Childhood Pt. 2

This is part 2 of my Childhood episode. I wrap up my childhood years. Let's continue the journey...

Social Media:

https://www.instagram.com/rhythm.of.resilience/

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:10

This podcast discusses topics related to mental health, including childhood trauma, abuses, and emotional distress. Some content may be sent delivered for hearing to certain listeners. The information shared in this podcast reflects my personal healing journey, and it's for educational and informational purposes only. This is not a substitute for professional, medical, or mental health advice, diagnosed or treatment. You are now tuned in to Rhythm of Resilience. Hello, welcome back. This is part two of my childhood episode. I'd like to take a second uh to thank everyone that has listened so far. And thank you to everyone that has reached out to me with questions and feedback. I encourage it. So please, if you have any questions and any feedback, I welcome it all. I'm open to all of it. So thank you once again. Also, if you haven't listened to the first part of this, I strongly suggest you do before you dive into this episode because it won't make sense if you don't. I left off talking about how I would be at a friend's house across the street, down the street, and a call would come in for me to come home or send me home, and I would refuse or wanted to stay longer. My dad would come and get me by the hand, by the arm, and take me home. Now, when these situations would happen, these particular ones, it was always a 50-50 chance that I would get a beating. It was always unpredictable, so it wasn't guaranteed, but there was always that 50-50 chance that I would, depending on how mad he was. So as soon as we made it back home, I would break away from his grip and run straight to my room, because that was my safe space. Close the door and take cover, whatever which way I could, behind my bed, underneath my bed, in a corner, the furthest corner to the room. I mean, anywhere that I thought would be safe, some sort of barrier between us in case he walked through that door. And so I would sit there in silence, anticipating, waiting, listening, and hoping that he wasn't gonna come in and beat the shit out of me. Yeah. So when he didn't, it was all good and I can rest easy. And then the times that he did, I could hear him walking down the hallway towards my room. The door would slam open, belt in one hand, tightly gripped, with this angry look on his face, walking towards me, wherever I was, and telling me to get up. And I, of course, me being scared and at this point, probably crying most times and saying, please don't, please don't. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I won't do it again, somewhere along the lines of that. And he would say, get up, get up, and then he would grab me from my arm, lift me up, turn me around, and start beating the shit out of me. After he was done and his mission was accomplished, he would leave the room, close the door behind him, and I'd be left there in tears, crying for a long time until I had no more tears. And then sitting with the physical pain of where he hit me. That became my norm on a regular basis. I can't really say it was on a daily basis, because I don't think it was, but it was often. It's like I could never do anything right in his eyes. Most recently, I'd say in the past six, seven months, this memory that I had completely forgotten about just came flooding in out of nowhere, which was a little weird. So I'm gonna share that with you. I don't even know how I could forget something this huge because it happened often. Maybe somewhere along the line, I made a conscious choice to forget this specific memory and pushed it way down, hoping that it would go away. And it did for many, many years. And then most recently, it reappeared and said, Hello, peekaboo, do you remember me? And then I said, Oh shit, yep, I sure do remember you. And it was crazy because it felt like I was back there again in bright color, like I was reliving that in those moments, almost like a what do you call it? A like a movie montage, or when your life flashes before your eyes, you know, when you see that in the movies, it kind of happened that way for this specific memory for me. And it was crazy. So here it goes. Fair warning, it gets a little darker. I'm going to paint a picture for you so you can visualize this with me and see this memory in full color and detail. There was this window in my room facing the backyard. Perfect squared window framing an orange tree that my parents had in the backyard. And it was so perfectly framed, it almost looked like a painting or a photograph at some point amongst all this chaos that was happening. And after I would finish crying, I would sit on my bed staring at this orange tree. Staring at it, but staring through it. And I didn't know it then, but I was technically disassociating from my reality. I would stare and stare for long periods of time. Then I would get these thoughts that would just flood my brain. Something like, why is this happening to me? Why does he hate me so much? Am I really such a bad kid? Why does he do this to me and not my siblings? Why was I born into this family? Am I in the wrong family? You get the point. There was a lot of questions that I was asking myself to try to make sense of it all. Then the thoughts would morph into something a little darker. Like, I don't want to live anymore. This is too painful. I don't want