No one’s childhood is perfect. I am sure when we all look back there will be something we weren’t happy with, or would like to have changed.
Having lived in an emotional vacuum for some 46 years, it’s something I’m finding difficult to come to terms with. Out of all my issues, this is the most difficult one to come to terms with. Until I learn everything there is to know about my disability, I am missing out on understanding all my symptoms and how they relate to a disability I knew nothing about.
Then there’s 46 years of having to adapt into a life that didn’t allow me to live alongside a disability I should have known about. Having the support around my disability and neurological difficulties would have allowed me to work through and understand my struggles. I may have got help with school, instead of feeling I’d failed, and feeling isolated.
Growing up, I constantly lived in the dark. Not knowing anything about my disability, about me, how to manage me, how to manage my life, and what made me, me. Out of everything I've had to deal with, those issues were always the hardest.
I have had to come to terms with many things, but I’m not sure how I’m supposed to come to terms with the enormity of not knowing I had cerebral palsy, how I presented, or what my neurological symptoms meant. Although childhood emotional neglect is what an emotional vacuum is, it hasn’t stopped me from wanting to find out.
I could quite easily have given up. That thought did cross my mind on occasion. The emotional vacuum that was my life was in place for many years. It was my mum’s terminal illness that opened the door to a new thinking on my disability. My life would then be changed forever, in the form of a diagnosis and The CP Diary.
Yes, that emotional vacuum was one of the worst things to have to deal with all of these years. I hadn't really realized how bad it was until around the time we connected, so it was very good timing.
We both had parents who didn't really acknowledge our issues, or to be more precise, they chose not to. I spent most of my life feeling like I was such a horrible person and didn't deserve any sort of happiness of my own, since I wasn't ever able to make my parents happy!
We weren't allowed to feel much of anything, so it's no wonder I have felt like a zombie for most of my life. They tried to force us to think, act and feel the way they wanted us to; which went against everything decent and moral which no parent should ever do.
People always act horrified when I talk about my parents the way I do, but they didn't grow up in the hell that was our childhood. We were both really robbed of so much in life seeing as we both had issues that our parents knew about, but chose to ignore.
I find it nearly impossible to just let it go, like people love to suggest. The only two emotions I felt by the time I became an adult, were rage at the world and disgust with myself, because I was such a horrible little boy that never did anything right.
This so explains a lot of things, like why it has been that I have been drawn to the same type of relationships but just with different women and kept wondering why and how it was happening.
I'm finally at a point where I'm at least comfortable in my own skin and ready to find out what it's like to finally be happy.
Thanks Randy. Yes, what you're explaining is control, 'helicopter parenting' issues, where parents control their children's lives so that they're not thinking and acting independently.
I have had that too and always being aware of the control, made me even more determined not to make the same mistakes twice, if and when it came to having my own children. As parents it's our job to guide and that's accepted.
When it comes to physical or mental health issues, there really is no excuse for the emotional vacuum, but I'm choosing not to carry what's been done, but instead choose to understand and leave the final decision to the universe.
I believe and am of the opinion that things 'done to us' will never go unnoticed. We all become accountable for the things we do. Where it's clear 'things have been done to us,' it's up to us to change our thinking on those things, so that we begin to change things for our own children.
It's important not to dwell, or we'll make ourselves ill in the process of carrying our parents guilt. It's certainly not our guilt to carry.
You salvaged your life with the aid of determination, which is why you'll live this life to the fullest, despite. I can see that in the way your head is raised.
Thanks Tim. Yes, unconsciously I believed there was a bigger picture for me. It was just a matter of time and my life would change.
I didn't understand at that time how it would change or what form it would take, but I had a strong enough belief to believe things would change.
Perhaps where you say, 'I can see that in the way your head is raised' that is exactly what it was. Even through some very dark days, my thoughts grounded me. I was not prepared to throw in the towel.
I needed to hold on, to believe that my time would come.
Ilana, I am so very sorry you were not aware of your CP.
In traditional society, many parents didn’t acknowledge these things and actually denied it or shrugged Drs off as “incompetent" to stay in comfortable denial.
My son has CP and he has needed SO much in terms of IEPs, surgeries, therapies and medical care. I cannot imagine denying him those rights in any way, including emotionally.
I hope you have been able to meet those needs for yourself, and that you can come to terms with what aids you need, not in any way a burden.
Hi Anna, and welcome to the site. I am so pleased for your son and that you have made a difference to his life around his cerebral palsy.
I will never have the answers fully to what happened to me as a child. Although society was different back then, I am sure what happened to me had nothing to do with how society was at that time.
I am lucky I was emotionally self-sufficient enough to change my own fortunes around.