guiab

Has anyone had a crashing moment when you realize that the gap between the childhood that was (the train wreck) and the one you wanted was really big?

I was reading a ACOA story of a daughter attending her mother's funeral, and was hit big by the grief. This was grief not so much for the lost parent, but for a childhood that could have, should have, but was not. GUESS WHAT NORMAL IS: The First Time My Mother Saw the Ocean

It hit me - as a child I had big expectations and desires for normal parents - no bitter anger, no clanking of bottles, no endless nights of screaming arguments, no endless hoping for a better tomorrow. The dream never came to pass, and there was nothing I could have done about it. The dream died in that wreck.

I always known that other children, then and now, have tougher, poorer, and abusive lives, so I didn't complain. I did not mourn that dream, because it seemed childish.
I mourn it now. A child's dreams are important. I mourn with tears, for loss and acceptance. And I think I feel better knowing that I once was that hopeful, and that I can be this accepting.

Thanks for 'listening'!

GiveLove

Ten years ago this month, I was driving on the freeway between my office and my counselor, who I'd been seeing to try to diagnose why I was so depressed and "dead" inside at the time.

And the song "Polaroids" by Shawn Colvin came on the stereo. It starts out this way:
I barely got my truck off the freeway and onto the shoulder before this wave of hysteria hit me. I cried at the top of my lungs, there locked in my little Ford Ranger, beating the steering wheel, crying so hard I thought I would die. It was a shattering moment, and it split me apart.

Eventually I was able to get to my counselor's office, where I repeated the performance.

Why then? Why that? For all the reasons you mention. Because this was a reality that HAD never happened, that WOULD never happen, this ability to turn to one's mother for love and support during times of severe emotional crisis. It came out all of a sudden, without warning, triggered by nothing more than a pop song I'd heard a dozen times before.

That was the year my healing did an about-face. With the help of my counselor, I was able to identify all of these moments that I would never experience with my mom, and find other ways to build that tenderness into my life. Life-changing.

Thanks for this post, barn. It's a painful memory for me but also a good one.

dothi

((((((((((grewupinabarn)))))))))))))

All I can say is that I hear your pain. A bitter dose of reality finally found its way through a remaining buttress of denial.

Popular relationship advice tends to tailor to romantic relationships, but it seems to me the same guidelines may apply. Let go of the dream. Let go of the unspoken deal you've made to get what you want, i.e. if you work hard enough, change enough, tolerate enough, wait long enough, etc. that you will get the dream you're working for. Years of our lives may be lost into this bargain we often don't realize we've made with people who are incapable of ever meeting their end of it.

To be honest, I think that's what my summer crazies were about. Realizing that my entire family - not just my AF - may be so mentally ill that it may be inconceivable to ever have them close in my life again. Not only was I screwed out of years of working towards a dream relationship with my AF, but the rest of them as well, sort of like a collapsing house of cards of alcohol-driven dysfunctional associations. It's not f*&king fair. <insert raging tantrum>

But we know that's the way it is. And we know now that it's not our fault. There is nothing we could have done to ultimately save these relationships... these dreams that kept us warm at night when all emotional support was lacking.

I am at times still reeling with how destructive alcohol has been in my family. To date I have lost half of my family of origin relationships. My sister is the only family member who has the courage to come and visit me (not fearful of AF's judgments or guilt trips). How did it ever come to this? The child in me still wants to know, because she worked very hard to avoid exactly this - this abandonment and alienation. All I can do is remind her (myself) that I didn't have all the information I needed to make sense of my world. That I truly did the best that I could. And now that I have new tools and more reliable information to manage my life with, I will still manage to live a happy life, even if the dreams in this new one feel strange and unfamiliar for a while. I understand that the changes in the past couple years of my life will not initially compare in strength to the sheer weight of broken dreams I had been carrying my entire life.

Grieve, grewupinabarn. Be easy on yourself. What you have lost is surely worth hurting over. What you have gained is the chance to live your life right - the way you had always intended.

barb dwyer

******{grewupinabarn}}}}

I did, too.
(grew up in a barn, that is)

while I haven't had the realization you're talking about,
I *did* almost de-rail the day I realized
the childhood I remember
is not the childhood
I actually had.

I'd actually superimposed memories
of children I played with
even of television episodes
or movies
and now
(*now* being twenty some odd years ago when originally realized it)
it's far too late
and everyone except me is dead anyhow
to find out
what really might have occurred.

So while I didn't
realize what You posted about...

... I can certainly relate.

Iwanttoheal

(((grewupinabarn)))

My crashing moment came 10 weeks ago.

Reading your post hurts so much - for years I buried that pain, ignored it, denied it - now the pain rips through me.

But... that's okay because the numbness used to confuse me - maybe my parents were right, maybe it wasn't that bad, maybe it was me that was at fault.

The pain I now feel let's me know that it wasn't me, that it was true all along, it was really that bad and it happened to me.

For me, acceptance is good because it brings truth with it. The pain is now part of me because I can touch it now when I read posts like yours but it is not all of me. Acceptance has also brought me out of the past, out of the future, out of the unachievable fairytale and into the present, the now.

Be gentle with yourself, IWTHxxx

guiab

Thanks you so much GL, Dothi, Barb, & IWTH! Your words made the difference. Sometimes these little revelations can be very challenging.

I have always been dogged by the feeling that 'it wasn't that bad' and I am truly grateful to be able to hear others say otherwise. It is also very enlightening, as in billion-watts, that see that part of me never gave up hoping for perfect parents. That is truly a child's dream - full of magical cause-effect. That hope became an obsession with the behavior of people around me.

I guess its like learning that Santa isn't real, but the really big lump of coal in my past is real.
==> ==> ==> [insert hug smiley here*]

* I just learned we can only use 3 images

takincareome

I never really had a crashing moment like that, but I can imagine how hard it must be.

My realization of this came in dribs and drabs over years. I guess I'm "lucky" because my parents dropped ME into therapy when I was 12 or 13, thinking something was wrong with ME, when in reality I was the only one who realized something was very wrong in our family. By the time my mother figured it out, I was light-years ahead of her. And she's a total codie anyway.

I don't in any way mean that to sound like I've got it all figured out. I spent years dealing with anger toward AF. I still get angry at him sometimes. I get angry at codie mom -- her more than him, these days -- I've been in and out of therapy enough that I've done a fair amount of dealing with his effects on me.

But I have little moments like the one you described all the time, when you see the chasm between the childhood you wanted and the one you got. It hurts, every time. I don't know if we ever stop grieving it. I don't know if I will, anyway. I just try to do like Dothi said -- let myself feel, grieve, be gentle with myself.

Hugs to you. And all of us.
xoxox