Sunday, September 8, 2013

Picking up the Pieces

Continuing with Abuse. I want to take a minute to talk about picking up the pieces. I know that the process is difficult. I tried so very hard to do it all by myself. I fought the internal battles valiantly, but each one I lost. The war was over before I even took to the field. It's not something that one can do alone. The anger that's built up over the years is far stronger than one might imagine. For me it was planet sized. It was the only emotion that I have ever really knew. It was not only my worse enemy, but it was far closer to me than any friend, and definitely closer than family.

See this Anger was born from years of feeling unwanted and unloved. I've since come to find out that when the one person that you really want love and acceptance from withholds it, everyone else's is like a raindrop in the grand canyon. You are focused on that one person that refuses to give you what you need. It's like a drug. You crave it. You want it more than anything and when it's not given, the craving becomes a longing. It begins to consume you. It becomes your beacon, the only thing that you can see, the one thing that occupies your mind. The overwhelming thought, "what's wrong with me that I can't be loved?" And the power that thought has is so consuming. You try everything just to make yourself worthy of the love and affection of this one person. This one insignificant speck in the history of humanity. But this one blip in time, happens to be your father/mother/husband/wife. You happen to love them far more than you ever thought possible, but the feeling is obviously not mutual.

So now this Anger is no longer focused externally, it now becomes intrinsic. It's number one purpose , destroy me. It's plan was an insidious one. Convince me that no one could possibly love me. "Hell your own father doesn't even love you. He could care less if you even exist. You are worthless, less than worthless. Nothing about you is worthy of anything other than the disdain of others." Somehow, this seemed to be the Truth. I had no friends. I was isolated. Withdrawn. Shut off in my own world battling for my life. Fighting hard not to let this destroy me before I really got a chance at life.

I am going to take a moment here and in the honor of full disclosure, tell you that the rest of my family are wonderful people. They gave me all of the love and affection that I could handle. Sometimes it seem to be far more than any child could need, but I think that they saw that darkness in me. You see, in my day and where I come from, I was considered to be tender-hearted. I was never more than just a reprimand away from tears.

The pressure of trying to be loved and accepted by my father was omnipresent. Any reprimand was THE reason why he didn't. I was convinced that it was me. I had to be the problem. In my mind there was no other explanation possible. Why else would I, the flesh of his flesh, the blood of his blood, be beneath his notice. There was something wrong with me. There had to be. I was unloved and unwanted by my Father. How could that be possible if it was some horrible defect within me. I remember watching The Omen and thinking that, I must be marked. I searched my body for it. I was so sure it was there.

At a certain point I became convince that this man that I was being told was my father was, in fact, not my father. It was just a man that my mom married. Since my Anger had virtually consumed me, I began to Hate him. I wanted him destroyed. I needed him out of my life. As far away from me as physically possible. I needed both time and distance. I needed to heal.

I believe I was around 12 or 13 before I began to plead with my mom to divorce this man. I told her that I would work at the body shop up the street picking up paper and cleaning up to help pay the bills. I told her that I would get a real job at 15, just get away. I guess my granddad could see how much I needed to be free of him, he offered to pay for the divorce. I was 17 before I was finally freed.

That's when my healing should have began, however, things got hard. But that's another tale. I was able to start to actually live. And live I shall continue until my last Breath.

Mike Ransom

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