Exercising the Demons, AGAIN

Or maybe better put; exercising my demons.  I have never before been one to share my personal life and emotions.  The thought of that kind of vulnerability, and the trust needed to personally expose myself, has always created far more fear than those shadowy demons in my psyche.  Recent experiences seem to lead me to a need to face this fear.  So…

• A young artist, with some promise, discouraged and stifled at every stroke of the brush.
• A young writer and poet, again with some promise, discouraged and stifled at every stroke of the pen.
• A young musician, with some promise, discouraged and stifled at every beat of the drum.
• A young student, of better than average intelligence, discouraged and stifled at every less than perfect grade.
• A young boy, seeking his father’s approval, never being quite good enough and never understanding why…
• A young creative mind damaged, conceivably beyond repair.
• All of this given up, and suppressed for years, and long thought destroyed.

We are all a product of our past, some prefer to be victims of their past.  I long ago understood that I am a product of my past, but, I have tried hard to not be a victim of it.  I, to this day, still find myself struggling with the demons of my past, even though I thought I had already resolved and chased those monsters away, only to find them creeping back into my consciousness once again.  I have acknowledged - so I thought… accepted - so I thought… and forgiven - so I thought.  All this I’ve been told would help me come to grips with my past and move on, guess what?!?... That’s bullshit!  Because, here I am still dealing with the memories, the bitterness, and the emotional void of the things I experienced in my youth, that is still haunting me to this day.  Shortly after I turned 18, I was told that it was all on me now, that I alone was responsible for the direction my live took.  While true, everyone who tells you that it’s on you ‘now’ seems to forget, or fails to see that there are quite often indiscernible demons that come with you from your youth, only to emerge from the shadows of your psyche unplanned and unannounced.  Nor, are there many people capable of helping you slay those demons in they materialize.  All too often you don’t even realize or recognize them yourself until much later in life, and all too often don’t understand the impact they are having on your life.  That is, it appears, to be my condition.

 

 

I realized many years ago that a certain amount of introspection of one life is required, if you truly want to evolve in life.  It became, somewhat painfully, evident when my daughters began asking question about their lives, and I found myself wanting to spew vitriolic explanations on why life SUCKS, Deal with it!!!  Of course, I controlled that aspiration, and managed to find much more benign and instructive elucidations.  After all, will I didn’t really understand it, I did remember the missing encouragement of my youth.  But, the experience left me wondering why their questions evoked such primal emotions in me, and still does on occasion.  I was taught early on that we don’t share our feelings with others, because nobody really wants to hear it.  I have sarcastically quipped that too many people feel that it is their ‘god’ given right to create new lives, and then screw those new lives up in any manner they choose.  I know that this is not the intent of most parents, but, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, even if unintentional.  But when it is intentional, even if unconscious, well…

 

 

In my years of personal introspection, I have found that I, like I believe many people, react to life’s experiences rather unconsciously, without ever looking at causes of their responses, positive or negative.   Because, all denial aside, we are first and foremost habitual creatures, like most all others species on this planet, responding most often blinding to the stimuli of our environment.  I have recently realized that, while probably not uncommon, my story is somewhat unique and by many standards would have probably been considered a FUBAR long ago.  Yet I seem to be unable to give up.

 

 

From birth until about the age of 7, most would have consider my life, at least based on my knowledge then, to be an idyllic youth.  But, at the age of 8, it began an interesting mostly downward spiral, that I have spent years desperately trying to overcome.  I have never shared the following publicly, and something that even most of my closest friends do not know…  At the age of 8, my Mother decided she couldn’t take any more of what life was sending her, and decided to attempt suicide by drug overdose.  It was fortunately an unsuccessful attempt, but, only because of me, and the note she had left.  The note, at her bedside, was address to me, and only said, “Walt, call your Dad.”  I did as I was told and the next thing I knew, the air outside exploded with the sound of sirens.  I went to the front to see what all the commotion was about only to find police and firemen running up my sidewalk and into my mother’s room.  A short time later, my Dad arrived only to leave me in alone and scared.  The only encouragement I received that day was from one of the firemen telling me, “you are a lucky young man; she is probably going to be alright because of you.”  Though I’ve never admitted openly, and it wasn’t until I was in my late 20’s that I realized just how much I resented her for making me (an 8 year old child) responsible for her life.  I have learned in recent years some of the other things that may have contributed to her state of mind, and believe I have reconciled that resentment.  I have recently even been able to broach the subject with my Mother.

