First post ever

The question I keep asking my self is “How do you let go of the crappy things that happened to you as a child?” It is one thing to recognize that they were wrong, that you weren’t at fault and that they have affected the way you function as an adult. They say that knowledge is half the battle. Unfortunately it is ONLY half of the battle. With out the other half you can’t possibly hope to win it. So what is the other half? I have always hoped that I would meet someone- a therapist or some sort of healer maybe- who would help me untangle all of the crap and show me the key to learning some huge lesson and moving on with out the pain and misery to become fantastically happy and successful. It seems reasonable that since someone else was responsible for my childhood someone else should help me recover form it. Doesn’t it?

I am really angry with my mother for her unwillingness to take responsibility for her crappy behavior as a mother. When I have talked to her about it her response is that she is sorry that I am unhappy but that I should let go of it (actually “stop hanging on to it”) since we are all responsible for our own happiness. When I was a kid she always said that no one else can make you mad, you allow your self to get mad because of something someone else does. So you can choose not to allow yourself to get mad. I guess her stand on child abuse would be that the child should choose not to have her feelings hurt by the abuse. Well, the reality is that she isn’t going to help and there is no one else who has any reason to try unless I pay them. But they don’t have answers. They can help me to see what is there- that first half of the battle- but they never know what to do with what I find. If I had a dollar for every time someone has told me to fake it until I believe it or to use affirmations…. These people are missing the point. I have gotten to where I am by faking it. What I have inside is mostly shame, including shame about the shame so I put on a mask and hope that people can’t see through it. Faking it is killing me.

So I am the only one that can help me. Thinking about it isn’t enough. I have such a tangled web of emotions and memories that I can’t keep track. I hope that if I write it down I can see the way out of it.

So what, you ask, is it? I am going to make a list of every thing that I think I need to let go of or otherwise resolve. Then I will write about each one and see what happens. Here is the list:

• My parents dumped the trash in my bed when I forgot to take it out.
• My mother put me on diets starting at age 9 because she was afraid that I would grow up to be fat (I wasn’t ever fat as a child).
• My parents broadcast the general expectation that I would go to college but my father laughed whenever I had an idea of something I might want to study.
• I was bullied by kids at school on a regular basis for 12 years. Neither my parents nor my teachers ever did anything to protect me. When it resulted in my injury I was held partially responsible.
• My father gave me lists of chores on weekends that were to long for me to possibly complete so that I would work all day Saturday and wake up Sunday still feeling like I wasn’t finished. Sometimes my mother would intercede and I would be allowed to play but the result was that I never finished anything at home and have a difficult time with it still.

I must be forgetting things. I know there is more than that. Or maybe I am all screwed up over five things that probably happened to thousands of other kids.

After writing that list I feel like a big complainer. Looking at this list it hardly seems unique (except maybe the garbage in the bed). I wonder if there is something wrong with me to be so upset by what now look like trivial things. But the reality is that I am immobilized by this stuff. I can’t get a job because I assume that everyone – especially interviewers- hates me or at least thinks that I am stupid. I can’t seem to finish anything. I constantly doubt my abilities. I can’t keep my house clean. I don’t make friends because I expect to be rejected if I reach out to anyone. On the occasion that I feel brave enough to reach out I figure that I should invite people to my house, but it is so messy that I am embarrassed to let anyone see it.

So I will write and see what happens. You don’t have to read it.