A Second Childhood?
A lot has happened within the last month. The clinic that I have been working for has had a lot happen within it, so much more than I can even voice. My home life took a nosedive as well. I am trying to find a voice in that, which I can tell I am struggling with. I am so used to giving into other people. I have recognized that all my life has been one traumatic event after another. I may be all over the place during this posting because of how I am feeling internally. Bear with me.
A few months ago, I was visiting my father. He and I have not always had the best relationship. He tends to say things that are not polite for some reason and finds it “impressive” or “interesting” to say those things. I struggle, due to trauma, to stick up for myself. This time, I found myself feeling like I should never return to speaking to him. Out of nowhere in the conversation he states to me that he doesn’t believe that my trauma was “that bad”, as if he could evaluate it. He doesn’t know it. He never has fully asked what has happened to me in my life. He doesn’t understand trauma fully. I do, as a therapist, sometimes too well.
This got me thinking about individuals that have trauma and something that I know about them. They tend to want to look to be a child again because aspects of their childhood was never afforded to them. This occurred to me in my life, as I struggled greatly with having to make sure that my grandmother, who raised me, was appeased to keep the other children “okay”. Often, I was calming her down or trying to be around her so the other kids could have a life. I would calm her when they disappeared and she would get furious. Often threatening them. Often times hitting them. I became the protector at a very early age, but my dad doesn’t understand that. He doesn’t get what I sacrificed for three other people. I didn’t get to have a childhood. I didn’t get to go to a lot of dances, I didn’t get to do a lot of kids things, etc. He tried so much to try to help me have a childhood. I know he paid for trips like to Washington DC and St. Louis. I know he even told me to go live life at different times, but I knew as a child that if I did most of those things that one of the other three would be hit or hurt in sometimes substantial ways. I knew that she would call them names and throw things at them. I grew up quicker as a result. I had to be knowledgeable of an adult’s needs long before I was aware of my own. Normal childhood? That is something that is bizarre to me. Foreign even, if you will.
This last paragraph doesn’t take into account what happened to me as a child by family members in a sexual nature. I learned far too early about sex from people that should never have taught me those things. I was too young to decide these things. I was a youth that didn’t understand you didn’t do certain things and now as a result I have struggled with intimacy instead of just jumping to thinking sex is appropriate. This started at an early age, earlier than my brain has understood. I was constantly appeasing people. Due to this, I recognize now I never had that steady and regular childhood. I went from childhood to six years homeless. During that time, I had abusive relationships and drug addiction as well. After that I struggled with being on disability and school. Fighting to get to a better place in life. Struggling, but pushing through. During that, I had several other abusive relationships. The last ten years, I also have been in and out of abusive relationships. I have further impacted it because now I listen to people all day every single day to earn a paycheck. Trauma is a constant companion. I have learned to dance with it in a way that I wish I have never had to do to survive.
The concept of a second childhood appeals to me so much. Trying to capture something that has been lost. Wishing that I had been able to do things that other children were regularly able to do. I stayed once at someone else’s house as a child. That was forced on that person. I didn’t have friends in school. No one wanted to be around me because they could tell something was going on with me. I didn’t get to feel normal. I remember getting to play dolls with my sister when I was very young. I know that there was a time that life was normal. I can recall pieces of that, but it was during that time that some of the other abuses actually happened. There are times I just want to go to Disneyland. I just want to watch cartoons that other people talk about that they remember from childhood that I can’t recall. I never watched Pokemon. I don’t know about it. I don’t know things that people my own age know about. There are shows that were “my generation” and I didn’t get to participate in it. This isn’t okay and I have always just tried to be okay with it. Pushing forward. I am so tired of pushing through. I am so tired of trying to always be “okay” for everyone else and making them happy. I need a second chance, a second childhood. A second opportunity to find myself and be playful. I want to play in the mud. I want to sing in the rain. I want to be a child. That ended too early for me.
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