The truth is that I don’t remember my childhood.
I don’t know if I don’t remember because I spent so much of it in my head, blocking out the bad, isolating myself into myself so that I didn’t have to think about how much I hated my life. Or, maybe I don’t remember because I never had a childhood. My childhood was spent playing with myself, making up things and playing them out with no one but me. I wrote stories and created characters, and, though I never had an imaginary friend, I didn’t need one because I was already in my head. There was no point to something imaginary when I could play both parts; be both myself and my friend. So, the things I remember from my childhood are fragmented, they are shards of memory here and there, and they pierce just like shards of glass. It hurts me to remember, whether good or bad, whether happy memory or sad memory or just memory at all. The way my dad smiled, the way my siblings played, the way my mom seemed to check out when what I really needed was someone to check in, make sure I was okay. I remember those things and I hurt, and I don’t know why. I cry. I miss things I don’t remember having, feelings I don’t remember feeling; and I cry.
None of it makes sense to me, none of my behavior. I know why I am stuck in my head, why I spend most of my time talking to myself. I understand that, I understand how I became that person, that person that I hate so much being, who can’t live in the real world because it’s more comfortable inside my head. I hate that I rely on pantomimes to get me through the day, because I am bored, or lonely, without them. Because, there is nothing in my life nearly as worthwhile as the things that I can create. I hate that person, because I want so badly to live my life, to be in the world, to feel the things that other people feel and to not concentrate so hard on the imaginary things because I am so focused on reality. I don’t know how to do that, and I don’t know how to remember good things, real things, and not feel some sort of loss. I don’t know how to remember at all. And I don’t know how to stop crying.
I wasn’t given a childhood, not really. Now I’m being told that I have to be my own parent, after I spent the past twenty years trying to raise myself, I’m being told that’s the only way I can win. That’s the only way I can ever have what I want, the only way I can ever start moving towards reality and out of my head. By doing the thing that I’ve felt like I’ve had to do all my life, raise myself. Bring myself up to be the person I want to be.
I feel like that’s such bullshit. Like that’s so fucking unfair. Now that it’s understood how messed up my family made me, they are officially checking out. The only thing I have left is myself, because they were too selfish to raise me when they could, and now the child that has been alone all her life is the adult that has to go back and fix someone else’s mistakes. It’s so fucked up. Why couldn’t some body have done something about this when I was ten? Or fifteen? Or, fuck, twenty? Why didn’t they figure it out, why didn’t they stop the isolation, stop the mistreatment, stop the segregation and just raise me the way I deserved? And, why can’t they try to be there now, when it’s truly my life on the line? Why does it always have to be me?
I feel like I don’t have anything good to say anymore. I’m angry and lonely and probably disillusioned. And I just don’t have anything nice to say anymore.
I want someone to fucking care, someone who is supposed to fucking care. Instead, I get myself; and, with her, I don’t even know where to begin. How do you raise yourself when you don’t know how to do it, when you’ve fucked it up all along? How do you fix yourself, knowing that you have no choice, that you’re the only one who can, but you don’t know where to begin?
Furthermore, how do you fix it when you honestly believe that someone is out there, waiting for you to take a step forward, just to take it all away? All my life it has just been me, I got that conformation today. I always thought I was disillusioned, that I was making it up because I wanted to believe I was stronger than I am. But, the truth is, there has only just been me. I was left to take care of myself, because no one else could or would. And, all my life, I have believed that I have never really done anything for me. When I do, I feel like someone else always finds a way to take the credit for what I’ve done for myself. I spent years being that persons go-to therapist, I spent years raising myself and trying to stand on my own because they couldn’t even help themselves. I spent years holding myself up, and all this time they have been telling me how great of a job they did raising me, taking care of me, holding me up. They didn’t. I did. I did all of those things for myself, because I was given no choice but to be my own advocate. And now, when I absolutely cannot fall back on anyone else, when all my feelings of being alone are confirmed, when it’s been laid out that all my suspicions of raising myself were true, I’m actually scared that if I succeed, if I pull myself up and make myself good and whole and new, that all the credit will go to someone else.
That’s honestly what’s holding me back. It’s that, or a really good cover for some deeper fear of failure, I don’t know for sure. But, what’s coming to mind as I think about fixing myself for myself is hearing how well of a job my mother did raising me, when it was me raising me all along. I want the fucking credit. I want the credit for who I am. Good or bad, liked or not, I want to be the one who takes all the credit for who I turn out to be. Because, I fucking did this. This was all me. There was no one else.
If I spent years in denial that I was the only one in this for me, I’m not anymore. I fucking did this, whether you like who I’m becoming or not. Whether I fix me or don’t. I don’t even care; I fucking raised me. This one goes to me.
There was no one else. They didn’t want me or didn’t know how.
I want me. I may not quite know how, I may not know exactly what needs to be done, or exactly how I need to get what I deserve, or exactly how to bring myself up right, but I am the one who will figure it out. I am the one who will do this, and not for anyone else. Not for my family. They weren’t here. They didn’t do their job.
Everything from this point on is for me. Don’t tell me it’s selfish; don’t tell me I’m wrong. No one else wants to take me, no one else wants to fix me, no one else wants to finally raise me, so I’m going to do it for me. Everything, every-fucking-thing I do...I do it for me. So, don’t say thank you, don’t say good job, don’t even fucking say that you like who I’m becoming. It isn’t for you.
This one goes to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment