I am that lost child...the one no one paid any attention to.
That child who was thrown to the wolves as a young toddler, dumped off on other peoples shoulders and my mother just vanished.
My world vanished. I felt myself alone and confused, and as I grew up, being dumped off on other peoples doorsteps kind of stuck with me and shaped who I was inside, feeling unlovable, like a burden, like no one wanted me, lost, alone and lonely.
And then when I hit school, I couldn't concentrate. The teachers kept sending home notes and report cards, "someone needs to come to the chool to talk about her, she isn't concentrating, is daydreaming instead of doing her studies." Over and over such letters were sent but no one ever came to help me.
My voice was taken away from me. I would have dreams where I couldn't cry or scream, horrifying dreams but when I opened my mouth, no sound would come out. I would try to run in my dreams, to run away. But my feet wouldn't move.
Then I discovered something. I could run. I could run away. And so that is what I proceeded to do and I lived out on the streets always dodging something, trying to find warmth from the cold, something to eat, somewhere to sleep. I would cover myself in cardboard boxes or whatever materials I could find around to shield me from the ravages of the weather. I would sleep in old barns, sneak into a friends home when their parents were sleeping. One night, a friend let me sleep in their basement. In the morning, I was hising under some plastic because the father had come down into the basement. He heard me. He knew something was under that plastic. It was me. Hiding there...and he lifted the plastic and I was mortified. He asked me to come upstears and he called his wife. I was too frozen to run or lie. I didn't have a home to go to. All I wanted was some warmth and a place to sleep. They fed me and applied for me to be their foster kid. They treated me really well and I stayed with them for a while until I had to run again.
Now I am in my mid life and think about those days when the urge to run would come over me.
I was running from something, always, but never knew from what or to where.
Now in my later years, my life is voiceless, but I have slowly over time come to know myself better and the desire to run is still in me, but I am older and settled in my ways and have managed to make and keep some semblance of a homelife for me and my son.
As lost and lonely as I have always been, as disfunctional, meaning I find it hard to function in life where others might breeze through it with flying colors...I seem to have that struggle in me all the time. As though running ever got me anywhere. It didn't...but when you grow up in horribly abusive situations you learn no coping skills, the only thing you learn how to do is run away.
That is something I had to unlearn.
Somewhere along the line I was able to break the chain, and my two boys are not runners, they are contented and happy, well adjusted individuals. Somewhere along the line, I must have done something right.
Something good. Something to be proud of, not ashamed. From abusive childhoods, you learn how to feel a deep sense of shame that never leaves you. You don't know why you feel so ashamed about every little thing, you feel ashamed for just existing, you being that thing that no one wanted.
Well, thanks for listening to my extremely long winded rant.