 

Now, for my Fathers, we have an entirely different view, and yes, I said Fathers.  Three years of grief and turmoil after the events at age 8, through inadvertently as a result of one of their now routine arguments – I say inadvertent because they seemed to forget I was downstairs during this particularly round of verbal sparring – I discover that the man I have been calling Dad for a decade now, wasn’t…  In three years I had become what was then considered a troubled and unruly child, and no one seemed to be able to figure out why.  Hell, I didn’t even understand it at the time.  So now we add a new wrinkle to that troubled and unruly child’s psyche – the discovery that your father isn’t your real father and that your real father doesn’t even care that you exist.  As I was told time and again, be happy you at least have a Dad that chose you.  As much as everyone hoped this little piece of info would sweep all my problems under the carpet, it barely worked and only sporadically.  That troubled and unruly little boy turned into an even more troubled and unruly teenager. By the age of 13, I was living with my Dad and evil stepmother, and believe me – Cinderella’s could have learned under this one.  It was now that the really pressure began, the results of which I opened this essay.

Later in life I came to the realization of what my father was doing…  Most in the immediate family have joked that my father is so tight, he could squeeze a penny and make Lincoln cry…  In his effort to make me feel inadequate, which he successfully accomplished, his discouragement saved him a bundle of money.  Recently, I’ve come to realize this man’s motivations ran so much deeper.  In order to hide his own inadequacies, my talents and aspirations, whatever they were, had to be sacrificed in order to build his up in his eyes.  Even though he made the choice to adopt he, he didn’t have too… it wasn’t a deal breaker when he married Mom, I wasn’t “really” his son.  So no real familial loyalty was due, right?  He even managed to remove Mom, who probably wanted to do more wasn’t in any position to offer any real help, by diligently avoiding his financial and other familial obligations.  Mom was left to struggle to make ends meet with three children.  Not that she would have at that time because most everyone had already written me off as a hopeless case.  I could and have made excuses for his actions, but, I’ve finally realized that, conscious or not, no matter what his professed motives, he was deliberately intent on transferring his feelings of inadequacy to me.  I just wasn’t good enough, and I’ve spent that better part of my life trying to prove to everyone, but mostly myself, that I am worth having around, only to seem to be thwarted with enough regularly to make one wonder.  So, I guess he was successful.  I’ve recently discovered that along with this self worth issue, my relationship with my father has created in me even deeper buried feelings of abandonment and betrayal.  Sad part, he doesn’t even know any of this, nor do I think he would care if he did know…  We haven’t talked in over 10 years.

Yeah, I can hear some thinking; “this is nothing but a personal pity party of a loser.”  Believe what you wish, but that’s not the case.  I have restarted and rebuilt my lifetime and time and again throughout my almost 60 years, only to find, just as things appear to be going well and I’m experiencing a degree of success, the carpet once again yanked from behind my feet.  I just can’t seem to catch that break.  It seems like about every 10 years since I was about 18, no matter what I was doing, events would occur that would just knock the pins out from under meet, and I wouldn’t have any idea why, so I just chalked it up to poor luck.  I could go into a litany of these events, but that really would serve any purpose.  So, I will just say that it that up until this last time, I haven’t understood why.  I have worked hard for the last 30 years trying to please those for whom I worked.  It would work for awhile and there was a certain level of appreciation and success, only to discover ultimately that I was expendable and had to move on, thus reinforcing that deep seeded and hidden self worth issues, along with the feelings of abandonment and lack of loyalty.  A self fulfilling prophecy, if you will.

While I have reconciled most of the feelings I have, I seem to be still left with my recently discovered deep feelings of inadequacies, abandonment, and the betrayal, along with an even deeper resentment and bitterness of the individual(s) who helped to create these demons.  I’ve always had problems with feelings of hate and try to find ways to move beyond it as quickly as possible.  My aversion to hatred is so deep that I get knots in my stomach when I experience it; image the knots that are there as I write this tome.   As with other things, I know, on an intellectual level that hatred is a destructive and often debilitating emotion, and I know why it is there now.  So, why at this moment can I just not seem to get beyond it?  I hate the man that raised me – I can’t even say the word father right now – so totally that I fear I may be consumed by that hatred even though I know what it is doing to me.  What scares me even more is the thought of what it might do to my wife and daughters, not that I would even consider harming them, but, these feeling have become so debilitating that I have become useless to them as a provider.  Yet another self fulfilling prophecy?

 

I’m just not sure what I have to do to catch a break?  I just exposed my flank in a Facebook status post… something even a few months ago would have been impossible for me, and I have received amazing support.  I guess it’s time to admit I’m not the rock everyone seems to think I am, but I really dislike the idea of being almost 60 and having to start all over yet again, and it scares the hell out of me.
 

Well, now you know…

All I really want right now…  If you are a parent or know a parent, please or let them know how easy it is to crush a child’s dreams…

Your comments or questions are always welcome, and I have added an email address for those not wishing to comment openly in this forum.  Emails can be sent to recoveringcathcon@gmail.com. However, please know that if this account is used to flood me with trash and hate mail, I will shut it down.