Do you think we ever truly get over the traumas of childhood?
I read a letter when I was nine that my mother wrote in 1982 (I was 2 years old in 1982) offering to put me up for adoption if my father would just come back to her. I distinctly remember the entire world closing in on me in the moments following that find. She didn't want me.
This was a scene that re-played itself over and over again throughout my life. I was a total inconvenience for her, and ended up moving to my grandmother's house several times because of it.
When I was 15, I found myself in the midst of this power-struggle between my grandmother, step-father and mother. My mother didn't want me in the middle of her "new boyfriend" situation, but didn't want to relinquish control to my step-father.
My step-father wanted me, but only because so much had been taken away from him, and he felt like he needed control over something.
My grandmother was chomping at the bit for me to move in with her because she felt that, by exerting control over me, she was somehow exerting control over my mother, too.
I had this hero-worship of my mother - the kind of hero-worship than is only born of rejection - and when it was all said and done, I felt like I was supposed to be with her.
But it certainly didn't work out that way.
So my question here - the burning question on my life, I suppose - is will I ever get over this?
Will I ever stop trying to make up for that rejection?
Because I know that she loves me. I know that she tries. I know that she was young, and she wasn't capable of really being a mother to me.
And let's face it - blue hair and everything - I could have turned out way worse. So why do I keep trying to make up for it? it's completely defined my life - my entire personality.
When does it stop?
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2 comments:
I really don't think that those sort of things ever stop affecting us. They become a part of us, and they play a big role in shaping us. I think we learn to let them control us less and less, but they are always a part of us and lend themselves to our phobias and shortcomings. And the only way to triumph over that is to let God change it from the inside out.
Oh Sara, what a hard thing to discover at such a young age.
I agree with Vera, it never stops affecting us. We never forget. We might forgive, but no forget. Ally was asking me about when I was a kid tonight and she knows my background, but I look at my children and think back to when I was their ages and where I was.
One thing that has come out of it is it makes me a stronger person and hopefully a better Mother.
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