I've had this problem ever since I can remember and that is a long time since I can remember when my 2ft tall teddy bear was taller than I was. Every time I would go somewhere, I would be with my mother. I was always very atatched to her and I think this caused me to have problems with socializing with other children.
I don't remember being just "scared" of other kids (and adults) but I remember being absolutely horrified if I had to be with children my own age without my mother present. In my childhood up to the age of probably 4 or 5 I don't remember ever being separated from my mother.
By the time I was 6 or so my little sister was already starting to suck away plenty of my time with mom. And because I had been, up till my sister's birth, the treasure of my mother's life I felt like I was having half my heart ripped away when she started devoting more of her time to my sister. For years life was just jealousy and fighting jealousy and trying to "win my mom back." My sister has since her birth been my mother's favorite even though she would never admit that. She says I'm my father's favorite. Maybe it's true or maybe it's to make herself feel better about having a favorite.
Because of the "abandonment" I had felt at an early age I never really allowed myself to truly be close to my mother as much as my sister is. Don't get me wrong, we've always been a very close family. People remark on how close are parent are with us kids. And I know lots of people would be very happy with this close of a relationship with their mother but for years all i felt was resentment that my sister was now my mother's greatest treasure. I guess it was because she had spoiled me and made me expect so much from her and made me feel like I really was the beast thing ever that I always felt I deserved more. I had to be the favorite.
Only now, in later years am I able to look back on it with that point of view. Back then I just felt life was unfair, unfair, unfair. But I still truly believe it was. The oldest child often has it the roughest. Both my parents were the youngest child in their family and they (my mom especially) werent always treated too kindly by their older siblings. My mother I know holds a lot of resentment for her siblings. I've always thought that this was a part of why they always called me the bad guy. Because I'm older I am the one who always got blammed. I hated my sister at times and she knew it and she knew my mother loved her best. She would steal my things, she would beat herself till she bruised to say I did it. If she ever hit me (and she did and it hurt) and if I were to cry I would get the phrase "stop it with those crocodile tears" from my mother. Which means: fake tears. But I was not fake. I always felt things very very deeply and soemtimes all the built uo emotions would just break out. Of course the would believe her. She was the little angel. I'm not saying I never hurt her. Of course I did. I hated her and the more my parents loved her and yelled at me, the more I would want to hurt her. It was a viscous circle.
I don't know why I tried to hide my emotions. I don't know why I didn't want to outwardly show how hurt I always was. Most of what I remember of my childhood during the time after my sister's birth is surrounded by heavy clouds of pain and dumb self pity. That is why I feel my childhood was short lived. I don't really remember being happy like I used to be since her. I think I tried to hide my emotions because I knew my parents wouldn't believe me if I cried.
When my brother was born (he and my sister are closest in age) they would team up against me. They would always lie about me because they knew they could. I don't know what caused me to do this but one day, I was maybe 13 or 14 when I realized I would just ignore them. We, being a close family were, despite our fights, close siblings. We always hung out together. But one day I just decided that I would not hang out with them anymore because they were not worth all the pain of being bullied. I had my own friends. And eventually the hate between us went away. My brother and sister only had eachother to yell at now.
I am now 21 and it's rediculous that I'm thinking about this now and how "unfair" life is. Life (between me and my siblings) is great now. But I don't understand why it is when I go to start writing about my life this comes out. I thought I was over it.
This is my absolute biggest problem in life: not being able to let things go. It destroys me! Every time I sincerely think I'm over something, it comes back to haunt me. And I don't know why. Why do I obsess over the past?
I'm sorry I wrote all this but I feel I have a lot of problems and it might be easier to get help if I tell the whoke story. I feel like a lot of what's wrong with me is because of my early childhood and how I was spoiled. I think it's because, even though it was ony for 4 years that I was an only child, that spoiling stuck hard and became the root to a lot of my problems. Thinking about the past gives me so much anxiety and depression and stress. This story isn't even the worst of my problems. Not by far
As I said, my siblings and I are more than cool now even though every now and then my sister brings up soemthing from the past to blame me about. I just keep seeing a repeating cycle in my life of not letting go and holding on to more and more and slowly loosing more of who I used to be.
Trigger warning- abuse/childhood abuse
Reconnecting with a childhood friend
wishing for better life and childhood
Don’t remember childhood - am i repressing?
