Journal Prompt

What's the most painful thing I've ever been told?

There was something that my siblings and I talked about recently that really hit me to my core.

We were playing we aren't really strangers, talking about our childhood and my brother mentioned something one of my aunts told him.

"Once your parents got a divorce, the four of us met to talk about how we were going to handle it and with your dad- we decided it would be best for all of us if we separated ourselves from your family. Focused all of what we could into our own families and let you all kind of figure it out"

Now I was maybe 10 years old by the time my parents officially got a divorce. My brothers were 15, 12 and my sister was 8. Imagine being an adult and seeing 4 kids dealing with an alcoholic and a mentally unstable person and saying "yeah, it'll be better for our families to let them sort that out."

I never really understood where my fear of abandonment came from until I heard that story. Our families were all so close, we would do holidays and birthdays and everything like that together with one of my families. The other one lived on the East Coast so that was a bit more difficult to do but we still saw them every year before the divorce.

Even my great aunt and uncle who are my favorite people in my family, they kept inviting my sister and I up to their cabin every year until about middle school and we had "too busy" of summers to go up there according to one of my parents.

Imagine being an adult and seeing four kids struggling with unstable parents who cannot raise these children because they can't even take care of themselves and all you say is "that is too messy, let's stay away from that."

Heart breaking. My great grandma and my grandma came to live with us a bit after it happened because they could see that my dad was a mess and they never liked my mom in the first place. They stayed at our house for probably about 3 months at most. Taking turns staying over. Once they left it was back to just the kids. Dad drinking in the barn, mom working all the time.

My oldest brother worked all the time, once he got his license too all he did was work because we all needed our escape.

My other brother went to drugs, his friends were into that and he was looking for any kind of attention and numbing.

I started drinking at 13 and did the same thing. I would hardly ever be home, was embarrassed to have people over due to whatever my dad was going to do. I tried my hardest to be invisible at home. Sometimes even when I was sleeping he would come into my room at 2-4 AM black out drunk and talk to me about how sad he was, how terrible my mom is, and other things. Not for the blog.

My sister did something similar to me, friends houses, neighbors, anything.

We all were looking for places to go and ways to escape. We were looking for a sense of family, of community and all we got was feeling like we were burdens to anyone who had to take care of us. Both of our parents talking poorly about each other.

According to research, "when this behavior of bashing the other parent, becomes a consistent pattern, especially within a context of ongoing dysfunction or emotional abuse, it can deeply affect a child’s sense of safety and self-worth.

In my experience, children raised in such environments often feel confused, anxious, or burdened with guilt. Many internalize the conflict, blaming themselves or feeling responsible for fixing it.

As a survivor of this form of maltreatment, I can attest to the harmful effects it can have when it becomes excessive. It not only distorts a child’s sense of responsibility and fuels self-blame for their parents' conflict, but also impacts their ability to recognize and engage in healthy conflict resolution later in life."

That is definately what happened to my siblings and me. I am not going to divluge into all of my childhood traumas, my ACE score or anything like that.

But the most painful thing that I have ever been told? My family abandoned us on purpose, for selfish reasons.

That is why I have such a chosen family, why when people show me they aren't willing to leave at the first sight of danger, I bring them in even closer.