Struggling

Lately it has been difficult because I am working through some childhood trauma and with that comes the realization of how much of my life I lost. I am astounded by how many things I missed out on as a child from the simple things like a hug to the huge ones like food, clothing and love. I want to work through the trauma and heal but am finding it hard to let go. Let go of what? I think it might be hard because letting go of the pain of my childhood means accepting that it really was as bad as I remember and I’ll never have the childhood I deserved.

I remember being eight or nine years old and wishing I could disappear from my life. My typical day would be to get up and get myself ready for school and head out. After school I had to get my homework done, straighten the house and start dinner. After dinner I had to get the dishes done and then head to my room. Quietness was of the utmost importance because if I disturbed my mother, I would be beaten.

My mother never hugged me as a child nor did she say,”I love you.” I cannot remember ever sitting close to her, having her play with me or help me with my homework. Saturdays were for cleaning the house top to bottom and Sundays were for being dragged to church which I found to be very ironic! I could not have friends over and honestly was so lonely and sad from as far back as I can remember.

Most kids made fun of me in school because I had so little and couldn’t do anything like school activities or playdates. I only had two friends as a young child and one of them didn’t even go to my school, she lived next to my grandmother. Being such an isolated unloved young child who was being verbally and physically abused almost daily began to shape me into someone who had to be in constant fight or flight mode. I became a middle school bully and would beat up girls as a way to assure that everyone would stay away from me!

By the sixth grade, I was so unhappy and broken that I found my way to the bad crowd of kids because they accepted me and I begun my journey into drugs, alcohol and more horrifying trauma. I didn’t know at the time how much worse my life could and would get! I was catapulted onto a very dark and dangerous path that would be thirty six years long and end at a fork in the road, with death to the left and sobriety to the right.

Thirty six years of horrific abuse, pain and suffering that looking back absolutely mortifies me to think that one human being could endure what I did. When I look in the mirror today, I cannot believe I am a functioning adult but more importantly I cannot believe that I am still alive!

It is time to stand up to my trauma and start working through it! I will never get back the lost childhood, lost young adulthood or dreams that I had for the young me. Holding on to this pain is only taking away from the me that I dream to be now!!!