Flight Chronicles of the Hummingbird - Day 71 – 6-16-2021 - This Journey of Mine

 

Today I have been thinking about just how far I have come in this journey of mine. I have learned so many things and of course it’s not over, so I know I have plenty more where that has come from.

I actually started this when I was 27.

By that point I had been married with one child at the age of 24. I had no idea how to be a mother. I did do my best.

In that process of the beginning years, was a lot of emotional trauma in my marriage and I wanted to do what I could to find myself and save my little family. I also had a lot of trauma around my relationship with my father. My mother was already out of my life by then, actually since the age of 12, but, of course, that trauma was already set inside of me, but I didn’t understand it at this point in time.

It was not an easy time. I already felt I was not good at this mothering thing and had no idea how to navigate life. As I have said before, I just in general didn’t feel good enough.

My marriage was my escape to what I thought would be the fairy tales of my youth. Also, that was what was expected at that time, to go to college, to get married, to have children. I believed in the whole white picket fence, 2.5 kids and a dog in the yard. I didn’t come from that, so I was definitely interested in it. It certainly was a different mindset than now, and I followed all the rules, have ever since I broke them in Junior High School and got in trouble and decided to be a good little girl from that point on.

In the process of being a new mother, a wife that could not get anything right by her husband, I become deeply confused with everything and wanted a way “out.”

The first place I started was religion. I was raised Jewish and so I decided to try my former husband's  religion as an Independent Baptist. I thought it was the way to go and that lasted for a few years, and it was a challenging experience in itself. I mentioned part of the experience that started me out on that in my blog input, Day 38 – The Road to Consciousness.

Also at that time, I began to read many books because I had decided to go on a search for myself. Really I wanted to “fix” myself. I felt deep down that there was something seriously wrong with me to have attracted this abuse into my life. I wanted to know what I had done that was so wrong. Nothing made sense to me.

My early 20’s was a harrowing time, and the books I had started reading were really confusing to me. I could barely understand what I was reading and was not able to connect with it on a deep healing level. I felt like I had opened a Pandora’s Box and by my own choice had thrown myself to the wolves.

As this was going on, I had also gone through three years by that time of being a mother. I wanted to be a mother so badly because of the lack of mothering I had received. I was so excited. I would be the mother to my son that my mother couldn’t be for me.

I had started to get angry at that time too and kept that all inside because I couldn’t figure out how to be a mother. Of course, I had instincts, somewhat, but I was exhausted, and I had no one to call to help me and I did the best I could with what I knew, which wasn’t much at all.

I was more than likely going through post-partum depression but that really wasn’t something people were looking at closely back then. At that time, though, I just beat myself up because I couldn’t get it right. My whole existence felt like it was crashing in around me.

I felt so alone and had no clue what I was doing. I read those books too on how to raise a baby - Dr. Spock? - I don’t remember, but that didn’t help in real life very much, just with the basics.

As the years progressed, the emotional abuse, the post-partum and my feelings of complete and utter inadequacy started to get bigger. I had no idea what was happening to me and as time went on, I began to think I was having the same psychological issues as my mother. By the way, I was also still very angry with her at that point.

I just didn’t know what to do.

I was broken. I was lost. I was confused. I felt like had I no one to help me.

Then a bright light came into my life which a lot of people think will help. 

Having another baby!

It really did help for four years, that is how long I had her, until my life really turned upside down.

 

As I continue this story with the next few blog posts, there is a caveat that it will be mostly about what I did personally to get through it. I can’t, at this time, put out a lot of information because, in respect for my children, they don’t know all that happened from my perspective, and that discussion hasn’t occurred with them and may not. This is hard for me because while I want to share my story, out of respect for them, I do need to keep some of it to myself. They are the most important people in my life, so I will be as open as I can by telling this from my perspective of how this helped me to heal, not through the bashing of anyone.

In fact, the story involves others, who had it not been for them, I would not be where I am now, in such an amazing space of healing. I am actually grateful for that experience and to all that were a part of it. I have initiated the forgiveness work with them and continue to do the work with them and for myself.

See you tomorrow…