Lost Childhood, Lost Family
My name is Jeff. I am a thirty year old man, married, a baby on the way. I am currently in the process of grieving what happened in my home as a child. Not death, but certainly painful and broken relationships, which left me carrying a heavy burden of pain and sadness that only now have I begun to grieve.
My dad was an alcoholic and the child of an abusive father. As a kid he never spoke to me. He never tocuhed me. He never played with me. He always said no when I would ask him to play. He was almost always gone. I wanted him to love me so badly. I wanted him to acknowledge me, to tell me I was special. I wanted his blessing on my life. But he didn't bless me, and, as a very sensitive kid, that hurt me deeply. If my father doesn't love me, then there must be something wrong with me. What else could a little kid think? I learned to feel worthless, because he didn't make me feel worthy of his love.
My mom, on the other hand, had a horrible anger problem. She was very involved in my life, but she was controlling and had a sort fuse. She would shout, often, and, again, sensitive as I was, I lived in fear of her. All I wanted was her to be gentle with me. I wanted the kind of motherly love that makes a kid feel safe, but her anger and her unpredictability left me always afraid, always watchful, trying to protect myself. Her anger only added to my feeling of worthlessness. If I were worthy, then wouldn't she be gentle with me?
Now, at thirty, after dealing for the past few years with a great deal of anxiety, I have gotten to the pain and loss that I couldn't deal with as a child. I am grieving, and in that grief, I feel anger at my parents for letting me wither every single day of my life as a kid, for the way they put their own problems ahead of me and the love I needed. I vent my anger, hit my pillow with a fist and say the things to my parents that I need to say, and then I weep, and it feels good to cry over the ways things were, to finally let go of the pain.
But there is still so much more inside of me, and I get impatient. I don't want to carry these things anymore. I don't want to be sad any longer. And sometimes I push myself too hard to grieve faster. Sometimes I am not gentle with myself in the same ways that my parents were not gentle with me.
Anyway, I am in process. I will survive. I will one day soon, finally, for the first time in my whole life, be free from this pain and sadness. It is such a beautiful thing to think of, almost to good to be true, because I've never known life without my past weighing down on me. I look forward to it with great relish!
