Emotional Maturity.

I have not written in a long time, but writing out my thoughts always seems to help. I don’t even know what to write. I am so tired of failed jobs and failed relationships. I have always thought that I could overcome my personal obstacles that disable me from having the life I want to have. Let me try to list everything out. Who am I and what have I learned. My parents taught me to actively conflict with immediate family members, they learned that from their parents, the vicious cycle continues with me. I was taught to be defensive, judgmental, reactive, controlling, fearful, angry, cowardly, abusive, self-destructive, selfish, and resentful of the world for all my short comings. Before my parents assimilated me into their world of self-inflicted torture, I looked at the world through my innocent and objective eyes. I knew what I was being exposed to was unhealthy, painful, and a possibly insurmountable obstacle that I may have to carry my entire life. The fear began to creep into my daily existence; I am probably 1 years old now. I knew I had to act immediately to save myself, but I need food and shelter, which I could not procure on my own. There was no man taller in the world than my dad, nor a more beautiful and attentive mother. They were my life. I granted them every ounce of trust that I could conjure up. I became a prisoner and my parents the jailers. What does a person in jail want to do…escape. I became confused and angry. The people hurting me were the same people I belonged to. I felt sorry for them. At times, my father showed signs of love. Same for my mother, but by 2-3 years old I knew the bad out-weighted the good. Then there were the beatings. My father beat my mother like a rag doll while she lay on top of the hood on our family car. My brother and I watched from the open door that connected to the attached garage. I remember feeling like I was watching it in the third person point of view. I felt like there was me, my brother, my parents, and me again watching from a different vantage point. To this day I still remember that incident through the eyes of a person standing in a different location than I actually was. I disconnected. I became two people. I suppose I thought I the same would eventually happen to me. And if that was going to happen to me I had to be able to convince myself that I could escape. This survival technique manifested in many ways; loss of identity. Was I the terrified little boy expecting the worse to happen to me or was I a little boy growing up, learning about the world, gaining self-confidence, growing a healthy relationship my immediate family. I stayed that scared little kid. My father left and abandoned me, my brother, and my mother. Thankfully he left before he started killing people. Before I knew it my brother and I were sleeping on the floor of some strange people’s house (father sold our home) that my mother somehow knew, while our mother was 20 miles away, staying with a friend, looking for work. Then from there on, I was fatherless and to a certain extent motherless. My mother, with no financial support, was left to raise two children on what started at a minimum wage salary. That means she was never home and always working. At 6 bucks an hour a person has to work much more than 40 hours a week to supply a family of three with food and shelter. Thus began phase 2 of my life. My brother and I were now at 7 and 8 and left to begin taking on the responsibilities of rearing ourselves. I would crawl into my brother’s bed at night, when he would agree, because our mother worked night shift and we were left alone with no supervision. I was scared. I began to realize that what was happening to us was not normal in American society, it was and is happening to countless children in America, but it is not normal and/or acceptable. I was in maybe second grade. I knew our life was much different than the other kids in my class. They would have nicer cloths, two parents, be involved in extracurricular activities. They seemed to far exceed my intellect, as they completed home-work assignments and I, nor my brother did not. All of a sudden, I was being left in the dust in every possible way. I was dumb, poor, ugly, ashamed, and again terrified that I would become the people who had done this to me. Pretty much from 8 to 18 I got into trouble. Never studied, moved a dozen times. Changed high schools, began drinking at age 14, became sexual active at age 14, and while this is all going on I am desperately trying to figure out how to be a valuable and functional part of society. All I could tell was that with every passing second I was moving further away from that goal. I started thinking about killing myself when I was 12. I sat outside in my underwear during a Cleveland snow storm. No one was home, it was dark, and I came in after I couldn’t take the physical pain anymore. I could not sleep though most of high school. By 15/16 I would lie in bed at night and stare at the ceiling with all the horrors, mistakes, and fears I had experienced running though my mind. At times I thought I was going crazy. Suicide was always an option, but I always felt like I could beat this whole thing. Post high school I had believed I could adapt and overcome. I was no longer associated with people that I did not respect or trust. I was no longer them. That was it, a simple move and I had my own self. My 20’s came on like a tornado. I moved to Washington DC, worked for a Fortune 200 company and with no formal education, no pedigree, no nothing except my wits and attitude; I was offered a six figure job in Europe. I turned the offer down and thus began a new phase. The self-destructive phase. I never escaped my parents, I slowly became my parents. I entered into intense talk-therapy for almost all of my 20’s. I began making emotional maturity my only priority. The only priority was to figure out how to live a life worth living. I knew I could overcome self-destruction and move forward with my life. I shared my stories with the people around me, things got better for me and those I interacted with. There was a glimmer of hope. People thanked me. I thought I was ready to move forward. My mother grew emotionally and now we’re able to have a relationship. I am 33 now, and I still feel pain. I am still self-destructive, I have no career, I am not proud of who I am, I get angry, to a certain extent I am still my parents. I haven’t felt angry towards my parents for 5/6 years. Yet, my life is in disarray. My engagement may be broken off, I took and job at 50% less pay with an organization not nearly at my level of productivity, and I still feel like a prisoner, but of myself, not anyone else. What is next, when does the pain stop, what else must I do. I am getting close to the half-way mark on my life expectancy. Will I have to endure this hell my entire life? What will be the quality of my life? One day at a time.

Hey Di!! Is Vin on that horse on left side???

I disagree. The thoughts Adolf Hitler had, as well as the thoughts of others who have acted on their hateful thoughts. Without the thoughts, those things would not have happened and continue to do so. We need to be alert to our thoughts, aware of them. We need to have the courage to deal with the ones that are not in our highest good and the highest good of others in a positive enriching manner vs just beating ourself up with guilt etc.