To this day, I still don’t understand it.
So many days gone in therapy and still I feel like a lot of things are unanswered.
But there’s no turning back now. I’m unpacking things I didn’t think I ever would.
It’s quite possibly one of the most challenging things I’ve ever had to do in my life. It’s been the reason why I’ve had a break down of some sorts almost every day now and I need to regain composure. Certain topics get easier to discuss little by little, but the water works come out the flood gates whenever something triggers it.
Where does my trauma stem? From my past of course. My childhood. Growing up, I was always feeling like I came from a place of privilege, but I wasn’t happy. I could tell you about certain moments that were somewhat memorable, but the dialog gets blurry. It’s been so many years and I’m afraid that my mind tries to hold onto both the good and the bad memories but it’s hard really pinpointing it all and achieving a somewhat “breakthrough” moment that I’ve been led to believe about therapy.
Lot of things trigger the pain... Memories of my parents together, certain smells, certain sights, Annie Lennox’s “No More ‘I Love You’s’”... the latter which I’m currently using as the inspiration to help draft this post in a pool of dried up tears.
My parents are the source of my trauma. I didn’t have my emotional needs met as a child. I’ve tried over the years to confront my parents about this and in muddled attempts of trying to explain myself, I can’t retain composure and ultimately can’t bring myself to lay it out in a coherent manner. The emotions are too much to bear, the pain is too much to handle, the fear is there...
But the fear of what? Abandonment I guess.
I don’t remember getting held up at gunpoint as a kid, but I sure remember hearing that story an awful lot growing up. After those experiences, our family remained vigilant and my parents held me even tighter in their grip. Ultimately, that led down a path of punishment and discipline that morally wore me down, but family was everything. It was all we had.
I didn’t have any friends, and it surely wasn’t easy to make friends growing up. I was bullied, ridiculed at school and by the neighbor kids and include that with the discipline I received at home, I didn’t have a safe space for myself at the time. Luckily through my dad, music ended up filling that void, but the only reason I ever took it upon myself was because I wanted to make my father proud. I wanted him to finally be proud of me, and what better way for a father to be proud of his son that for the son to follow in his father’s footsteps in something he loved to do...
By now you know the rest of the story... My parents were never approving of anything I did. My father and I would fall out several times and eventually my parents would split. They still live with each other to take care of my special needs brother.
But now fast forward to today. I’m now 30. A lot has happened in my life. I’ve had my heart broken several times, I went through a long bout of depression and self-destruction that surely would’ve meant a much bleeker outlook for my life, but after all that pain and struggle, I knew I had to do something if things were going to change. I got my act together, cut out the self-destruction that I was previously pursuing and now I’m in a much better position. I’m in love again and this time it’s a love that even I have trouble believing.
But that shadow of my past still lingers through every foundation and fiber that makes up my emotional psyche. I struggle with it on a daily basis now that I’m opening up more to embracing the past pain and heartache and realizing that there is a future, but it gets tough.
I’m witnessing my parents own demise right in front of me. The two people whom I learned to love the most (who also hurt me the most) are now getting older and developing more problems and the older they get, the more their actions get on my nerves. Those old wounds resurface like rubbing alcohol on a deep flesh wound whenever they set a trigger off and I get so riled up about it.
“HOW DARE THEY! THEY’RE MY PARENTS! THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO KNOW BETTER BY NOW AND KNOW MY TRIGGERS AND STOP SETTING THEM OFF” I scream in my head at the top of my lungs. But those screams fall on deaf ears.
And now I know why it hurts so much.
I’m mouring the relationship I failed to have with my parents ever since I was a baby boy. As these old wounds resurface, memories are beginning to come back and those blurry instances become a bit clearer.
It’s realizing how traumatized I was seeing my father getting carried to the couch at a family party by my uncle’s because I wasn’t sure what was going on with him. He had too much to drink, and it wasn’t the only isolated incident that I began to recall again. The shocker for me was that in my bout of self-destruction where I was drinking similarly like he was at that time, that memory was so supressed that it took me going to therapy to realize how badly that affected me.
It’s having your girlfriend over at your house and your parents showing her an old home movie from 1994 where you see me trying to get my mother’s attention several times with a toy and having her snap at you to be quiet because she was knitting and watching televsion.
And because watching with your girlfriend for the very first time isn’t traumatic enough, it’s hearing your Mom apologize to you in front of her saying “I’m sorry baby, I was such a bad mother to you.”
THE. ONE. THING. YOU’VE. BEEN. WANTING. TO. HEAR. FOR. OVER. 20. YEARS.
And instead of providing closure, it just makes it so much more uncomfortable.
It’s coming to terms that as my parents are getting older, my time with them is coming to an end. That nightmare I had when I was six will one day be a possibility. I’m trying to do everything I can to reconnect with them and make up for those 30 years I didn’t get to fully have with them.
But what am I actually doing with that? It’s not going to prepare me for when the inevitable happens. I’ve done everything I could to have a proper and decent relationship with them over the years. They were the ones who decided to put up boundaries against me when I needed them the most, and even to this day, they still continue to have boundaries of their own...
So why can’t I have my own? Why must I let the shadow of their actions define my life? I’m not saying I need to cut them out completely out of my life, but I need to have the same equal say in my relationship with them and if they’re continuing to hurt me, I have every right to walk away.
Maybe this way, I can finally let go of this grudge I’ve been holding on for so many years.
But those wounds take time to heal, and the scars tend to bleed from time to time when they get irritated. So it’s a process.
Maybe this grudge will never go away truly. Maybe it’s something that will linger over me for the rest of my life. But I’m trying to manage the pain now, so I don’t repeat the cycle in the future.
It’s exhausting.
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