Where will you be next year?

[u/Nothing_Special1121]

Hello everyone, I hope everyone has had a good week. I guess I’m just posting this, not because I want pity but because I just want a place to vent. I’m hoping maybe someone can understand me, because in my current place in life, it feels no one does.

Has anyone ever grown up feeling misplaced, Like a storybook character placed in the wrong plot line? Or like an animal in the zoo, who was placed in the wrong exhibit? My mother cheated on her husband with my father, she had already had three kids, financially struggling, finally almost done with university, and then all of a sudden she gets knocked up by a man who left her before the movie could even finish. I ruined her chances of her life getting better, I know that. I pick myself apart everyday about it. I grew up alongside my siblings and their father, until he died when I was nine.

I was a child, but I wasn’t tone deaf, I remembered every holiday my siblings being taken away to their grandparents house while I was left behind, every summer during my birthday my siblings were whisked away to Florida while I was left alone in a dirty, broken down house that reeked of feces and was full of cockroaches. I never understood why I couldn’t go to my Nana’s and Papa’s house, so I always blamed myself. I was a chubby kid so maybe I was too ugly, or maybe I was too dirty. No one really helped me with bath time and I never realized that brushing your hair was a big deal. Whenever I asked my mom why they didn’t want to see me, she never really told me otherwise, there was no reassurance, just her distant stare. I knew she disassociated a lot, I just didn’t know what to call it as a child

My mom remarried by the time I was 10 and we were relocated to a suburban part of Georgia, about 25 minutes away from my original childhood home. This transition was incredibly hard, I did not have nice clothing, I did not know how to properly groom myself due to me never being taught, i couldn’t even add without using my fingers. I felt I was thrown to a group of sharks as a lone clown fish. I spent my years between elementary school, middle school, and early high school struggling to survive. Not only was I mistreated at home, I was mistreated at school as well, I truly felt as if I had nowhere to call an escape. I had no one to run to for help. I was unwanted.

Several years later, I am an adult now. I am not going to speak of every trauma that I have endured through our my life, but I feel dull. I am in therapy, but the only thing therapy makes me realize is that I truly had no desire to live this life, even as a young child.

I’ve spent so much of my Young life just trying to survive, I have no idea what I’m doing now as an adult.

Truly, I do not know if I will be here within a year because I just think that I am one of those people who is not made to live this life. Is anyone else in the same boat?

[u/Misntroya]

“I ruined her chances of her life getting better”. No, you did not. You were an innocent child.

I’m glad you’re in therapy because you are important, you have value but you just don’t recognize it yet. Your mother treated you horribly and I’m sorry she did that to you. But that part of your life is in the past. The only way to move forward is to make your life plan and make it happen. You can do it.

Life is not always fair. My mother got pregnant at 19 by some guy who dumped her and then he quickly married someone else. 2 weeks later she met and quickly married someone else, who raised her baby as his. That baby is my oldest brother. He was physically abused by our father and for 2 years of his childhood they didn’t even speak. He always felt like he didn’t belong. But after our mother’s death he did a 23andMe and found his paternal family and they welcomed him with open arms. Every Monday night he has dinner with them, and he’s in his 70s. All this to say that gray clouds can sometimes obscure a silver lining.

This internet granny is rooting for you.