In my previous post, “The Beginning,” I talked about my parents and how that influenced my attachment style. In this post, I’ll talk about my life growing up.
Let’s skip straight to an event that happened when I was about 7 years old (warning, traumatic event). When I was 7 years old, I was raped, and my memories are still foggy about it. I don’t remember everything, but I do remember the fear and the hopelessness. I remember the confusion and the wanting to ask for help. But I also remember not telling my parents for fear that it would make things worse. (My previous post, “The Beginning,” can give some reasoning as to why I didn’t want to tell my parents.) This hopelessness and fear followed me throughout life, even when my memories were repressed (I didn’t remember the event until towards the end of college).
Within the next year, I had forgotten the event, but I started struggling with masturbation. I didn’t know at the time that it had a name or even what it was exactly. I just knew part of me felt good, while another part of me felt as though I were doing something wrong. I found out about the time I was 10 what it was called and I used google and different church websites to help me figure out why it felt wrong – because it was. But back to that later.
Let’s go to some years of homeschooling, I want to keep things in chronological order. I was homeschooled from Kindergarten through 7th grade. My mom was a pretty good teacher, and for part of the time, me and my brothers went to co-op once a week. My mom would teach us with patience, explaining and giving examples, not becoming angry with us for not understanding. These are some memories I look back on with fondness (except for the times I was learning a new math concept with the curriculum Saxon math).
Once I finished 7th grade, my mom knew she didn’t have the content knowledge to continue teaching me, and she felt like it was time for all of us to go to school. So for 8th grade, my brothers and I went to a private school. I liked it, and I made some friends. Then, for my high school years, my parents decided to send us to public school. Coming from Christian homeschooling to public school was a bit of a culture shock.
In high school, I found it difficult to make friends. I also felt the need to get near perfect scores on all my tests, and take AP classes. This placed unnecessary pressure on myself to study for long hours. I drove myself into loneliness during high school, studying instead of socializing. I also felt this heavy depression. And I had these daymares that wouldn’t go away. I felt hopeless and worthless, no matter how high my achievements were.
I became part of National Honors Society. I took dual credit courses. I even became valedictorian at my high school, yet I felt this sense of shame that I couldn’t seem to shake. I was still struggling with masturbation, and that definitely contributed to some feelings of shame and hopelessness.
I also believed that I couldn’t tell my parents anything that I really felt. Every time I had tried, my dad would explain why it wasn’t necessary to feel whatever I was feeling, and my mom would explain why what I was feeling wasn’t correct. From these interactions, I had concluded:
- My parents can’t be trusted with the soft parts of me because they just break those parts
- I cannot trust my emotions, because they are always wrong
By the end of high school, I had come to despise going home to have to hide my feelings. I wanted to move out, but not being in debt had been drilled into me. So, I stayed at home for the first part of college and saved some money. I also started a part-time job right after high school to help pay for college, so I hopefully wouldn’t have to pull out any loans between that and my scholarships. After being at my job for some time, my boss decided to play matchmaker, and he set me up with his son.
I felt obligated to ask Joey out, even though I was content being single (or so I thought). One night I sat down and wrote a bullet point email of who I was, why I was contacting him, and asking him if he wanted to date. I sent it over Messenger, and to my surprise, he said yes to going out for coffee! I was scared out of my mind. The first meet up was awkward, but it went well. We went on another date, and another. The rest is history, and yes, we are married now. But let’s move on to some other stuff that was happening at the same time I started dating while I was in college.
I was having daymares and nightmares, still feeling depressed (and still hadn’t asked for help), and desperately wanting to move out of my parents’ house. The daymares and nightmares were intense, the depression weighed heavy, and I wanted to move out because my mom felt like she was trying to suffocate me in family activities and openness with the family that she made me feel obligated to do. She would pry when I didn’t want her to, and she would schedule family get-togethers last minute, then say that my family wasn’t that important to me if I had already made plans with friends. My mom and I had a very rocky relationship for a while.
As I was working and dating and going to nursing school, my best friend moved to Texas so we could be roommates for a while. My grandma owned a rent house in town, so she let us stay there for a couple months with cheap rent – until we found bed bugs and decided to move out. I was going to move back in with my parents, but my friend, let’s call her Elisabeth, found an apartment for a pretty affordable price just a week before I was supposed to move back in with my parents. I prayed on this offer for a couple days, then let my parents know that I would not be moving back in with them. My parents were hurt and quite upset that I let them know on such short notice. I let them know the situation, and they were still quite upset and not understanding. I think I could’ve handled the situation a little better, but I think they could have as well.
That’s the end of this blog post, but if you want to keep reading, I will have my next post up soon!