At times, I’ve felt like a mistake and a failure. I’ve ruminated on those thoughts. They began in childhood, and they kept me stuck. I couldn’t do the things I needed to do in life so I could continue to grow and move on.
As any child, I did not have control over my life circumstances. Thus, I adapted as best I could. I was terrified of those around me who put me down and gave me no support and those who bullied me. In order to survive, I had to bow to others and go along with how they treated me. I could not fight back. Even if I did, they would not back off. I had to let them have their way. I needed to please them. And so, I went through much mental anguish and emotional distress. The effects of the traumatic childhood I went through have been an albatross I’ve carried on my back for way too long.
Conditioning and training received as a child stays with that person. And if one’s circumstances in childhood are favorable, one tends to have more or less a happy adulthood. But if the circumstances of one’s childhood are not so favorable and even traumatic, one’s adult life can be ruled by these events in a negative way unless there is intervention. With therapy started early in life, one can rebound. Started in adulthood, it is harder for a person to change, at least it has been for me.
Two things tied me to my mother in distinct ways for a long time. The fear she felt and communicated to me and her emotional unavailability. These two things stopped me from leading a more satisfying life. What I did accomplish, I did so furtively because that was how I got along as a child and which then became the pattern for my adult years. I decry that I was not allowed to be me. Who I was offended others I thought and that’s why no one likes me was the conclusion I came to. I believed I had no rights in the world, maybe not even the right to exist. Better to stay low key and out of the way.
My father raged. My mother was subservient. My father called me by a word in Spanish which meant foolish, but foolish or stupid, it was all the same to me. He was a bully. Once when I was a young woman, my father saw the title of a self-help book I was reading and told me, “That’s good you’re reading that book. You need that.” Obviously, my problems were apparent to him. But what a joke, for he had given me the problems that made it necessary for me to read the book.
My mother considered me another mother in the family. I became her dish washer at any early age. And I helped her with the children for whom she babysat. But her love and approval were missing. The distressing things happening in the family overwhelmed me. I worried about my family members as if I were the adult who needed to do the worrying.
Thinking back that perhaps I could have found some consolation in schoolmates, that I could not find either. In grade school, I was bullied by one of the boys in the grade ahead of me and by some of the other boys who followed his lead. All I could do was shut down. It was devastating for me. I became quiet in school, never speaking to the other children, both through grade school and high school. And that loneliness and isolation followed me throughout life.
I had a mother who cooked great meals and kept a clean home, and as my father once said, she kept the floors so immaculate you could eat off them. Yet, she was not emotionally available. And that mattered. To many, my mother was meek and mild. As was said of her, she was “una alma de Dios.” But I remember that I turned to my mother once for reassurance of her love because I did not feel that she loved me like she did my siblings and said to her, “I love you more than my sister and brothers.” What I got in return was a laugh.
That little hurt child still exists deep within me. She had no one to protect her then. As an adult, I’ve tried the best I can to ease those feelings of fear and insecurity that little child had to deal with by herself once upon a time.
This story is about healing and letting go of the demons of the past. In the world, we have only one another to rely on once we have left the supposed safety net of our childhood. As adults, we try and heal from our past hurts and traumas, and we try to help each other heal with the stories we tell or write to understand our pasts and alleviate the pain. None of us can change anything we have endured in our pasts. But what we can do is reach out to one another in an effort to help each other heal. We are all in this together. God may seem very distant at times, but we can’t give up that hope either.
And I can envision a different life.
Forgive her and release her to me. Do that for all of them. And I will deal with them. I know this has bothered you for so long. I heard God’s directive in my heart. And so, I forgive and release those who have hurt me as I also put myself in God’s hand and ask Him for forgiveness of my wrongdoings on this earth.
This scripture verse from the Bible gives me a sense of solace, “Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.” – Psalm 27:10 NIV
