Note: I wrote this post, then per usual, let it sit for a day. I then came back to it and re-read it. I made a couple of grammar and vocabulary changes, but in general, this is the first post that I’ve never made big editing changes to. It says exactly what I was (and am) feeling about my childhood. Writing this was cathartic and, for at least a day, it has helped me feel free.
Before reading further – just a note that I’ve used several swear words and am blaming my parents for their complete and total lack of parenting skills or knowledge. If that will upset you, it’s best to move on to a different website now.
Tonight I’m just pissed off. Angry. Done with all of it.
I identified my childhood trauma about a month ago. It all stems from childhood emotional neglect. In a nutshell, my parents had too much of their own crap to be good parents to me and my siblings. The result is that I have Complex PTSD and attachment/development/relationship trauma. I’m constantly tense and on alert and therefore have no energy to do anything else but to be aware of everything around me. I’m fatigued and I have an overeating habit – which I know is due to “emotional hunger”.
I grieve for the two decades of my young adult life. I grieve for all the accomplishments I could’ve had and the emotional connections I could’ve made. I grieve for the pain I felt when I was supposed to be free, when I was supposed to be an adult.
I grieve for the pain I’ve caused myself and my spouse.
And that grief tonight is full of rage. Rage at my parents for their inability to tackle their own shitty childhoods before they had children of their own. You have no right to become a parent until you understand what unconditional love really is.
Fortunately, there are a lot of resources available for these types of traumas, but unfortunately, most of them just discuss the trauma and the causes of it. I admit that helps at first, but it’s not doing a lot for me in terms of healing and getting past it at the moment. I think there’s an old mental health strategy about writing letters to those who have hurt you, but just burning the letters, not actually sending them.
Well – here goes my letter. I won’t send it but I’ll post it. Since I write this anonymously, that’s as close as I’ll get to “burning it”.
Dear Mom and Dad,
I’m so pissed off at you. How dare you become parents without knowing how to love small children? How dare you keep me at arms length when I was an infant instead of loving me unconditionally? How dare you bring me into a world where you wouldn’t allow me to attach securely as a baby?
Do you not understand that anything other than having a secure attachment in childhood is setting an individual up for constant pain and dysfunction as an adult? Do you not understand that children learn everything from their caretakers? Do you not realize that children are actually really smart and observant and absorb everything from adults around them?
Why the hell couldn’t you pick me up and hold me when I was little? Why did you push me away when I wanted hugs and cuddles? Why didn’t you see that I needed to know I was cared for unconditionally?
And let’s talk about this unconditional thing shall we?! Unconditional love means exactly that – unconditional. It doesn’t mean that you’ll love me only if I take care of the animals outside. It doesn’t mean that I get love only if the dishes are done and the table cleared. Do you understand that thirty-five years later, anytime I hear my husband doing the dishes when I’m in the other room, I feel a jolt of panic? Do you not realize that you conditioned me to expect anger and threats because I didn’t get the dishes done before someone else got to them? That’s because if I didn’t get all my fucking chores done on the list you gave to me (and my siblings) that I was going to get raged at.
Did you not see that I had taken on your childhood trauma and dysfunction as my own? Did you not see that all any of us ever wanted to do was to make you smile, laugh, calm down, be happy? Did you not see that I was turning myself off in order to become the perfect child? Did you not understand that I thought being a perfect child meant you’d be happier? Did you just not get it?
I was programmed by you, from BIRTH, to be who YOU wanted me to be. I never had a chance to understand or develop who I was for myself. I’m middle fucking aged and I have no damned idea of how to be happy, calm, relaxed and it’s your fucking fault! You did this to me. You stole my whole life. How could you do that?
I never wanted to raise animals and live that life. I never wanted to have “barn shoes” I wanted dress shoes. Kids aren’t supposed to have the responsibilities that you heaped onto me (us). We aren’t supposed to be your free labor every day. We’re supposed to be able to develop as children. But not in your eyes. You made me feel like I was put on this planet only to make your life better, to serve you, to help you become who you wanted.
Did you think that just having children was going to take away the pain from your own dysfunctional and abusive childhood? Did you think that we were somehow magically going to make you feel less empty? Well guess what…it didn’t fucking work did it. No – you’re still you and now you’ve robbed me of being me. You only made it worse.
Tonight I don’t give a rat’s ass if I’m blaming you for everything. I don’t care that I wasn’t whipped each day or told how stupid I was. I don’t care if others think that my childhood “wasn’t that bad”. Tonight I’m laying open everything I’m so fucking mad about.
