My Trickle-Down Childhood

Since I hadn’t felt the need to blame her, I thought this would end my problems. The child in me didn’t agree. My inner child sees her both as a protector and a tormentor. I am aware that Mother was also a victim, so how do I regulate my feelings toward someone who also had a trickle-down past? It is similar to being blind and having a blind guide lead me into the brambles, then thinking the leader should have seen them coming. (Page 6=84 words) _________________________ This is what I’m trying to say. Even at ninety-seven my mother was still confronting her childhood. As you can see it isn’t over until you put an end to it or die. I chose the first option, but Mother chose the second. I’ve never been sorry for the amount of time or expense my own journey has taken. I hope that, by sharing, I can enable readers to see it doesn’t matter what your age might be. If you hope to truly live in the now, you have to finish the cold meal left on the plate of your childhood and chew it for all it’s worth. You may choke on parts of it, but when you’ve been able to swallow as much of it as possible, then you can spit it out or let it go. That’s when you begin your life over. I know that’s true because that’s what I’ve done. (Page 17=154 words) _________________________ About a year and a half after I was born, Mother became pregnant for the fourth time. She and my father were having severe marital problems, and the last thing they needed was another child. Even before I found out about my childhood, I knew about the pregnancy, but had been told she lost the baby. You’re not going to believe what happened to the baby. Mother said she buried him under a fruit tree in the backyard of the home where we lived when I was two. I’m not sure if Mother named him, but I did—I called him Lucky. (Page 34=102 words) (I cut this paragraph in half. The above information is the second half of the paragraph. This was the only way I could remain below 1000 words.) ________________________ In 1989 my father’s sister told me that she and my grandmother had attended the memorial for my brother, which was held in 1967. They hadn’t come to the house afterwards because they had been told to stay away. My paternal aunt had taken a picture of my brother lying in his casket. The picture she had taken shocked me to the core. Remember how I saw his smiling face as Mother lifted the tulle netting to kiss him good-bye? That smile, to me, told me he was happy to be dead. In the picture my aunt showed me, my brother’s smile was missing. His face seemed sober and cold. Immediately went to mother’s sister for the explanation. To me, if the smile wasn’t there, then maybe he wasn’t as happy to be dead. (Page 41=135 words) _____________________ The introduction to my internal family started as I began telling my husband about a new family member. He looked at me and asked if I had told the therapist. Glibly, I looked at him and said, “No. Should I?” It was my normal, and they had been with me for so many years I had never given them a second thought. By that time, my husband and I had been married for twenty-seven years. Boy, was he surprised! (Page 76=79 words) ______________________ I never said anything positive to the girl in the mirror. I knew we were the same person, but when it came to breaking her with unkindness, I made sure I could see it in her eyes before I left the room. When I saw “her” brokenness, I knew I had succeeded. It is hard to explain how, when I turned to leave, “she” stayed imprisoned in the mirror as I walked away. I truly hated her. Her sadness went to her core, not mine. Throwing negative affirmations in her face gave me a sense of accomplishment I could never explain. I should have wanted good things to happen to her, but it almost seemed impossible to say even one kind word to her (myself). (Page 102=125 words) ______________________ I can just hear the readers now—neuro what? Don’t ask me how in the world I got into this type of program. All I know about it is that what we say and what our brain hears being said are two different things. I’m sure most everyone has heard psychologists and marriage counselors talk about mixed messages. There is a way to decipher messages so what I say is heard by everyone the way I want it to be. Changing a message is called reframing. (Page 106=86 words) ____________________ I found what she told me interesting because I had been telling people the same thing. I felt that, if I could turn around fast enough, I could see my body in a coffin. It was like a movie about pod people in which someone goes to sleep and becomes absorbed into an identical self. No one seemed to know that my original self had been transformed into a duplicate me. Part of me had passed, and yet I had been able to continue from one point of death to the next while still being alive. I could visually see myself in a casket but had no concern about what was happening. I felt happy to be rid of the part that had been weighing me down and holding me back. I especially loved the idea of having the ability to step outside myself and into the position of being an observer. (Page 119-120=152 words) ___________________ The point I want to make is this: thoughts and behaviors managed my entire life. They helped to create me and make me the person I have become. These thoughts kept me alive from the very beginning of their creation (by me). Just like my imaginary internal family, my thoughts and behaviors were my friends simply because they were familiar. Even friends can sometimes turn on you, and this is exactly what my thoughts and behavior did. (Page 122=77 words)