For the last week or two, I have tried to write up something about my family background--or lack thereof, and just depressed the hell out of myself. I wrote and deleted, but saved a copy. Introspection has led me to realize I haven't dealt with a lot of my feelings, escaping reality how I can. I will still do good where I can, but I had a hard time acknowledging these feelings, because I felt my strength rendered false, and my wisdom cheap. I am getting a bit long in the tooth, maybe having a mid-life crisis or something. When I consider how my life will play out, it occurs to me I don't have much of a plan. I've tried several plans, and things just went wrong. Have to keep trying though, and for now it seems to mean discarding appearances. Getting to the root and not just hacking at the leaves.
Right here, right now, I am broken. I don't have any objective way to explain that, I just feel that way. I feel like life kicked my ass, and I went home to my mother. Literally. I know, I know, at least I have a mother. My spirit is crushed and depleted. I have no ambition or dreams beyond enjoying some good movies, some good food and a few precious good friends, and making enough to pay the bills.
Ever since the summer of 1982 when I was turning ten, the day my mother and I were handcuffed, she was taken in for psychiatric evaluation, and I was taken into foster care, all I've ever wanted to do was to return home to where I belong. To where I am a son. Here I am. My mother's smile and laughter--after so many years of her screaming in the middle of the night, and in and out of the psych ward--are my greatest reward. Those are the hope I hang onto that maybe I haven't entirely been wasting my life. (Addendum: I also hang onto the hope that I might be able to help, heal, and protect others with similar trials.)
I have wept bitterly under the weight of my failures and follies--in trying to please others all my life. I have lamented never having been married nor brought children into the world, yet am paralyzed with fear of it. I have never felt I was an eligible bachelor at all. I am the son of a schizophrenic mother, and a manic-depressive father who died of suicide. I grieve to this day, like when I saw the new TRON movie, when the father and son were reunited. My parents divorced or separated or whatever it was. I was three or four. I have always--yes, irrationally, I know--feared I would die so early like my father did, and with all the other traumas of my life, bring tragedy to an innocent wife and children. So, I protect others from me and my life. These fears seem to be ingrained into my nervous system. My hard-wiring. Think I'm selfish or indolent or cowardly or whatever. It hurts my feelings, yes. I am so damned thin-skinned and overly-sensitive like my father. When people judge me like this, verbally or non-verbally, I turtle up and don't connect. Why would I want to?
A beautiful foster family kicked me out because I freaked them out listening to heavy metal music and reading Goosebump novels. Nothing was ever mentioned in my file about what was happening behind the bedroom door where I slept for the first six months I lived there, or why I slept on the living room floor in a sleeping bag for the last few months.
The next foster family divorced six months after I came to live with them, and the mother erupted with anger every day for the next four years I lived there. I escaped into college with the idea deeply ingrained that it was a crime to be male, that we're all just selfish lecherous jerks like her ex-husband. In her mind, she saw him everywhere even when he wasn't there, and constantly brought him up.
I crammed a whole four-year degree into six years, and graduated with no career focus. I just wanted to have finished college. I studied Chinese to try to merit the approval of my foster dad, and of church. When my mother went missing, I changed over to psychology to hurry up and finish, and maybe learn a few things about being well-adjusted. I never became the artist we all thought I would be, in high school.
I have never been able to express any anger about these things. I have been told to shut up and get over it. The people who were so cruel were so kind, and it would be ungrateful of me. And I love them, and they love me. Really? Or do the years of kind words stem from shame and the need to keep up appearances?
So, here is the truth for now, barfed up from the depths of my guts. There's plenty more, and I have a long way to go. So, where exactly am I going? And why am I inside this handbasket?
Ever since the summer of 1982 when I was turning ten, the day my mother and I were handcuffed, she was taken in for psychiatric evaluation, and I was taken into foster care, all I've ever wanted to do was to return home to where I belong. To where I am a son. Here I am. My mother's smile and laughter--after so many years of her screaming in the middle of the night, and in and out of the psych ward--are my greatest reward. Those are the hope I hang onto that maybe I haven't entirely been wasting my life. (Addendum: I also hang onto the hope that I might be able to help, heal, and protect others with similar trials.)
I have wept bitterly under the weight of my failures and follies--in trying to please others all my life. I have lamented never having been married nor brought children into the world, yet am paralyzed with fear of it. I have never felt I was an eligible bachelor at all. I am the son of a schizophrenic mother, and a manic-depressive father who died of suicide. I grieve to this day, like when I saw the new TRON movie, when the father and son were reunited. My parents divorced or separated or whatever it was. I was three or four. I have always--yes, irrationally, I know--feared I would die so early like my father did, and with all the other traumas of my life, bring tragedy to an innocent wife and children. So, I protect others from me and my life. These fears seem to be ingrained into my nervous system. My hard-wiring. Think I'm selfish or indolent or cowardly or whatever. It hurts my feelings, yes. I am so damned thin-skinned and overly-sensitive like my father. When people judge me like this, verbally or non-verbally, I turtle up and don't connect. Why would I want to?
A beautiful foster family kicked me out because I freaked them out listening to heavy metal music and reading Goosebump novels. Nothing was ever mentioned in my file about what was happening behind the bedroom door where I slept for the first six months I lived there, or why I slept on the living room floor in a sleeping bag for the last few months.
The next foster family divorced six months after I came to live with them, and the mother erupted with anger every day for the next four years I lived there. I escaped into college with the idea deeply ingrained that it was a crime to be male, that we're all just selfish lecherous jerks like her ex-husband. In her mind, she saw him everywhere even when he wasn't there, and constantly brought him up.
I crammed a whole four-year degree into six years, and graduated with no career focus. I just wanted to have finished college. I studied Chinese to try to merit the approval of my foster dad, and of church. When my mother went missing, I changed over to psychology to hurry up and finish, and maybe learn a few things about being well-adjusted. I never became the artist we all thought I would be, in high school.
I have never been able to express any anger about these things. I have been told to shut up and get over it. The people who were so cruel were so kind, and it would be ungrateful of me. And I love them, and they love me. Really? Or do the years of kind words stem from shame and the need to keep up appearances?
So, here is the truth for now, barfed up from the depths of my guts. There's plenty more, and I have a long way to go. So, where exactly am I going? And why am I inside this handbasket?
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