The worst pain I have ever known has been the pain of childhood loneliness; the loneliness of the abused child who is ALL. ALONE.
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it adequately described…but I can remember, in horrifying clarity, lying in my bed at 11 or 12 years old, body wracked with quiet sobs (so no one would hear me). I’m not sure if I was crying BECAUSE of the loneliness, but the pain would compound like that. It would go like this–not necessarily in word form, but feeling: “I hurt so much…I need help, I need comfort, who can I go to?” And I knew that my father, my mother, my mother’s boyfriend, my brothers–if I went to any of them, they would all tell me I was being ridiculous; calm down; what do you have to be upset about?; I’m busy/it’s late/stop being so selfish (for bothering me with your issues).
And you’d realize there was no one, no one to go to. And the pain would erupt even further, because now you’re in pain because no one cares, but now no one cares that no one cares. And it could go on for hours like that: sob, anyone? No one! sob, sob, anyone…? No one! –and you’d wrack your brain for the millionth time, but no one new would appear: you’d thought of them all, and none were safe to go to.
It’s easy to say that there were probably teachers or guidance counselors who would have cared for me if I’d gone to them, but when you’ve been unloved and abandoned from birth, you don’t expect anything different from them–you’ve learned from your family that you would only be burdening this relative stranger with your inconsequential problems, and besides, the rejection would overwhelm you–all of the important adults in your life have cruelly hurt you when you were vulnerable; why would a teacher be any different?
So you just…lie in bed…you stay in your corner, your closet, wherever, alone, because alone is the only safe place to be. Aloneness, especially for a child, is a pit of misery; a pit of seemingly endless sorrow that just takes your breath away–and yet, it is STILL better than going to the monsters you know would hurt you when you’re most vulnerable. And you know that no one, NO ONE, cares, or will save you.
And you grow up, and the pain is still there–no matter how many friends you make, you’re still alone. When the misery sets in, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve known your friends, how strong your bond supposedly is. You’re alone. You grip yourself, thinking your insides will just rip apart; how could one body, one soul, experience and contain this level of suffering and survive? But you do…you do. For me, if I just stick it out, it just…goes away, after a while. I numb out. “Dissociate,” probably. And it’s gone from my awareness…until the next time.
To this day, I still isolate when I feel this way…I’m terrified of rejection and abandonment; I’m terrified that even friends I’ve known for years will be unempathetic, bothered, annoyed–the worst: they’ll realize who I “really” am. All these years, they’d known me, or they thought they knew me–now they see the REAL me. This part of me they’d never known was there…and everything else collapses, the whole relationship ends, because I made one mistake, or just “was” a way that they were disgusted by.
If you ever felt/still feel this way, please reblog. I’ve never seen this sort of thing accurately described…never really felt that someone writing of loneliness really…really grasped this level of sorrow…this level of absolute solitude that only someone who’s never had anyone from the start, who’s only had predators for caregivers, can comprehend and sympathize with.
I understand. I know you feel alone; I definitely feel alone. But you’re not alone in your aloneness. I understand the sorrow you’re experiencing. I know what it’s like. I know that, somehow, with a lot of therapy, this will go away after a while. It has to…it has to. Hang on. Just hang on a little longer…you’re so strong. You might not have any idea how strong you are for still being here despite that. You did it all by yourself. You got yourself through it. And you’ll get yourself to better days, too.
