When anyone grows up without the emotional support, they will end up with having to deal with neglect, anger and isolation. If it is allowed to continue, it eats away at every fibre of your being, of your soul.
It also makes you acutely aware of how it feels to be unseen, and unheard.
Enduring neglect continues unless you choose to deal with it. With work on myself, I started to break the cycle of neglect. Writing is about placement. It's become a testament to my emotional strength.
Over the years, I have had to show myself care. By nurturing your soul, you too can extend yourself that same care. There were moments when I could have continued to stay angry, moments when it would have been easier to continue with anger – to shut down. Instead, over the years of not knowing about my disability, I held on to hope – hope, where the world I was growing up in, didn’t offer me hope.
My inner child was in pain and I needed to help her. Now I write to understand, to talk about my life in a way that allows for acceptance, without the apologies. The apologies have never come.
It's not been an easy journey. As has been pointed out to me many times, I have had nothing but trauma to deal with. My father eventually said of me before he passed away, that empathy and compassion was always part of me – those were something no amount of neglect could erase.
