Is it wrong that I can't get past my past?
I know that the past is the past and that is all it will ever be, but when the past is very hurtful to you, you can't just forget what people have done to you. Let me explain a little bit of what I am still having a hard time getting past...
My whole life has been a very difficult time. Growing up, we were always poor, homeless off and on, and my father was an abusive drug addict. We bounced around, living in hotels, homeless shelters and cars, until I was 12. He was very abusive, mentally and physically. We would never know when or why he would go off, or who he was going to take it out on. Sometimes he would take it out on us and sometimes he would take it out on my mom. After we left my dad when I was 12, we moved to a very small town and lived with grandparents, my mother became an alcoholic and the town whore. She was always gone and it was left up to me to take care of myself, my brother and my grandpa. I cooked and cleaned, I gave my brother baths, helped him with his homework, and even signed my own signature on his school slips. The house we lived in was small and my grandma died sitting on the couch that I was sleeping on. I found my grandpa dead when I got up for school one morning. After my grandparents died, we moved to another house and my mother moved her boyfriend in with us. He wouldn't let us use the heater in our bathroom, where there was no shower, only a tub. It was so cold that year that our shampoo would freeze, and we would have to thaw in hot water before using it. She finally broke up with him, and shortly after that I was raped in my own house by a friend... I never told anyone that before. A few weeks later at the age of 14, I tried to kill myself by taking a bunch of pills. My mother got mad at me that she had to take off work to take me to the hospital. I was put in foster care, but my brother was allowed to stay at home, they said that my mother's neglect didn't affect him the same way as it did me. I spent almost a year in foster care before I was returned to my mother and her new boyfriend. I lived with them for about a year. I was on honor roll at school, and I was a good kid... I tried really hard to be someone that she could love. It didn't work. When I was 16 she kicked me out because her boyfriend didn't want me there anymore. I lived my boyfriends parents until was 18 and then I joined the military. That boyfriend broke up with me when I got out of boot camp... go figure.
Now I'm 23, I'm married and I have 2 beautiful children. I'm mostly happy with my life now... we struggle... everybody does but we have a strong relationship so I know that everything will be okay.
I guess I just still feel sad and angry... I feel like the whole has let me down my whole life. When we were still with my dad, and we were on the street corner holding a sign, begging for money, where was child services? Where was the police? Why, so far, has everybody just let me down. I try to be a good person, I try to help people whenever I can, and I can't help someone, then I will sit and cry with them. I'm caring, and compassionate and I want to help people... where was someone like me when I was growing up? Another thing that still upsets me is my mother... I thought that a mother's love was supposed to be unconditional. My mother loved everything else first, and me last. I have always asked myself, what is wrong with me? What kind of a monster do you have to be for your own mother not to love you? Am I that screwed up?
Sometimes I feel like I should just be over it already, and sometimes I still hurt like it all happened yesterday. I struggle to get over it and I don't know why. I don't know how to get past it so that it doesn't effect me any more. So if you have any ideas, I'm open.
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