When I was 18, I went to a private school. I wasn’t rich, my mother just wanted a better life for me.
My class did a retreat that year. A cute little experiment to make us think about life and the “bigger picture”. Part of that experiment was to blindfold everyone and let us walk aimlessly through the room. 200+ kids, bumping into each other, it was supposed to imitate how people come in and out of our lives. I never bumped into anyone.
A few months after that, I met and started seeing a woman I met online who was 21. She was… The one. Not the one who I let slip through my fingers. No. She was my nightmare. She manipulated me. Used sex as a tool to control me. Her mind games were sophisticated. I tried to get away, but she kept reeling me in. She manipulated me, pretending to be pregnant. She manipulated me, pretending to commit suicide by pills while on the phone with me. If I wasn’t going to stay, she wanted to make sure I paid. Emotionally, I was a wreak. It took me years to figure out what Love really was. Sex had become a twisted perversion of what it should have been
I finally told my mother I had a serious problem. I had graduated, and isolated myself in my room. My mother just thought I needed to get a job and be productive. She asked my father to come over and motivate me. He wasn’t listening either. Emotionally, I shut down. I never went to college. Just became a machine for a while. Work. Sleep. Repeat.
It’s been nearly 20 years since that all happened. I never dealt with it properly. It changed me. I’m still paying. I’ve carried around with me this Quasimodo reflection. Every relationship I’ve ever been in ended in disaster, either by dating more women that hurt me, or by sabotaging myself. I’m petrified to share my real feelings with those who get close. I’m afraid to make mistakes, so when I do, I hide.
Now I’m 38. I’m at a point where I’ve ruined another relationship, I’m on the verge of losing my job… everything is falling apart. Is this the better life my mother worked so hard to give me?
I have a daughter too. She’s 2. She’s amazing. But the question I’m asking myself now is, do I pull myself together and be there for her, or do I spare her from me potentially ruining her life too?
3 comments
I’d say try your damnedest to get your act together and be there for your kid. You owe her that much.
And.. on that note you owe yourself the effort, too. But sometimes it’s easier to have motivation outside of oneself.
It’s not like you can magically fix all your issues in one go. A lot is trial and error, and finding what works for you, and keeping at it. And that’s usually a slow process, with setbacks.. It’s entirely possible a full recovery, in whatever that means to you, is beyond reach. But improvement isn’t impossible. Neither is moving forward.
I think it’s a lot easier to manage the above, and figure things out, with help and support of some kind, rather than alone.
But I don’t have much other than a general type of advice to offer you, where a specific would be more beneficial. You’ve probably already heard variants of this.
Believe me, I want nothing more than to be someone she can be proud of, and be there for her every step of the way. Unfortunately I have extremely strong doubts about myself. I’m the epitome of self fulfilling prophecy.
But thank you for taking the time to even say something.
No one expects you to be perfect; you’re allowed your humanity, and humans are fallible.
Some parents can’t be there every step of the way, and that doesn’t mean they’re bad. You need to look after yourself, and sometimes life circumstance just doesn’t allow it.
At the same time, trying still means something. People are creatures of habit, of course it’s easier to self fulfill when it’s at least a variant of what you’re used to. Doesn’t mean a pattern can’t be broken, y’know?