to be here anymore. Why am I alive? Why was I born? I'm better off dead. Mind you, I was between seven and nine years old having these thoughts. There was also the final sort of layer that my thoughts would morph into. After thinking all of that, the thoughts sounded more like: what happens to us when we die? Is there another life after we die? Do we go to a better place where it's free of all of this and we're happier? Because if that's the case, that's what I want. How do I get that? And these thoughts came only when I was staring at that orange tree, which is weird. I don't know if that orange tree was speaking to me in some sort of weird way. I know it sounds crazy, but I mean, I was a kid. And something about that tree, perfectly framed by my window, was some sort of weird comfort, but also escape and asking questions and trying to get answers and just trying to make sense of my whole situation. After these so-called episodes or sessions would end, I would try to seek comfort in something else. I had this obsession with coloring and coloring books. I would go through those coloring books so fast. I just enjoyed it. It was peaceful, it was creative, it was therapeutic. Um, so I would do that. I would listen to music. I also had this keyboard, or I think it's technically considered an organ, but it was very plasticky. It's it was a toy, it was an actual real instrument. It had the plastic legs, it came with a little plastic stool. The keys themselves were maybe 20 keys at the most. And I would play that too, but I would be very careful of not playing it too loud and lowering the volume because I didn't want to get in trouble. It was very interesting trying to navigate through that because all I was doing was being a kid, but also trying to survive the environment that I was living in and the reality that I was in by escaping and soothing myself through these creative outlets. I just had a random thought, so I'm gonna share this with you. I'd like to believe that there's a silver lining amongst all of this toxic shit. If all this bad stuff didn't happen to me, would I have creativity? Hmm, good question. Would I have this deep appreciation and love for music? Hmm, good question. Would I have this love, passion, obsession with dance? Also a good question. It's an interesting way to think about it, but I think it holds some weight and some truth, and I'm gonna go sit with that later and process that. The other thing I want to talk about is my childhood birthday parties. I was the only child for about seven years, and then my sister and brother were born after that. And from what I am told, I had birthday parties every year from the ages of one to seven: cake, balloons, ice cream, candy, and because of our Mexican culture, we had piñatas. So all of it. Now, there are pictures, it's documented, they're there, they exist, these things happened, these parties happened. I just don't remember any of it. Most recently I revisited those pictures and still couldn't remember any of those birthday parties. But the one thing I did notice that I had not noticed before was this sadness and fear also mixed with hurt in my eyes and in my forced smiles or no smiles in these photos. And it was weird because I didn't see that before. I would like to believe that I was having a good time in these birthday parties that I had. I just wish I could remember. Now, the next thing I want to talk about is childhood sleepovers. I'm sure most of you have had childhood sleepovers, several. Let me share with you my one and only childhood sleepover. Well, kind of a sleepover. It wasn't even a complete one. So my one and only time that I had a quote unquote a sleepover at a friend's house, which literally was two houses down from where we lived. Now, my parents knew their parents. It wasn't like I was going into a stranger's house. There were several of the neighborhood friends that hung out together were going to be at the sleepover. Do you know how much convincing and begging it took for me to let me go do that one thing that I hadn't done before and just be with my friends and be a kid and watch movies and uh get your blankets and pillows and snacks and all of that, right? Well, when the convincing worked forcefully, he walked me, my father walked me over there, dropped me off with my blankets and pillow, I believe. I don't remember. And the rest of the friends were there, and yay, fun, okay, party time. Well, kid partying time, snacks, movies. The parents were obviously watching us, making sure we were good, taken care of. Then the time came where we all had to go to sleep. Okay, time to go to sleep. Lights out. There was a random knock at the door in the middle of the night. Okay, middle of the night. I don't recall what time it was. The sun wasn't out yet. Can you guess who it was? My father. So everyone was asleep. I was asleep. The parents were asleep. The rest of my little friends were asleep. He woke up everybody. I think the dad, if I remember, was the one that answered the door. And there he was, my father. The immediate fear that swept through my whole body. Because I thought, well, I get to sleep over this house tonight equals safety for me. I get to have breakfast in the morning because they're going to cook us breakfast, and then I could get to go home after that. Well, none of that happened. He insisted on taking me home and told the father I need to take her home. And he was trying to work it out. Like, well, she's sleeping, and I heard all this go down, but I