So, from the first three parts of
this topic, I am not entirely convinced that my biological father’s
‘disappearance’ necessarily had any serious consequences to me; however, I can
say that my childhood and early adulthood were dominated by me having a
self-image problem. I was, from as
young as I can remember to about the age of 33 or so, very insecure in that I
felt that I was less intelligent than everyone else, no fun, not funny, and I
also would find myself trapped in worry quite often where I would be
mind-possessed with the imagining of potential consequences to a given scenario
to a point where often I would be ‘tuned-out’ of what is going on in an obvious
way to my friends who would often make fun of me for it. I had a great fear of saying the ‘wrong’
thing as well. I felt that I had
nothing to say, and would ponder my words extensively before using them and
oftentimes just not even speak at all for fear of saying something
‘stupid’. I had a lot of backchat about
how stupid I was, how I had ‘nothing’ to say, how I was not very ‘funny’, and
anyone with a lot of confidence or projected a lot of confidence or who was
very ‘popular’ was terrifying to me. Of
course, this whole mind-set really kicked-in in my teenage years and waned a bit
in my 20s and then somehow I just got over it for the most part in my 30s,
except the worry aspect and even the other traits I still find points of these
patters still existent within and as me to a certain extent.
Regarding my mother, I remember considering her to be a ‘worrier
too’, but I don’t have any really clear memories to support this view of her,
either; and she must have gotten over this to a certain extent in her later
years as well. However, I can say that
she is over-bearing and over-protective.
Regarding the over-protectiveness, as I mentioned in the previous posts,
I was not allowed to do the things my peers were able to do as early as they
were. I was always the last to be able
to ride his bike to the store, etc – and of course, I got made fun of by my
friends for this and also felt very confined and restricted and even ‘less
privileged’ because of this. The
over-bearing trait that she possesses can even be seen now, where she gives
advice and insists that one takes the advice and even enforces her advice with
actual physical follow-up and actions.
In fact, I have learned to not even mention things to her for fear of
getting her advice and then having to explain myself as to why I did not take
her advice. So, maybe the
over-bearingness and the over-protectiveness of my mother also contributed to
my lack of self-confidence and self-trust, but again, I cannot say for sure at
this point because it seems that as a child we become shaped by things but the
backchat / internal dialog is not as prevalent, so it is less easy to draw connections
to things. I can say however, that it
is logical and makes sense that my mother’s over-bearingness and overprotection
contributed to my lack of self-trust and self-confidence.
I know I got really angry with my
mother for divorcing my father and moving us, me and my brother, 2000 miles
away from him. I was angry for years at
her for this. I had felt that she was
‘always’ on the run, very self-centered, and the cause for my social life to be
ruined. She moved my when I was 14
years old and I had to start all over again with making new friends. I was already very shy with very little
self-confidence and all kinds of backchat about how stupid and boring I was to
begin with, and now I had to make new friends at a new school in a new city in
a new state, all for what? There wasn’t
even a good reason for this! It was
just like my biological father’s disappearance – it happened for no good
reason! What the fuck! Wow, I get pissed-off now even writing about
this. And now that I think of it, I can
also say that by the time I hit my mid 20s, I blamed my mother for my lack of
self-trust and self-confidence. I
blamed her because I was having a lot of trouble socially, making friends and
dating, and started to psychoanalyze my past and through that started blaming
my mother. In this blame, my anger
towards her grew even more.
So, to summarize the first 2 points
that I am looking at: I did not have
anything obviously ‘humiliating’ happen to me as a child such as any form of
abuse etc that I can for sure link to my worry pattern, and I cannot say that
my mother had a pattern of worry that I can clearly identify either. However, it seems likely that her pattern of
over-bearingness, and over-protection along with my natural father and my
adopted father being taking from my life at the ages of 5 and 14 respectively
contributed to this.
I will look at some additional
points in my next writing.
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