Day 162 – Breaking Down My Worry Pattern / Personality, Part 1

          Investigating worry and why I worry further, I am going to look a little at my childhood.  So, I am going to break down this worry personality that I have over the next few blogs; and, in this blog, I am going to start with looking at: 

1.     What happened as a child/young person - that either humiliated or angered me so much that since then you feared communication or the consequence of communication with others, especially revealing things that could have been taken the wrong way, or being blamed for something that happened because of what I said

When I was 5 years old, my natural father, as in blood relationship father, was removed from the lives of me, and my 4-year-old brother.  From my perspective, he was essentially replaced with a new father that came on the scene almost instantaneously and adopted us.  There was never any real clear explanation for this given by any of my parents.   I never saw my biological father after that, until the age of 28.

I remember in kindergarten my name changing and having to learn how to spell my new last name.  I remember my new father being super big compared to my old father.  I remember taking a while to warm up to my new father.  I remember moving to a new and big house that I would grow to love and have found memories of.  I don’t remember the process of meeting my new family – my new brothers, grandparents, aunts and uncles - but I do remember that it was not long after meeting my new dad, that I became comfortable with my new family and new life. 

There are memories that I am not sure of who they are of, my original father and his family or my new father and his family.  For instance, there is a memory of going flying in a personal airplane with my aunts, uncles, and cousins that I only recently became aware that this was my original father’s family.   I also never could remember what my original father looked like but still had memories of him.  However, I would remember or dream about him as this mysterious figure without a face.  I don’t remember the last day of seeing him or the end of our relationship.  In fact, I don’t have many memories at all of the time that I was with my original father including the last days that I was with him.

So, my original father and who he was and why he disappeared from my life was like a mystery while growing up, but it wasn’t a huge issue because I had a new dad who was actually a really good dad to take his place.  When I asked of my old dad, my parents would give me vague explanations, but none of them really made complete since to me. 

When I was younger, I just looked at this as normal and there was no anger or other emotions like sadness in relation to this.  But, as I aged and realized that there is a problem with not having a good explanation as to why one’s father just disappears and gets replaced with a new father, then I started to hold anger towards my mother and my adopted father, but mainly towards my mother.   This anger lasted from about my teen-age years to my early 30s.

I don’t know if this ‘loosing’ of my original father really is the root of anything here.  However, I am looking at something in my childhood that may have been humiliating that could have caused or be part of the cause of the root of a worry pattern that I have had throughout my life, so perhaps loosing my father could fit be this.  So, was I in a since, humiliated by my natural father ‘disappearing’ and then having no equal and one explanation from my mother and new father?  You see, at 5 years old, one does not really look at things this way – where a 5 year old says to himself ‘yes this is humiliating or I fee humiliated’, yet I could have been humiliated from the perspective that my original father just rejected me, as far as I was concerned from the perspective of a 5 year-old child, and then just kind of suppressed this emotion.  I do know that I lacked confidence and had a lot of trouble standing up for myself and believing in myself while growing up.  I considered myself to be ‘stupid’, ‘boring’ and in general ‘less than all the other kids’ and this caused me to be very withdrawn, and considered to be shy, in social situations.  Interestingly enough, I was still able to make a few friends and when I did I was outgoing while with them.

When I became a teenager I started to realize how fucked-up it is to not know who one’s real father is and have no good explanation of his disappearance other than ‘he wouldn’t get a job’, which was really the only form of an explanation that I really got and ironically was actually a big part the case, as I would much later find out.  So, I started to become angry with my mom and adopted father, but mainly at my mom.  This anger started shortly after my mom divorced my adopted father and moved us, my younger brother and me, to New Orleans, which was like 2000 miles away from where we grew up with my adopted father.   I was angry with her for somehow assisting in the ‘disappearance’ of my biological father and also the divorcing my adopted father’.  I was starting to feel as if my mother was always on the run and anger and resentment started towards her.

I will pick up on this tomorrow.