My fear of doing "something wrong" stopped me from truly experiencing the life I was, at the time, blessed to live. My childhood passed me by without any meaningful friendships - or, for that matter, really any friendships at all. At an age where I should have had innocent relationships with my peers in order to understand myself and really blossom into the person I would have become, I studied hard, had manners, and always did the right thing.
But I was fat.
And this was always held above my head as the ultimate failure. My wealthy relatives on my father's side insisted that my mother had "made me fat" out of spite to embarrass them amongst their friends in high society. My father asked, although out of concern for my health, whether I did not want to sit in a chair without taking up the whole thing. And my mother continued to feed me.
Ironically enough, I was never really bullied in school or made embarrassed because of my weight. I mean, not that I was not an outcast - believe me when I tell you I was - however it was because of the fact that I was, rather, mentally and emotionally different from my peers. Irony comes into play because what did make me feel bad about my weight was those same wealthy relatives asking me "if I even cared" about the fact that I would be bullied at school.
Early on I realized that there was something
going on with me that was not quite right.
For some time I believed it was just part of growing up. But this faded quickly as my friends moved through the passes of puberty, making mistakes, and experimenting all the while coming out on the other side unscathed. I did nothing for fear of the consequences.
Each emotion hit me like a ton of bricks. I hated myself. I was a failure. I was fat. I was ugly. I sliced my fears into my skin. I didn't understand.
But I was perceptive enough to know I needed help - so I asked for it. Although I wasn't taken seriously by my family - you're healthy, you have enough money, you have everything you could ever want and more - they eventually gave in around age 14 and let me see a therapist.
That lasted about three sessions. My mother, also being emotionally unstable (I hear these things run in families), fed what information she saw fit to my doctor. My doctor never seemed to remember my name, what grade I was in, or much of anything we talked about - at, I'm sure, hundreds of dollars an hour. The one thing she did seem to remember, however, was that she was convinced that I was
pretending to have multiple personalities.
This will have had something to do with the fact that I told her I blacked out and found myself 12 miles away from home on the doorstep of the one woman I knew whom took the time to accept me. And something about the fact that I might be "slightly depressed."
Whether I was taken out of therapy or stopped going, I can't recall as is the case with much of that period of my life. What I do remember, however, and what has remained the same to this day is my family's belief that I don't need help, and that I'm only really suffering because "I'm just too smart."
Well, I think if that were true, now 11 years later, I would have somehow found a way out of this mess.
One day I will. As it is now, I am (almost) 5 years married to the love of my life. They say that opposites attract. Well, not in our case:
I think when you're nuts you exude some sort
of energy that attracts others
exactly like you.
From my husband, my family, and even down to the few people I am fortunate enough to consider true friends, they are all completely out of their minds. Every last one of them. And I say this with love.
This journal will be comprised of my thoughts and anecdotes as I try to understand what's wrong with me, what's wrong with my husband, and what's wrong with our relationship--
xLoJu
*Disclaimer: Anything I write that comes off as callous or offensive is certainly not meant to be but rather just a consequence that I was born without a filter between my brain and my lips. Or, my fingers, as it were --
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