What Happened Was Unimaginable—A Prison of My Own Making
Hell on earth. Who knew that would be my life? Growing up I was picked on, made fun of, and bullied from morning to night: bullied from my classmates and bullied from my family. It seemed as if I was bullied by anyone and everyone possible. Most of the time, I was the scapegoat for the group. There was no sanctuary for me, no place to feel safe and loved. Did anyone care whether I was alive or dead?
Looking back, I still can’t believe all the ridiculous things I did simply to survive from one day to another. When walking into a room, I assumed that I was invisible to everyone in the room as I had been to my family growing up. However, I was the only person who thought I was invisible. Everyone else could see me, and unfortunately, they immediately judged me as mean. To this day, I still don’t understand how not talking to someone is considered being mean. If we are in a room together, and you don’t talk to me and I don’t talk to you, why am I the mean one? I didn’t do anything—not a single thing. Why am I the mean one?
I was in my forties when I first heard the words abusive childhood. I was searching for answers to as why I was the way I was. I turned to the holistic world for answers. I found a life coach who combines the healing power of energy therapy with life coaching skills. I went to the life coach four or five times. “You really had an abusive childhood,” this life coach said out loud to me. No one had ever said that to me before. Here was a total stranger revealing to me that she knew about my childhood, the black hole I was trying to escape. Finally, I had been given validation for my lifelong feelings. How such absolute cruelty can be targeted at a child is beyond my comprehension.
I cannot tell you how many times I wanted just a warm embrace or a simple smile in my direction. Loneliness is debilitating. It is like being in a straitjacket. You can’t get out; to do so requires help. I cannot tell you how many times I screamed for help. No one ever came. I learned how to do everything by myself and not depend on anyone. There are only so many times you can ask for help. The other person says yeah, sure, I’ll help you. Then days turn into weeks and you realize that you’re still waiting for help that never comes. Something else came up, or you were simply forgotten about. Some words often said to me were: “You weren’t really waiting for me, were you?” As if I was foolish for actually believing someone would help me. Broken promises time after time taught me to stop asking for help of any kind.
I learned at a very young age of all the cruelty in the world. Living in a dysfunctional family, you tend to grow up fast and to depend on only yourself for survival. I went through a period of total darkness. Children ought to grow in innocence. How sad it is to have learned these things at such an early age. Painful occurrences only grew in strength as time went by. It is going to be extremely grueling to undo years and years of damage, but I feel I’m ready for change.
I need to change my approach to life to move out of my comfort zone, or more appropriately, my acceptable discomfort zone. Even though I don’t know what I am going to find, I am willing. I will ask for what I want, and be clear in my intention. I don’t need to be attached to the outcome.
Love doesn’t hurt! Growing up, all I felt was pain. It’s incomprehensible the hurt done to me with such blatant intent and abundance of cruelty thrown in for good measure. My mother would often say, “If you don’t have anything kind to say, don’t say anything at all.” Too bad she didn’t follow her own advice when it came to me. Words are powerful. A kind word goes a long way. But words can create both extreme happiness and extreme pain.
Since my in-depth channeling class, I have learned so much about myself, even though I thought I was going there just to learn about psychic stuff. Life is precious. I will treat myself with care and love. I have a deep and profound heart and a loving soul. My body aches to be held even if only for a moment. Why do some people have an abundance of love while others have none?
I have good days; and I have bad days, when I’m confused and don’t know which way to turn or what to do next. Life could be so easy if someone would tell me exactly what to do. I just need a simple list of tasks. I could go down the list step by step. Life is confusing and requires a lot of concentration at times. It’s hard to know what path I’m supposed to walk on. I need a new direction. The old way just doesn’t work for me anymore; it hasn’t for a long time. I was doing things out of habit, not because I really wanted to do them. The doing became automatic throughout the years. Patterns repeated day after day and year after year, but I never stopped to ask myself why. It’s easy to get into a rut. Unless you stop and think about your life, how can you realize that there might be something better? Maybe this is all my life is ever going to be. Maybe I wasn’t meant to be happy. Maybe this is as good as it gets. New life requires new direction.