Nobodys child

So in 1986 there was this movie with Marlo Thomas that I absolutely fell in love with. It was called nobody's child, and a book title I wanted so terribly to use for my own life story. I have been through hell and back several times and watching this movie helped me to understand that you can go through things, horrible things and still live on.

This movie is about a woman that is traumatized as a child. Her natural mother was mentally ill, her adoptive mother cruel and the combination of these two things created an anxiety disorder and a deep depression in this woman's life. Fortunately for her there were a few people in her life that believed in her and believed that there was help for her. They helped her get stabilized on medication, then found a family for her to live with that could show her how a family responds to each other and how they function day to day.

It might sound silly but these are things that a lot of people never get to see or understand. I never got to see and understand these things. My childhood was very misunderstood by everyone. My mother was mentally ill and my father was absent most of the time. My grandparents, while willing to raise my younger sister, were unwilling to raise me. I lived with several family members, I was in several foster homes, attempted living with my parents occasionally, and was institutionalized a number of times. I was physically and sexually abused, mentally and emotionally battered, and repetitively neglected and rejected by the people who were supposed to love me most in the world. By the time I was 16 years old I was ready to be out on my own and I was emancipated by the state so I could do just that. Shortly after I found and clung to a relationship that was just as painful and unhealthy as my childhood had been. I stayed in that relationship for nearly 14 years.

I have been out and on my own for 4 years as of the 19th of this month. There is no one hitting me anymore, or putting me down. No one forces me to do disgusting sexual things that make my skin crawl anymore. It's just me and my kids and the few people I have chosen to let get close to me. I try to live my life as any other person might. I go to work, come home, and do my best to raise my children right. But as much as I try to live my life normally I have a constant and looming fear that people will discover who I really am and they will turn on me too. I feel that way about every single person I meet. I am constantly paranoid that I will be found out and abandoned. The only people that I don't naturally have that fear with are my children and my sister, and probably the reason that I cling to them so. Odd that the only other people I didn't feel that way about were the very people that made me feel that way to begin with.

I am learning to overcome this but it is so hard for me to trust people. I can honestly say that relationships don't stand a chance with me right now. I still crave relationships that are unbalanced and unhealthy. I make connections with people that are lacking the same things inside themselves that I am, and while I've made attempts at these relationships when I finally see the truth in the relationship I am disgusted by it and turn on it. Then I turn on myself.

I have come very far in the last 4 years, farther than I ever thought possible. But I can't pretend that I am different just because my circumstances are. I still have a lot of issues to work through before I can really feel like a whole person. The only people that ever really get to know me are people that prove to me they view that as a unique part of who I am and not a flaw.

Just as much as I know that there is something wrong with me, I know that there is something very right also. I feel like I understand things in a way a lot of people don't. That I have an appreciation for other people that most don't. And I know that someday someone will be very lucky to know that side of me in a romantic way. But I have to feel ready for it first, and apparently I still don't.