Trauma and the Continuing Journey

My oldest memory is of when I am pretty sure I am not quite a year old yet. In that memory I am in the back seat of a car and 2 voices up front, whom I understand are my Mum and Dad, are fighting bitterly. Of what I have no idea. I cannot remember words. What I can remember is tone and cadence. It was angry with controlled violence in tone.

I did not know those words at that time and only knew that this was frightening to me. Thus began my lifelong experience of Fear and Running Away.

I have some other memories after that as well that were, mostly, pretty fun. I was, I am told, a pretty happy kid over all.

Then, in the Spring of 1967, when I was 3 years and 8 months old, my Mum and Dad brought us from Toronto Ontario, where we had lived since before I was born, down to Straw Hill in Unity NH to my Grandmother's house.

A day or so later they left all of us kids there and went back to Toronto to try to save the marriage. I am pretty sure that it was already beyond saving.

I did not see my Mum again until February 1969 when she came down to New England with a new man, my Step Father Henry, and big as a house with my sister Liz. I did not see my Dad again until I was 11.

And thus began my lifelong struggle to make sure no one ever left me. Ever.

There is more. And I am sure that you see where this is going my oh so gentle reader.

In growing up I, like most every child in this world, had Trauma points. And as I grew older these had very serious effects upon my life personally and with everyone around me. Especially those closest to me.

I affected every relationship I had. People, Organizations, Institutions, etc. Whether Family, Friend, Co-Worker, Supervisor, Romantic Partner, or any other, they all of my relationships were made unstable by this.

After all, it is impossible to have any sort of decent ralationship if I am constantly afraid that you will hurt me somehow. It is impossible to have a healthy relationship if I am constantly making sure you do not leave me.

Over the years I lived an increasingly lonely life that had nothing but toxic relationships. I was also toxic. I do not claim any different. I was trying, and failing, to Fix, Manage, and Control everything and everyone in my life. And I hurt others just as often as others hurt me. And maybe more.

Eventually I got to that point that happens to those of us who are stuck in our past trauma, I either do something to recover, do something different than I have ever done, or I die. That is where I was.

We call it the Gift of Desperation. For I was completely desperate. For it is only in Complete Desperation that people like me will finally choose a new path.

As a result of this gift I have been working on who I am in this world for quite a while. Not always as successfully as I would wish.

One of the many things that I have had to learn is how to give myself the grace that I give others when I screw up in some fashion. I am not real good at it still.

And, no matter how much work I do, all of those things are still there. Those childhood traumas that helped to shape me still exist within me. And they show up on a regular basis and usually disguised as something else.

I have tools to use to deal with them today. For which I am very grateful.

So why write all this? None of this is new information to the family I grew up with, to the group of people that I adopted as family later in life, to anyone who reads my meanderings on this blog.

I am writing all this to show that no matter where one comes from one can make better choices than the ones that have been programmed in by life. I know this is true because I have done it. I know this is true because I have seen many others do it. And if I can do this then anyone on the face of the Earth can.

And it started by going to people who were transforming their lives and listening to their stories of where they came from, and hearing the Truth in their statements and identifying with what I heard, and then hearing what happened in their moment of desperation and hearing the truth in what they spoke, and hearing the story of the journey of healing in their life since then and knowing that was true as well.

Their Experience gave me Identification, I was no longer alone. Their Strength showed me that they too had gone thru the crucible and that I was not alone.Thier Hope gave me the hope that I could do this as well. It uplifted me and let me know what is possible.

Their is no manuel that shows Parents how to successfully raise children. I am convinced that every parent out there does the best they can. And sometimes their best really does suck. It is ok to acknowledge both of those things as true.

So no matter how good a parent does, and there are some really good ones out there, mistakes requiring healing will still be made.

So do your best. And be gentle. With your kids and with your self.

And learn the lesson that I work on every day. Forgiveness. Foregiveness to all those who did their best and fell short. And yourself for holding on to the hurt for so long because  it is familier and forgiveness is unfamilier.

I had to learn that forgiveness does not mean approving, or letting off the hook, or forgetting, or any of the other things that I thought.

Forgiveness simply means that I am giving up carrying that load of anger and stop trying to create a different past.

Forgiveness means Peace. For me. For the person who forgives.

So be at Peace today.

You deserve it.