As a kid, I was trained to feel bad for my existence, for my needs and desires, for my having, for my doing. The level of scrutiny I received as a child from all my family members – bar none – was insane. I didn’t even realize this was the case. I was in denial or unconscious of most of it. But what is being shown to me through this process of unravelling is opening my eyes to the amount of terror, fear, guilt, shame and horror that my system has imbibed through living with “my family”.
It has been a nightmare since the beginning. The youngest of 3 brothers and 1 sister. All looking down on me, judging me, criticizing me. My every move was scrutinized. I was not given the permission to discover myself. To explore my existence. I was barely there. They were most comfortable when I was invisible. In the background somewhere. Forgotten. As soon as I’d express anything, I’d be met with their eyes.
Their eyes scared the living day lights out of me. Their eyes were dark. Full of judgment. Full of condemnation. Full of shaming. Full of hate. I was this thing that showed up and I was unwelcome. I could feel it in my guts. It freaked me out. It made me shrink. I was an object from the beginning. Not a human. Not a little girl. An object. A thing in their way. A problem. It almost felt like they were doing me a favor by accommodating me living amongst them. That was the general vibe from all of them.
Parents, siblings, nephews and nieces, aunts and uncles alike. It was devastating to my system. I shrunk in shame. I feared for my life and so I tried to want nothing, to be nothing, to express nothing. When I’d get hurt, nobody was looking out for me. My pain was irrelevant. I was irrelevant. And so to want, to have, to express was not just frowned upon, it was downright hated.
My brothers despised me. They despised my femininity. My sister hated me. She projected onto me endlessly. I was this thing in her way. My mother was burdened by me. I was useful to her sometimes but other than that I was just an object, a burden, something to keep alive – that’s it. My father didn’t know what to do with me. I was this thing that was there that he kept at a safe distance.
I have been feeling bad about myself, about my life from the very beginning. A deep sorrow and despair haunted me as a child and waves of intense grief surrounded me and the connection it had with my family was undeniable. I knew it. They were a nightmare. A nightmare I was supposed to love? And who supposedly loved me? Cared for me? This was love? This was care? Life is not worth living if that’s the case.
Ever since I got married I have had this unsettling feeling in the background. I have never been able to pinpoint it or understand it. Getting married, having someone in my life who genuinely cared for me went against the family MO. They were threatened by it. And I could feel it in my bones. I was unsettled to my core in my “settling down”. I lived everyday in a way where I feared for my life, feared for my safety. They were livid. You don’t get to have this you little shit, is what their eyes screamed.
Breaking away from them has been my dream, even as a kid. But I denied it. I couldn’t admit it. I didn’t trust myself. You’re just imagining. I was gaslit my whole life out of any genuine feeling, out of any instinct. And so it makes sense, I was fucking confused. Unraveling has been mainly diffusing this confusion. Confronting me with it. With the fear and terror and shame and grief at the base of it. These people are horrid my feelings would say. And I felt crazy for even thinking it. It couldn’t be. They fed me. I had a roof over my head – I’m the problem. I must be.
But whenever I stop seeing myself as the problem, everything feels more right, I’m more in tune with myself. I feel my power and inner knowing again. Something I had denied myself my whole life, had been denied, had been trained out of. I don’t know what to do with this information. I don’t know how to break away. The fear, the terror is overwhelming. I’m scared. How the hell am I gonna disentangle from this nightmare once and for all?