I can remember a time when I was very little, five or six maybe, that I had really really high hopes for myself. I can remember feeling like there wasn’t anything on this earth I couldn’t do. I remember really wanting to do so much with my life and honestly felt like I could really do it. I was naturally very good at everything I tried to do–still am actually. I can pick up things very fast and I am a very fast learner. It made me excel at almost everything I tried. From sports, to school, to even keyboarding (I got the golden keyboard award multiple times in elementary school).
I wanted to play sports and be a teacher when I got older. I knew from a young age that I wanted to work with people and help people.
I also knew from from a young age that my family wasn’t normal.
I knew that being abused wasn’t normal. I knew that having basic human necessities, like water and food, being taken away as punishment wasn’t normal. I always felt like the weirdo in school when the teachers would say things like “your parents will help you with this homework” or “just ask your parents for money for the field trip” because I knew both of those things weren’t happening for me. But I would see other kids interact with their parents in such a different way than how me and my siblings did.
See, one of my parents had zero capacity to show love towards my older sister and I, but said parent was able to do it for our little sister. This was the most confusing to such a young me, and still is honestly. I feel like it would be different if this parent was the same towards all of us, but that wasn’t the case. This parent babied and mothered our little sister, while completely acting the opposite towards me and my older sister. You know how confusing it is to see your little sister being hugged and told “I love you” meanwhile you are being treated the exact opposite?
This taught me the competition game from a young child.
I now felt the need to compete with my little sister to get the love and affection that this parent would show for her instead of me and my older sister.
But that affection and love never really came, at least in the ways I needed it.
This pattern repeated when one of my parents remarried and had two more kids with a separate partner. The step parent treated me and my sister the same way as our other biological parent. This step parent loved her own babies more than her non-babies and the cycle continued.
We got to see this step parent love and baby her children while not showing us the same affection, and again, confusion.
Competition.
How can I change who I am to be more loveable? How can I make them love me? It must be me because they love my little brothers and sister! -Thoughts from little me…
To this day I don’t like head to head competition because growing up, it was ingrained in me that I was always going to lose, no matter what I did. I prefer team competition or individual competition. But it is interesting to see why I get so clammed up and lose all confidence when I’m going up against someone head to head. I understand why.
I was never going to win.
Somewhere along the way, that little me who felt that she could do anything, morphed into a young teenage girl who was afraid of the world and had low self esteem. Then I found alcohol at 12 years old and that’s where a whole new storybook opened for me.
A storybook I will explain another time.
I can’t pinpoint exactly when I got the “fuck its” but it was very early on in my teenage years and I was full of rage and turmoil.
Teenage me was not happy. Teenage me used to run away from home and sleep under the slides at the park.
Teenage me used to lie about my age and run off with older guys to go drink and party, completely at risk and vulnerable.
Teenage me didn’t give a fuck about being alive, and teenage me didn’t feel like anyone would even care if I was alive or not. Teenage me didn’t have hopes or aspirations, other than just making it through high school and playing soccer.
In a sense, soccer kinda saved me and kept me sane in high school. It gave me some purpose and kept me feeling like “a normal teen”. I remember showing up to school sometimes after sleeping in the most random outside location and lying to people about having a great home life.
I was embarrassed of my life, but I was a good liar.
I graduated high school even though not one person from my family showed up to support me, and that was also embarrassing as fuck.
Everyone standing around taking pictures with crying moms and dads, while I stuck out like a sore thumb and tried to be happy that I had graduated high school while also hating my existence.
I got so fucking drunk that night.
To be continued….
Words, from my heart. 