Childhood and Monsters

In recently reading through a book I wrote, I’m realizing there are things that have come up in the 4 years since I finished it, and I should add them now. I am seeing I missed a very important point in the scheme of becoming a top quality human and liking who you are…and that important point boils down to childhood pain. I’ve been writing for much longer than I have been writing and INCLUDING aspects of my childhood pain. I’m finally accepting, this isn’t something that can just be ignored. In my dealing with it, I'm writing about it.

In fact, I’m looking at it clearer than ever, after attending a women’s retreat and hearing the stories of so many sweet women who all have a heart of gold despite their trauma. Listening to the things people endure as children has me thinking two things in large amounts.

* My childhood trauma could be seen as mild.

AND

*Most people my age have trauma and abuse in their childhood.

It’s actually disheartening to realize this as you start allowing conversations about trauma to be part of everyday communication. No, I’m not going around saying “Were you abused? Hey, me too!” But in dealing with neck problems from being hit so much as a child, and it now being a daily issue for me as an adult, I end up hearing through shared pain that few people “escaped” abuse in their childhood.

And let’s define that really quickly… You wouldn’t think it would need definition, but there is a perspective on social media that is not the perspective I’m taking. Apparently people hearing things they don’t like makes them feel “unsafe” and even offended. Actually…THAT’S offensive to the people who know what UNSAFE is. If a person wasn’t abused and doesn’t have trauma they are trying to heal, they just like saying they feel unsafe. It feeds the obtuse measure of me too for those who aren’t able to relate, but wish they could “join in”.

Actual abuse is ANYTHING done to a child that causes physical, emotional, or mental harm. Disciplining a child and sending them to their room because of something they did and shouldn’t have, is not abuse. I almost just want to say, lets all pull our heads out of our asses and sensibly understand the word harm also. This world we live in now, is one where people seem to have their own definitions for words, and I don’t have patience for it…and anyone wanting to twist the word harm into something its not -is not the person I’m writing to…it’s the person I’m writing ABOUT.

So when is a child no longer a child? When is it ok to say, “You’re old enough, I can treat you like this because you are an adult”?

Never! You see, we are never supposed to harm anyone, and we are ESPECIALLY never supposed to harm children. MY WORLD is one where this is still not common knowledge.

Now, to return to my original topic.

Monsters.

Anyone willing to harm a child is not just a shitty human, they are a monster. Let’s be clear about that. AND there are monsters in most of our lives. And No, everyone isn’t a monster. Some have more monsters in their lives than others, so it can feel like that. Some people had BOTH parents that were monsters, not just one, and it’s knowing actual people who had to live with two Monsters that got me started writing this post.

I experienced being raised by a Monster AND an Angel. Not having two monsters is how I think I managed to see my monster so clearly. I’ve called him a two headed alien a few times in my writings because I couldn’t relate to him or understand where he was coming from. His continual attacks on us sitting with the Angel next to us is what made it so clear. He constantly put himself on the outside of “us”. He took the “outsider/foreigner/alien” role and more often than not put us on the couch to shout at us as the team of Angels we were.

I’d say this makes me lucky, if I had to have a monster, for the monster to clearly be a monster, is beneficial for me. I wasn’t also experiencing passive aggressive behavior, or gaslighting, or any mind games. It was all pretty cut and dried for me. Which might also be key to my unraveling the emotional damage he did. It’s not complicated damage. The physical damage is another thing, but maybe it's related.

Something I’ve also realized that has helped me see things clearer, (I ascribe to one day be saying clearly) is that pain is a distraction from sensibility. And it can be overwhelming. This being the case, when we stay in pain, where we were when we experienced pain, we do not have access to sensibility the way we would if we could step away from the pain. I have found this applies emotionally and physically. Sometimes a pill that could help my neck goes ignored because the pain is so loud and commanding my attention. The times I am not in pain, I’m able to remember the things that help me when I’m uncomfortable. Go ahead and think of an example of pain you have had recently; physical or emotional…and then think of how sensible you were in those moments? If you are no longer in quite such a painful place, can you think right now of things that help you when you are like that?

I have some supplements I’m going to go grab right now in the interest of trying to remain sensible despite the discomfort in my neck and head currently with pain at the back, pain at the front, and vertigo.

It’s a debatable topic whether or not emotional pain is far greater than physical pain. I’m one of those on the side of saying I’d take physical pain over emotional pain any day of the week. Which also reminds me of the book The Mind/Body Prescription by John E. Sarno. I haven’t finished reading it, but he talks about the body having to be involved because the mind is overwhelmed and allocating its pain. CREATING physical pain from emotional pain. I’m totally open to that, and trying to lean more currently. It’s a rabbit hole that could change everything if we started dealing with emotional issues and found we could be healing physical ones. As I say, I’m working on this, and since this book appeared, I have even more reasons to heal the emotional stuff. I'm trying to understand the belief I have that "blame" does not serve me, so why do I turn to it? Should I be allowing blame instead of fighting it? I just can't see that blame heals, so I try to move past it.

UGH.

I wish I could get rid of all the monsters, or I wish they didn’t exist. My mother didn’t have abusive parents, and I have always enjoyed listening to her talk about her childhood and how much happiness she had. Her world didn’t include monsters until she married one. Maybe that’s how it happened, there was no recognition.