was awake, pretending to be asleep. I didn't want to go home. You kidding me? No. And on top of that, how rude are you coming into the house, knocking in the middle of the night, waking everybody up to come get me when I'm literally two houses down? You agreed to this. You let me go. You allowed it. Now you changed your mind. Interesting, right? But also, I knew that I could potentially get punished when he took me home. So the negotiating back and forth, him saying, Well, she's sleeping. It's okay, just leave her here. You know, we'll return her back in the morning. We're gonna have breakfast in the morning. And he just kept insisting, no, no, no. I need to take her home now. Woke me up, grabbed me by the arm, got my pillow, got my blanket or whatever I took with me, dragged me home in the middle of the fucking night. I got yelled at. I don't remember getting hit, so that was a good thing, but still, I got yelled at. For what? You let me go. And now you changed your mind in the middle of the night, and now you cause this whole scene. It was embarrassing for me. And I just felt like, wow, I don't think I'm ever gonna do this again. And yes, I never did that again. I had originally planned to talk about the next thing in a future episode, but realized that it might be best to talk about it now. About five to six months ago, there was this moment random, just like something just hit me. Boom. Hey, you forgot about this. Remember this? All right, now sit with it and deal with it. That's what it felt like. So this thing that just landed on my lap on a random Sunday afternoon or whatever day of the week it was, realizing that my mother never protected me from my father's wrath. Yes, she would intervene slightly when he was yelling at me or scolding me and say, leave her alone, leave her alone. That's it. I do have memories of that. But when I was actually getting a beating, she wasn't around. She wasn't protecting me from any of it. And that had never crossed my mind until five or six months ago. Like, what where were you? What happened? Why weren't you protecting me? Now I know what you're thinking. She was probably scared. Yes, that's a valid reason. Absolutely, I agree. But also, on the other side of that, you're my mother. I'm your child. Aren't mothers supposed to protect their children no matter what? I'm a helpless little kid. So, yes, I sat with that for a very long time. I processed it. I went through the whole spectrum of emotions. I did not leave one untouched. In addition to all of this, I also realized that as an adult, I've protected my mother to some capacity from my father. Anytime I witnessed my father talk to her a certain way or speak to her in a certain way, a tone, a disrespectful manner, I would tell him, don't speak to her that way. You need to apologize. Don't disrespect her. You need to apologize, and so on. Of course, he didn't like hearing that from me, but also I don't like hearing that, and she doesn't deserve that. He would get defensive, of course, and walk away. And my mom would just brush it off and say, it's fine, don't worry about it. And I would be very firm and say, No, that's not right. So, yes, he needs to apologize to you, and he should not be talking to you that way. Isn't that wild? Just the polar opposites. She didn't protect me as a child from my father, but yet I protected her to some capacity as an adult from my father. That just blows my mind. That's about it for my childhood. I think I covered everything that I could remember. Now, if I'm reminded of something else later, like on a random Sunday while I'm sitting on the couch enjoying my day, and it hits me in the face with, hey, do you remember this? Yeah, deal with that. You bet that I'll be talking about it in future episodes. A little side note I'd like to share regarding this podcast. When I set out to do this, I didn't think it was gonna affect me. I really didn't. I figured, well, I've been healing for over five years now. I'm still healing, but I'm in a good space to talk about this. And yes, I am for the most part, but I got humbled real quick when I recorded the first episode. It took me a couple of sessions to record that episode. After the first session, I recorded some of it, and I had to walk away a few times, walk around, uh, just kind of stare into space, lay on the floor, you know, all that stuff. I thought, wow, I just got humbled real quick. I thought this was gonna be easier, and I was gonna be able to pump these episodes out real quick, real fast. No, not the case, which is great. Now, this episode you're listening to, it's taken me three sessions to finish this. It is a little draining. Uh, it does affect me slightly, not a lot, but it does. I have to be in a good headspace and in the mood and just be ready to to talk about this. I don't force it. I want it to happen organically because it's just the best way. I don't have a set schedule as to when I'm gonna release every episode, like most people, monthly or weekly, or bi-weekly. I don't want to do it that way. Whenever it feels right, I'm gonna do it. But I also don't want to sit on it for months at a time or even a whole month. So I appreciate your patience. And also, like I mentioned in the beginning, I'd like to thank you guys again for listening and going on this journey with me and for the feedback and the questions. I welcome it all. Keep giving me the feedback and asking me the questions. And remember, keep moving to your own rhythm. One breath, one beat, one step forward.