I was ashamed of my family. We were not the typical brood that was portrayed in any of the dream stories that I created while navigating through the pain of feeling like I was born to suffer. Everything around me validated that suffering was the way to love. The Church held the salvation carrot over our heads as far back as I can remember as an incentive to come to Church and pay your way into Heaven. That is how I understood the collection basket, in addition to paying for the preacher's house, clothes, and other expenses.
I was ashamed that my family was full of the things that would not make me attractive to a potential partner. I would have to settle for someone who was also ashamed and from a family of sufferers. The problem with coming from suffering is no one has a clue what real love looks like.
We were a brood of mismatched children, fathered by different men and had no clue how to engage with whole families, loving families, or families that sat down and talked to each other. My family was broken long before I got there and the problem with that is I wanted a family that cherished the children as gifts and not a curse that had to be prayed out of the shame of poor decisions.
We started so far behind what I thought would put me in the position to attract happiness. I can't even remember if I believed in happiness. I wanted a husband who loved me and children who were happy, all living in a house on a quiet street with neighbors who genuinely cared for each other. To be honest my first thoughts of family resembled what I knew of a commune. Folks living together and raising children. You know, it takes a village. That was my vision and there was no one in my life to support that dream of family, and what my community knew of communes was dirty hippy, drugs, and orgies. The other image of commune living was the one that required Swat and lots of gunfire to enter and save the children or a poison-laced drink that took everyone out. Not many positive examples of community living.
I was ashamed my mother gave us her married last name when we were clearly not his brood. She never used the "B-word", nor did she allow anyone to address us as such. We were treated like a mistake as they smiled and called us family.
How was I supposed to bring anyone home when I didn't know from one day to the next if our lights would be turned off or if I'd arrive to find our belongings on the streets because we'd been evicted. Life was too unpredictable to have friends or to date.
My abusive brother was experimenting with drugs and he could be angry and violent or foaming at the mouth and ranting about demons coming to get him. My mother was depressed and in her own world, blaming everyone for our current state. She hated everything and everyone and it was hard to reach her. Honestly, I avoided her because I was afraid her condition was hereditary. I didn't want to catch her cynicism. Doomed to a life of sadness and regret.
Shame was a constant companion and I grew to embrace it as normal. My first attempt at having a boyfriend was to say yes to my brother's friend who pursued me aggressively, finally asking my abusive brother to help him secure my attention. I had a strange connection with this brother, so I agreed. Not because I wanted to be with his friend, he was odd, but because when he asked me too I had a connection of what saying "no" would mean. I said "no" years before and he was still allowed to have access to me. So much unresolved stuff that I was not prepared to address, so I agreed. His friend was nice and patient until he wasn't. I broke it off without knowing how very similar he was to my brother. His previous girlfriend had consented and I was not about to be with someone who was my brother.
My second connection attempt was to rid myself of my virginity because I was tired of being bullied and teased about it. I didn't want to stand out as different so I gave it to a man who was a predator and thief. He was a familiar suffering that I knew from my brother. I wasn't clever enough to notice the pattern.
When my husband came along, I went along because he was nice and he wanted to take care of me. Not because I knew love and it ended very quickly, which leads me to believe I was a character in the play that was his life. His story needed a girl to have a baby for him before he left this world. He was on the fast track to dying from his impulsive decisions.
I spend so much time afraid that because of my roots, I will not be able to recognize or appreciate love. My story is not too many people know what love truly is or even how to love someone else. I loved my family from a place of shame and responsibility. Feeling that because no one else was stepping up, it was left to me. This kind of love breeds resentment and resentment is anger waiting for the opportunity to explode. So nothing grows inside of resentment, certainly not love.
What now?
Accept that my family was the testing ground and I am exactly who I am supposed to be. My conditioning is exactly what was necessary to build me into the person I am today. It was not a mistake and it was very necessary. There was something I needed from that experience to support me in my adult life. Nothing inherently bad about avoiding things, just as long as it doesn't come back to bite you in the ass. And if it does, find the lesson in the pain. Ok fine, I get it. I don't have to like the journey and I have to respect the process. Stubborn and unmoving is the breeding ground for depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and just plain misery.
Interesting to know that I can have what I want by accepting who I am, and where I come from and deciding where I want to go.
WoW, that sounds like too much ownership and responsibility.
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