I woke up this morning to this fundraising promotion. There was no hesitation on whether or not I would participate. If I were bringing in income, I would have donated more. I'm premeditating what my future income will fund: college educations for my children, a wedding that we have yet to have, and more donations to causes that are important to me.
I don't talk about my ugly young adult stage that much because its, well, ugly. I should rephrase that. My inward existence as a young adult was ugly. On the outside, I was too busy playing musical instruments, writing and studying. But on the inside, I was reeling. I felt neglected and like a non-person in my own home.
When I went off to college the first time, I started having horrible nightmares, insomnia and a relapse with an eating disorder. All of that led to what I refer to as a mental breakdown. I was a useless mess. I stopped taking my family's phone calls and I decided that I couldn't be healthy AND be in relationship with them. I'm not saying it's all their fault, but I still maintain that I did the right thing for me knowing that I was the only one who was looking out for me.
When my mother came to campus to confront me, she assumed the worst in me. She thought I was pregnant and on drugs. That was far from the truth. I knew at that moment that she didn't know me after 15 years of being "her daughter." I was struggling to make sense of the crap I went through without villainizing my parents whom I was supposed to go back home to over the summer. I just couldn't go back home. And- I never did go back "home."
I knew that I had nothing going on with my adoptive father after an incident that is burned into my head. I was going to see this therapist when I was around 13 or 14. She kept talking to me like an idiot about her tea and rice. She was not very "culturally competent" and I picked up on it right away. ["Cultural competence" is a theme in my Human Services program.]
My dumb teenage mouth told her how I'd tried to kill myself by taking a whole bottle of sleeping pills. I remember that day. My parents had no idea that I was "out." But, God intervened and pulled me out of that "sleep." I was disappointed and that was why I told my therapist.
She was legally bound to tell my parents since I was a minor. That particular session, my father was picking me up. She told him that I had made an attempt on my life. All he could muster to say to me (in the most disgusted and unloving voice) was "How dare you do that to our family!"
I couldn't handle that response on top of the numerous times he told me I should be "thankful," "grateful," and everything else speaking to the fact that he didn't think I deserved the parenting he was providing for me. I was emotionally done with them in that phase of my life. I knew I couldn't survive with that attitude from my parents.
This was after I had nursed him to health after open heart surgery. I worked for my mother so she could have her dream flower shop. I dutifully mothered my mother the way she always begged me to fawn over her. I was emotionally dead.
