Breakthrough?

I have been reading a book this week, "The Betrayal Bonds," by Patrick Carnes. (Carnes is a leading author on porn and sex addiction, for those unaware.) The book has been immensely eye-opening, as there were so many qualities in myself that I recognized in the book. There are several exercises in the book, of which I completed two. What has bothered me since beginning the book is that when I look back on life and my relationships, the overriding theme is one of loneliness and wanting so much to be loved by someone. I couldn't stop thinking about this, wondering what in the hell in my young life was so traumatic that it created this need in me, this crippling need that has wreaked so much havoc on my romantic life. I went back in my mind as far as I can remember, searching for clues, trying to figure out where it started, and all I came to was that as far back as I could remember, I was boy crazy and pining for some male or another in my life.

Last night I read through old journal entries from right before and right after I graduated from college, starting just 2 years before and ending 1 month before I met my current husband. It was a time of major turmoil for me, including but not limited to a car accident, financial devastation, moving twice, bad boyfriends, contact with a high school sweetheart that ended in him marrying another woman, a horrible job, changing jobs, antidepressants, and ongoing tension with my parents. I haven't slept for at least 2 nights mulling all of this over and I decided last night at roughly 3 a.m. that I was going to sit down and start writing my life's story and write until I could figure out what the hell my damage is. So tonight at work, when all my work was done and I had some time to kill, I started to write, beginning with my birth and my earliest memories. I wrote my first memories as a child, as young as 3 or 4. I got maybe 2 pages into it and I was hit by the most horrifying thought. You see, I had always known my adolescent years were traumatic and hellish but I always attributed the fact that I didn't actually kill myself or turn to drugs and alcohol because I had this wonderful childhood prior to reaching adolescence that had given me this great foundation to hold onto.

But what I realized tonight as I wrote was that I may have completely fabricated this idyllic childhood in my head. Because what it was REALLY characterized by was fear and trying to please my parents and repression of "unacceptable" feelings. Fear of my mother yelling at me, smacking me with her blue hairbrush or a wire hanger or a special wooden paddle she made with stickers with my name on them all over it. I was not supposed to cry or be afraid or be angry; I have many vivid memories and stories of that. I don't think I have ever cried in front of my parents in my whole teen-aged or adult life until about a month ago when I talked to them on the phone and their cruel words broke me down finally. I always cried quietly, alone, in my room or outdoors in the mountains.

For all the times I have broken down in my life, for all the nights I spent during and after each bad relationship, each divorce, each disapointment, my parents never saw it. My mother commented recently that I never seem very upset about anything...but those who know me as friends or coworkers know that I have many emotions and get upset about many things, all the time. But I have never been able to be my authentic self to my parents.

I am still having a hard time processing this possibility. It seems so outlandish, yet how can I deny it? My earliest dream that I can remember, one that persists to this day, is of a crashing jet plane. I can see a plane in the sky, see it coming down, and it is almost always right over my home (if not over my person) and I am scared shitless. Sometimes, multiple planes crash. I spend the dream being mortified at seeing all the people dying, running from the place where I think the plane is about to crash, trying to put out the fires that ensue or trying to rescue the dying pilot from the crushed cockpit. I have had this dream over and over and over again, since childhood. I remember VIVIDLY that I didn't have a clue what the dream really meant until one time, after leaving my second husband, I had a dream that I was actually ON the plane when it started to crash, and I was somehow able to land it safely. I remember waking up and thinking, wow! I had CONTROL! The dreams are about feeling helpless, having no control! They are definitely that. But they are also about FEAR. Fear of random falling jets threatening my home, my physical well-being, my possessions. Only in my waking life, it is not jets that come after me, it is my mother or both of my parents; it is wicked bosses, two-faced "friends", lying boyfriends and husbands. They are all AFTER me and I am running. FUCK!

I am not quite sure how any of this helps my current situation, other than maybe now that I know why I was so needy in the past, and why I settled for such obviously unworthy partners, MAYBE now that I have moved it up into my consciousness, I can move past it; let it go. I wish that I could go back in time and give that little girl that I used to be a great big hug and tell her she is AWESOME no matter what, whether she cries or gets a bad grade, or forgets to pick up her toys, or anything at all. It makes me so sad...