Built From Broken

My whole life has been a string of bad events and shitty situations. I was raised by two people who had no business being parents. They were very damaged themselves, and they were not able to be parents – at least not how they should have been. I was never WANTED. I was a mistake, an accident, an oops. I have been feeling that way my entire life. Nothing I ever said was important to my family, and none of my feelings were taken into consideration. Ever. I was always told other people had it worse than me, so why was I complaining? My parents got divorced when I was young; I was 7 years old. I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes at age 10, and that just added to my feelings of inadequacy, feeling like I was always an inconvenience to everyone around me. My diabetes was always treated like an annoyance. It’s not like I wanted to deal with it either! It turned my entire world upside down. I already had to grow up WAY too early, and the just added insult to injury.

I tried to just swallow my feelings, like my family expected me to, it just didn’t work. I wasn’t built that way. I would swallow my feelings and then they would just come out in different ways. Mostly, it just hurt me. I still struggle with that to this day. I try and swallow my feelings, and then I end up taking it out on the wrong person, or bursting out in tears for “no reason.” I could go on and on, but I have been trying to make an effort to change this about myself so that I don’t hurt the people I love. The people we love are usually the ones that get the brunt of the anger, unfortunately. The last thing I want to do is put other people through what I have been through.

I never felt loved by my family, so I found that love with a boy at school when I was 16. He was the only one who knew all of my “stuff” and loved me anyway, so he made me feel safe. He was the only one I felt comfortable telling all my secrets to. We were together for 3 years and then he cheated on me. It was really hard on me because he was the ONLY one who knew everything about me. I didn’t have anyone else I could vent to when it came to my family, so I just kind of suffered in silence. At the time, I wasn’t speaking to my father. We went 2 years without speaking to each other. I was only 19 at the time. It was over a fight we had on my 18th birthday. During those two years, he never once reached out to me. I was the one who ultimately had to initiate conversation again. He didn’t want to deal with me. He didn’t want to deal with my emotions. He didn’t want to be called out, he didn’t want to deal with my anger, nor did he care about the many valid reasons I had to be upset with him.

From the ages of 19 to 22 I just tried to focus on college, hang out with my friends and figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Sadly, I ran into a ton of roadblocks along the way! Most people do, but after the life I had up to that point, I wasn’t set up for success. My mother would say just about anything to upset me, and God forbid I let it bother me. If I reacted, I was met with dramatics on her end, fake crying, telling me I don’t love her, etc. As I got older, this behavior from my mother became more frequent.

When I was 19, I enrolled in an Organic Chemistry class in college. I was a Biology major and that class was required in order to graduate. I was scared, because I had heard how hard that class was. I worked my ass off studying, staying up late…but things just weren’t clicking for me. I ended up withdrawing from Organic Chemistry before the deadline, so that I didn’t mess up my GPA. If I got a D or an F, I would still have to retake the class anyway. When I told my mom, she wasn’t sympathetic whatsoever. The day after I dropped the class, my mom came home from the store. I was sitting on the couch. She told me “why don’t you go fail another class!” I was so shocked, at the time I couldn’t even speak. Later that evening, of course we all had to have a “talk.” My mom, in typical fashion, turned on the water works and acted like I was the one that did something to her. Then, I started getting lectured by my step-dad. At that point, I lost it. I was so angry I slammed a glass on the kitchen counter and it shattered to pieces. Not surprisingly, after that my mom didn’t talk to me for a solid two weeks. My step-dad begged me to apologize to her so we could all “go back to normal.” Normal was great for everyone, except me. This is just one example of the way I was treated. Nothing I did was right, nothing I did was good enough. I have never had great self-esteem. I went too many years being critiqued, criticized and told I wasn’t good enough – and I believed it. This lead me to fall for men who were emotionally unavailable, cheaters & liars. I had terrible luck in the romance department. Looking back on that time, it’s no wonder!

Then at 22, I met W, my soon to be ex-husband. We were together for almost 14 years before we separated in 2022. That relationship was damaging for so many reasons. He shattered what little self worth I had, a little piece at a time. So slowly that it took me years to see what was going on. By that point, we already had a child together, so either way, he would be in my life to some degree. I tried to make it work for a long time. Some things just aren’t forgivable in my opinion. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you can’t erase the damage that has already been done. By the time he tried to make things right, it was too late.

Stay tuned for PART II! 🖤