Thoughts on my childhood.
I had a hard childhood. Numerous reasons for it, some of them political and some of them not. Physical disability would've made it hard even if I'd been raised by physically healthy and wealthy Unitarians who were completely accepting of everything about me that wasn't Normal.
I wasn't a normal child either. This week my therapist, the good one who comprehends fibromyalgia and physical disability as well as trans issues and emotional stuff, blew my mind again. She popped out with another zinger.
If I had been a normal child I wouldn't have survived my childhood.
That's a little freaky to contemplate. I don't have any memory of ever being like children are supposed to be. The biggest thing about me that everyone kept trying to pound out of me was lack of "innocence" i.e. gullibility.
I blew it off to having a high IQ at the time. That meant a lot to my parents. They crowed over it but also freaked out over it being "too high to be stable." I wasn't normal but that was a thing like having super powers, not entirely undesirable.
I didn't believe it was all my fault. Most abused children do. It gets beaten into them that they deserved it. I wound up getting punished so much that punishment lost all its meaning.
I've heard grown men raised by alcoholics tell me seriously "I'm a loser. I'm a total failure, no good at anything and never will be. My dad said that and it's true. It's just what I am, a loser."
I got told those same things. Exactly those words. I didn't believe it. Now I'm thinking back and feeling differently about what I was like as a kid. In some ways I've always just been myself. Not all the things that weren't normal about me were bad things.
My therapist was right. A normal child would have died. I didn't hate myself. I hated my situation, that isn't the same thing at all. I don't feel bad about it either. I still don't think Ignorance is a virtue.
I wasn't a normal child either. This week my therapist, the good one who comprehends fibromyalgia and physical disability as well as trans issues and emotional stuff, blew my mind again. She popped out with another zinger.
If I had been a normal child I wouldn't have survived my childhood.
That's a little freaky to contemplate. I don't have any memory of ever being like children are supposed to be. The biggest thing about me that everyone kept trying to pound out of me was lack of "innocence" i.e. gullibility.
I blew it off to having a high IQ at the time. That meant a lot to my parents. They crowed over it but also freaked out over it being "too high to be stable." I wasn't normal but that was a thing like having super powers, not entirely undesirable.
I didn't believe it was all my fault. Most abused children do. It gets beaten into them that they deserved it. I wound up getting punished so much that punishment lost all its meaning.
I've heard grown men raised by alcoholics tell me seriously "I'm a loser. I'm a total failure, no good at anything and never will be. My dad said that and it's true. It's just what I am, a loser."
I got told those same things. Exactly those words. I didn't believe it. Now I'm thinking back and feeling differently about what I was like as a kid. In some ways I've always just been myself. Not all the things that weren't normal about me were bad things.
My therapist was right. A normal child would have died. I didn't hate myself. I hated my situation, that isn't the same thing at all. I don't feel bad about it either. I still don't think Ignorance is a virtue.