Saying goodbye to my childhood is proving more difficult than I had anticipated. I am used to working with people whose childhood has been painful, frightening and abusive and perhaps felt that my pain was insignificant compared to theirs. There is of course no comparison where pain in concerned. Feeling unloved, unlovable and lonely as a child leaves its mark no matter who you are. To deal with the past and let it go is not easy and it is proving a lot harder than I imagined. The pain is old, so deep and still now sometimes so raw that it takes my breath away. I have grown accustomed to it over the years. I have hated it, loved it, have been frustrated and angry about it, but have always had it with me. Like an old wound that flares up when it gets cold or wet. When dry I hardly notice it, but in the cold and damp, it aches to my very bones.
It also has so many different components to it. There is the feeling of such sadness at all the things I missed out on, the love I deserved and didn't get. There is also the coming to terms with the fact that it is gone and I can never replace it. There is the loneliness that came from not being noticed by those I loved that made me live almost entirely in my own head creating alternative worlds where I was someone important and loved and cherished.
The worst of what remains is anger. Pure, powerful rage at my family for completely ignoring me, not seeing who I was, what I was going through and simply undervaluing me. I am angry at their ambivalence, for not encouraging all the talents I had, that I could have loved to pursue and anger for leaving me with a legacy of insecurity and inadequacies that I still experience. It is only recently I have truly acknowledged how sad and lonely I really was as a child. It is only now that I realise that I have very few memories of childhood. I never thought that significant and yet now I find I must have blocked out years in order to protect myself from the pain. It was like a moment of epiphany when I found out. I would ask my friends how much of their childhood they could remember, only to be amazed at the clarity of those memories. I felt cheated. Not only was I no longer in the country where I had spent my childhood, but I can hardly remember any of it. I asked my mother to help me remember by using photographs. She agreed to do this as long as I logged her memory by saying how old I was in each picture. I guess I am not the only one with blocks.
My therapist gave me an image to think about. It is a tree with barbed wire around it. Eventually, the tree grows round the barbed wire, accommodating itself to it, growing around it, despite the discomfort. That is me growing around the pain and sadness of my childhood, so that it became so much a part of me that I can hardly imagine a life without it and only now do I realise that I can have a life without it. What I want to be is without the wire, free to grow even taller without being hampered by the burden of the past.
Sometimes when the pain is at it most raw, I think I shall never be free of the past. Those feelings will always be there recreating those longings, hopes and wishes from my past that were never satisfied. I am looking to people to give me love, hoping that they will notice me and reverse the past. When they do not then I feel worthless just as I did in the past.
That little girl of the past is still alive in me. I love the company of children, perhaps because I never had a playmate and love playing with them now. That child in me aches for the missed opportunities and I cannot rum back the clock and make them love me. I can only move on and create a loving world for her in the present. Now I realise what a truly special person I am and how strong I was to survive the pain of the past. Now I know that the real test is to let go of the legacy of pain. I am writing this for that child in me, recognising that she kept me alive as Maya Angelou said
"The point is not just to survive, but to thrive, really thrive, with passion, compassion, humour and style!"