't know what time it was, in the military we would call it o-dark-thirty. There were no cars on the street. I remember the stillness of the night, the quiet, and the wetness. I remember that something was very wrong. Why was I wetting myself I wondered. I was too old to be wetting myself. Peeing on myself at 14. I walked without knowing, putting one foot in front of the other. I walked. Feeling wrong. Feeling displaced. Feeling the difference, the wrong between my legs. Not understanding but knowing that something had changed. Something had happened that would make me different.
When I got home, I entered the darkness of the house and went straight to the bathroom. I grabbed momma's hand mirror and sat on the toilet. It was then that the beginning of my identity began. My innocence was forever lost in the bloody mess of the torn flesh that I stared at in that mirror. The me that I was when I woke up that day, the me that was the shy, innocent, nerdy, tomboy was gone. She, that little girl, that little me went into hiding because it was too much for a child to bare. To see herself torn that way. That me began to step backward into that dark hidden place where innocence goes when it's afraid. I cried - not sure if it was because of the pain that was surging through my little girl body, or if I cried for the loss of me. Somehow, something in me knew, that I was splintering. And that ... was just the beginning.
Within a few months, one of my mother's boyfriends, Mr. Will (short for William I suppose) tried to touch me. I pushed him away. Hard. He threatened to come to my bedroom that night. He whispered that If I said anything, if I told my mother, he would tell her that I had a little boyfriend. I told him with as much fierceness as I could muster, if you come to my room ... I will kill you! I remember him recoiling. I took a knife to bed that night. I laid awake to kill him ... but he never came. That decision however, that drive, that need to protect myself was the force that slammed me into the darker rooms of my innocence.
What kept me there was when I told my mother what Mr. Will had done, that he tried to touch me. Her response was ... "what did you do?!" I was stunned! What did I do as in, what did I do to entice him? What did I do ... to make him want to touch me, to come to my room? I was confused. I knew then that as much as I wanted to tell my mother about being raped I couldn't, because I must have been the reason it happened. I caused it to happen. I was ashamed of whatever I did ... to cause this. She was ashamed of me. I made my mother not like me. I had done something wrong ... again. So, I never told her. I walked away unworthy of my mother's love.
The innocent 14-year-old was forever gone. In her place rose a warrior. I put on my armor, picked up my shield and my sword. I was getting ready for the world. There was no one there to protect me. I carried the residue of this experience into every relationship that I had with men for many years. The warrior showed up with a series of underlying beliefs. My armor was cast in iron - forged in the fires of my mother's rejection, her dislike of me, her abandonment, her choice of him and not me. Not being validated, believing that I was worthless, unlovable, invisible, usable was my shield.
My sword was poisoned with, you can't love me, and I won't love you. You don't see me, and I don't see you. I will hurt you before you hurt me. Or ... I'll be with you for a price. In any event no man was ever going to get close enough to me to use me. That went on for years, literally most of my adult life ... unresolved. Unbeknownst to any man I was with ... unbeknownst even to me. I grieved. I cried deep inside for my little me and I kept her safe.
Feeling unworthy, I did everything I could to buy my mother's love, but nothing worked. Nothing. And then ... I grew the fuck up. I didn't need my mother's love. I became worthy in my own right. As life would have it, without judgment, guilt or shame, I went back to get that 14-year-old little girl. I had to take myself back to that time in my life and own it ... with all that I had become. I owned ... that it happened. I didn't cause it. I didn't lie to myself about it or create a reason for it. There is a myriad of reasons why it happened and none of them matters to the amazingly gifted woman that I've become through it all.
Now I get to tell that experience from a place of responsible. Not responsible for what happened or how it happened, but from a place of ... NOW WHAT? A place of responsible, that begins with acknowledging that it's impossible to change yesterday, whatever happened ... happened. We will not go through this life unscathed. We cannot go through this life without attached experiences. They are what makes us ... us. From a place of responsible, our experiences become our stories, but they are not us. We are the authors of those stories, and they are a part of the evolution of who we are.
There are many stories that we can tell, stories about what has happened in our lives. We can tell them from a painful place or chose to own the story and tell it in such a way that we become responsible for the now what? This is a position of empowerment. From here you are no longer a prisoner to the past. From here you get to move on to a healthy, happy, loving relationship with yourself which ultimately spreads to those you love ... now ... today. Every significant emotional event in your life has a story that leaves some emotional residue. Don't lie in the judgement of it. Choose to own the story so that you can love yourself deeply and unconditionally. Be responsible for the now what?
In closing, when I think of the little 14-year-old me, I smile at her cute little brown innocent self. She is still so innocent. I hug her and she knows now that she is loved, unconditionally. She knows she didn't cause it. She knows that shit happens. She knows that it's all a part of living in this life. She smiles back and it feels good.
Disclaimer
I am a certified life and grief coach. I am NOT a professional counselor, a therapist nor a mental health practitioner. I do not imply, infer, or attempt to fix, heal, or cure grief. Some conditions may require consultation and referral from/to a licensed physician or mental health professional. If you are experiencing serious suicidal thoughts that you cannot control, please call 911 or 988 for the National Suicide Prevention Hotline.
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