Hard Choices

I believe that most of us grew up thinking that if it was family, what they did or what they said was okay. I definitely had this belief for most of my life! What I came to learn; upon choosing healing and recovery, was that that was a dangerous belief. No one deserves to be treated poorly or abused, no matter if it’s family or a stranger.

Growing up, I was abused my many but at the time, I don’t think that I even realized that the way people treated me was wrong. I didn’t believe I had any power to change it. As a young child; before my high school years, I only had friends with broken homes like me. I thought being screamed at or beaten by a parent was normal. It wasn’t until I got to high school that I saw a different way.

Once in high school, I made a few different friends and spent some time at their homes. It was then that I saw loving parents who spoke kindly to their children, who encouraged them that they could do anything and parents who sat and talked and listened to their kids. I didn’t understand why I didn’t have that. To this day, I cannot recall one time in my childhood when my mother played with me or helped me with homework.

What I do recall, was the daily routine. My mother worked full time so my brother and I were pretty much on our own. I remember this routine starting around the time I was eight years old. We would attend school, come home and do our homework, make sure the house was perfectly cleaned and then I had to make dinner. After dinner my mother would lay on the couch and watch television while I cleaned up. I washed the dishes and my brother dried. He was a typical little brother and enjoyed picking at me and starting fights which always ended up in me taking a beating for being too loud and disturbing our mother.

On Saturdays we had to clean the entire house before we could go out and play. Rarely did we ever get to do that though because it was never good enough or she would find more for us to do. On Sundays; she would drag us to church, as I was raised a cradle Catholic.

It was hard to have friends because of my home life. Having sleepovers turned out to be a mortifying experience. How much fun could it be if you had to stay silent for fear of disturbing mom and having her scream at you in front of your friends? Let alone the fact that we never had food and very few toys. It only led to being teased and made fun of, so I just stopped having anyone over.

During early childhood I only really had two friends and they both had equally horrible homes so I felt that I belonged and didn’t have to be embarrassed. When I got to high school I had begun to realize how unhappy I was and how much I didn’t want to live in a home like that. Those feelings led to some pretty poor choices with some horrifying consequences. I started searching out comfort and a sense of belonging but found that in all the wrong people and in all the wrong ways. During those high school years my drinking and drug use really escalated and I started to find myself in quite dangerous situations.

I was so desperate for attention that I would do anything. I became very self conscious about my appearance and started starving myself, this began a lifelong battle with anorexia. I never allowed myself to get over 100 pounds and was horrified when ever that would happen. Now in my recovery, I am less concerned about it although the thoughts do pop in now and again.

What I have learned during recovery is that it is more than okay to distance myself from people and situations that threaten my physical and emotional well-being. I have had to make some hard choices to cut off relationships with both family members and friends who posed those threats. Although those decisions have brought sadness to me, I have come to love myself enough to be okay with those choices. I now find that surrounding myself with only people who speak kindly to me and treat me with love and respect only propels me to be an even better version of myself.