Healing From Past Trauma: Its Impact on my Relationship With Myself

Few of us in my generation had easy lives when we were growing up. Certainly none of my relatives did. My dad was orphaned as a young child and my mother came to America from Glasgow, Scotland and married a man who could barely support her. My mother’s sisters, who traveled with her to this country of opportunity, all married men they probably wouldn’t have, had they been given a choice.

My mother and I never bonded so I tried to form bonds with other older women and at 18 I took in a homeless child hoping to create some sort of mother/daughter bond. In the end nothing really worked to fill that void.

But the one thing I could always count on was my innate ability to reimagine my life and boy did I go wild. With a little creativity I could copy almost any outfit and attitude and live that part until it no longer worked for me. This was my escape from the reality of my life.

As I grew older I was driven to understand what was missing in my life and why I was so angry and unfulfilled. I knew other people didn’t live like I did. Was I just this really bad, messed up kid, and if so, why?

That knowledge came to me in my early 20s after two suicide attempts. Before trying a third I decided to call every one of my aunts and uncles and ask them what my life was like growing up and why I felt the way I did about myself and my mother.

I learned the truth about my upbringing from my relatives; that my mother and I had never bonded, that we just never fit. That helped me realize I wasn’t responsible for my behavior as a child or for how I felt about my mother, and that took the weight of the world off my shoulders.

Understanding my childhood reality allowed me to begin to like myself just a little bit, and a little bit more each year for the next 50+ years.

BUT WAIT… SOMETHING’S HAPPENING…

On my 77th birthday I had an epiphany that changed my world, and suddenly, surprisingly, for the first time I understand who I was always meant to be.

It doesn’t matter how long it takes. I’m at peace with my past. and can appreciate the journey that brought me to where I am today. The point is, I’m here.