You weren’t supposed to make me feel like a horrible person when I just wanted to run in the race with my older sibling. It’s my earliest memory and that means I was a little kid. It means I was only three or four years old. You yanked at my arm and berated me for something I was so excited to do. You made me feel like I had done something to embarrass YOU. You made me feel like I upset YOU. I was a little kid! I don’t care that I wasn’t supposed to be there. Maybe you should held on to me and watched me so I didn’t go to the start line. Maybe it was your damn fault I was there in the first place because you weren’t paying any attention to me. Maybe you should’ve came after me with love and a smile instead of anger. Did you not already know that I could sense your disappointment in my existence as an infant? Did you not know that my tiny little developing brain was already understanding that I was supposed to make my Mom and Dad happy instead of the other way around?
Why did you make me feel like a burden? Why were you always yelling at me to pick up my clothes? Why did you get mad at me for starting my menstrual cycle? Why didn’t you know how to tell me what was going on when it did? It’s a damn good thing I’m interested in reading, or I’d still not know how my body works. The other day I had to help my niece with her cycle and explained how to use a different type of tampon. You know how I learned? By reading the fucking instructions. Thank god they put those in the box.
Why did we get yelled at every time we didn’t show up on the MINUTE that you expected us to? So what if we were fifteen minutes late. We were teenagers, give us some damn slack!
You wanted the animals. You wanted the rural lifestyle. You wanted to have all that shit on a farm that most people don’t have. I’m supposed to be grateful for all of it now, but at this moment I’m not. I hated it. I hated that it took over everything else that I wanted to do. We never went on a vacation as adolescents that weren’t involved with your god damned animal obsession. Couldn’t you see that I didn’t want it? Couldn’t you tell that I was just going along because by then I had trained myself – with your programming – to be the “good kid” and just do as I was told?
You couldn’t tell that in order to do that, I had to turn off everything inside of me.
I had to go to a funeral for a friend when I was young. My other friend told me later that if she started to cry during it, she knew she could look at me because I’d be “strong”. She knew I wouldn’t be crying. She knew what I didn’t, and that was that I couldn’t fucking feel anything because somewhere along the way, you made me turn off all of my emotions. You must have thought that I had too many feelings. You must have thought I was too sensitive. Well guess what? YOU don’t get to choose the personality that your child has. You don’t get to train the shit out of them to mold them into what you want them to be.
I don’t care about the lifestyle you’ve chosen to live because as far as I can see, it’s limiting and depressing. I don’t want to worry about how I’m going to have to buy milk each week. I don’t want to have to worry about which bills get paid this month and which will have to wait. You call that a lifestyle? I call that torture.
I had one glorious week where I was able to break free from everything, where my fight-flight response turned off. I felt all my muscles relax and they never had before – NEVER. I know now what it feels like for others to live a regular and full life. I know now what it feels like for others to allow things to roll off their backs. But guess what…that feeling went away after a week because my god damned guilt complex that you trained me to have took over again. I had a taste of a life that could be wonderful and you took it from me all over again.
I sit here tonight angry and mad at you, crying while I type this, scared to death that I’ll never have that feeling back again and it’s your fault. You did this.
I never had children and I can see more clearly each day the reasons why. I knew I would never be able to attach to them properly and give them the upbringing that EVERY child deserves. I knew I would be distant. I knew I’d fuck them up the way that you did to me. If I ever am able to get back to that place of calm and peace and unconditional love and I find that I’m feeling incredible pain over not having children of my own, I’ll never forgive you for it because now it’s too late for us. I will not subject a child to having elderly parents when they area only 20 years old.
There are so many incidents and so many little things you did that were so wrong. The judgmental comments about other people’s lives. The jealous ways you talked about their cars and houses. The way you made it sound like having those things was equivalent to being a terrible, selfish and evil person. Well guess what? Now I have those things because that’s was a majority of regular, good, people have in this country. And I still feel guilty for it because of you.
And while we’re on evil, let’s talk about religion. I hated church, everything about it. I hated going. I hated the stupid messages by the narcissistic minister. I hated the way that I was supposed to put all my faith into a fictional entity and somehow it meant life was going to be alright. Well, it wasn’t. I hated that you forced every single one of your beliefs onto me instead of talking to me about options. I hated it.
There was nothing wrong with allowing us to watch Scooby-Doo after school. An hour of time wouldn’t have changed anything major in your world, but that hour of time could’ve changed my whole life if it meant that I was allowed to watch it without living in fear of being yelled at by either of you.
Do you not understand that to children, the intensity of rage in your voice, the angry way you’d grab us and push us out the door was the equivalent to telling us that we were about to be killed? Did you not grasp that our child brains were screaming danger? How could you not see the sheer terror on our faces when you did that? How could you ignore our crying or our fearful eyes? How could you not see that we were cowering in the corner trying to make it all stop? How do you not understand that yelling at us for not working hard enough is child abuse?
How could you. Don’t ever question why I don’t call or come running to your aid any longer. You stole my life and I want nothing to do with yours.
