As always, I hope you’ve found this post in peace and kindness. For we promote that awesome shit like mad around here. Here’s my ‘flip the script’ challenge. By flipping the script, I am saying I am going to break my silence. I am going to openly talk about my damage.

First off let me just say a couple things.
The content in this post may be disturbing to some. Please exercise caution. It is not mandatory that you must read it. If at any point you’re uncomfortable, please stop here!

The week is winding down as we head full steam into Wednesday. As I originally planned this last week, I had decided to save the worst of the worst for the final days of this thing.

My entire life has been nothing short of painful. I don’t talk a lot of my past outside of a couple of incidents that don’t trigger emotions. The reality is, I cannot bring myself to communicate because every time I have a brief though of my past it causes emotional pain. I’m sitting here trying to type through the tears, with only the notion of what is about to be typed next.

At this point in my life, I have managed to lose everything… again.

So, I beg the question. What is it like to be loved and wanted? What is it suppose to be like?

My understanding of has never been so clearly put as the performance as LaMonica Garrett in the television series “1883”. In Episode 6, the consummation of Thomas and Noemi’s relationship is featured. Thomas is so oblivious that she has to explain that he’s in love with her by saying, “Me letting you take care of me is not fear. It’s loving you back.”

Love is this grandiose word that encompasses emotions of strong affection, tenderness and devotion towards a subject or another. It is something theorized that we all supposedly inherit from our parents and their relationship. What if I was to tell you there are individuals out there that do not understand the meaning of love because of their parents. Have you ever conceptualize that a child would not know?

Has anyone ever conceptualized that a child may not carry the same understanding of the concept because of the portrayal of their parents?

Personally, I’ve been told numerous times that I do not show enough compassion and make my partner feel wanted. It bothers me to my very core. Not only because I do not understand why, but more so I have no idea how to resolve it.

I have had this unyielding feeling my entire life that I walk only on shatter glass. Each step takes a little more skin off the bottom of my feet. Cutting deeper and deeper until the pasty white flesh is completely consumed by red. Faced with only the choice to continue on- causing further blood loss- or quitting and losing my life.

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My earliest memories are not those of passionate hugs and the comfort of my mothers arms. Instead they are of the baby pink walls in my second floor bedroom above the kitchen, listening to my mother scream and berate my father. I remember walking downstairs crying and asking if they were going to get divorced and abandoned me again.

I honestly cannot remember a time during my childhood that I wasn’t berated and belittled for being myself.

I remember staring out the window next to the wall heater sobbing after being sent back to my room. Watching the headlights drive down North Union Avenue. Wondering if any of those were my birth parents finally coming back for me so that I could go home- where I belonged.

I remember getting made fun of at school because I wasn’t into dolls and braiding hair. Instead, I wanted to hang upside down on the monkey bars and pretend I was Leonardo from the Ninja Turtles. Purple always has been my favorite color.

I remember my mother cutting all my hair off because it was so curly it hurt when she brushed it. So instead of fighting me, she just make me look like a boy. Then she’d stuff me in a white dress with little red flowers all over it and blue buttons shaped like daisys and force me to go to school for pictures. I was so uncomfortable all day. At recess I went to play and fell down scratching the buttons and my knee. That was also the same day my mother forgot to pick me up from school. She was home eating licorice and I was walking back across the street and the school yard sobbing holding the hand of the crossing guard. I was in third grade.

When the principal called, she picked up immediately and rushed to the school. She comforted me in the school office, but once we were in the car all she could do was scream about my ruined dress. We got home and she sent me straight to my room to change. Then it was downstairs to the kitchen table, where I’d get so frustrated with my homework because nothing made any sense. I’d lash out in frustration, crying and screaming. “Aviva is too emotional again” she’d say as I got spanked and put in time out infront of the full size mirror on the front coat closet door. There id sit for 30 minutes or more staring at this grotesque reflection of myself. 

My mother was fully capable of telling you she loved you while completely destroying you with every word. Still to this day it provokes a negative experience.

Her tenderness was socially isolating me so that she wouldn’t risk her real personality being shown to her friends. Shuttling you off to year round outdoor sports so she didn’t have to attend any of the games. Obligating you to private music lessons you didn’t want or need, then punish me for the teacher saying I didn’t need them. For she had wasted her money.

I don’t remember a summer where I wasn’t away at Camp Solomon Schecter or Camp Seymour for the majority of it. Then I’d come home to go back to school and I was the odd kid out. By 6th grade, I was in a different school with kids I didn’t go to elementary with. They all went to Mason, but because my mother had to have things her way- I went across town to Hunt. It was next to the synagogue and she wouldn’t have to pick me up Thursdays from practice until after Hebrew School. She still couldn’t show up on time to pick me up. It was usually one of my grandparents.

The only devotion she showed was when it was in her best interest, or it was something that boosted her social standing. Unless it came to absolutely destroying her daughters self confidence and creating such a rift between them that there would be no chance of a relationship when she was grown.

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So how does one exactly confront these demons? How does one understand the concept of love?

My concept of love is rooted in performing the correct tricks for a treat. I will serve you just please tell me I’m a good girl. That is what I know how to do. This bitch is too old and broken to be learning new tricks.

Admission to any issue is the first step. (Thanks AA)

I admit openly that I have an issue with understanding the concept of love and making my partner feel wanted. I openly admit that I have serious issues communicating myself. I admit that I lash out in anger, and get very emotional that I cannot process thoughts. I admit that I have been unable to reflect upon the situation which damaged me as they are more painful than before. I admit that I believe myself to be unworthy of love or compassion because I believed the examples seen in my lifetime. I admit that even in my purest will of wills, I have always longed to understand what tenderness and compassion are. I admit that when it comes to men, I’ve not got the slightest clue what I’m doing.

At 40, I’m the perfect example of how to piss off everyone around you so that you’ll die alone… and still no one will care.

To be continued….