Self Reflection
I was a latchkey kid. You know one of those kids with the house key hanging around their neck. My parents divorced when I was two and my mother struggled to raise me. She told me that she never wanted kids but had me because my father wanted kids so badly. So then she wanted a little boy and was of course disappointed when she had a girl. Then my father ended up leaving her for another woman. So here was my mother with an bi-racial kid that she never really wanted and had no idea how she was going to support.
I spent a lot of time alone growing up. My mom worked and went to school. And when she had a boyfriend, I didn't exist at all. The only time she ever paid any real attention to me was when she was lonely or had nothing else to do. I guess that is where my fear of abandonment stems from.
Anyway, so I was left to my own devices for entertainment and food. I lived on frozen dinners and TV. I grew up watching all those family sitcoms like The Cosby Show, Family Ties and Growing Pains. I lost myself in the idea of the ideal family. I didn't realize how much those sitcoms influenced my life until I was older.
They taught me things. I learned about self respect and manners. But they also gave me a false sense of reality. I thought that all 2 parent families were supposed to be loving and nurturing. And as I got older I searched for that ideal family to fill the void of not having one.
When I left home at 15, I went to stay with my estranged father. We had not spoken nor seen each other in about 8 years. When I stepped off the plane he first called me fat, then proceeded to inform me that he was not about to change his life just because I was there.
After a very brutal summer together, I came back and moved in with my aunt and uncle. I had spent many holidays and summers with them and thought I would be welcomed with open arms. Didn't happen. I was made to feel like a tolerated burden.
During my 3 years there, I found a friend that I thought had an ideal family. They had sit down dinners every night by 7pm. The parents were loving and my presence seemed much more welcomed there than at my own home. They took me out to eat with them all the time. The mother even bought & stocked their cupboards with things that I liked to eat.
I thought I finally found a family. My friend was the one that took me to get my license. And her mother was the one that took me prom dress shopping and helped pay for it when I was short the money. They had a large picture of me hanging in their living room right next to their own daughters. After my own aunt kicked me out of the house shortly after high school graduation, they took me in and helped me get a job. During my college years, the grandmother used to write me letters. The dad got me an opening at his job during the summer. I spent all my holidays and breaks that I wasn't working at college, in their home.
But when I graduated from college, not one of them attended the ceremony. My aunt and uncle and cousins all came, but the people I thought of as family didn't. Then within 6 months of my moving back home, the family completely fell apart. The grandmother died (I was living with her at the time). The mother left the father for another man. My friend (who moved in with me after her grandmother died) lied to her mother and blamed me for how the father found out about the other man which almost got me kicked out of the house (it was her maternal grandmother's home so technically it now belonged to the mother). Shortly after the holidays, me and the friend had a falling out and she asked me to move out.
The whole thing left me devastated and lost. I thought I finally found a place where I was loved and belonged and it turned out to be a lie. I was hurt. I struggled to understand what it was about me that made it so easy for everyone whether blood related or not to reject me.
I hadn't thought about any of this until recently. The same feelings I felt then, I feel now. This recent incident has left me very vulnerable and questioning my self worth. And even though EVERYONE I have confided in has tried to reassure me that what happened is NOT because of me, I can't help but wonder. I loved all these people, tremendously. I would have never dreamed of hurting them. What made it so easy for them to hurt me?
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