One Girl, Thousands Of Painful Memories

We’ve all had to learn how to be patient with how slow life can go by sometimes, but we also all have found ourselves being frustrated with ourselves in one way or another. Whether it’s recovering from trauma and healing the scars inflicted by a painful past, or the process of learning from mistakes and not relapsing on those mistakes in some way, we have all felt frustrated with ourselves at some point in life and wished that the suffering would just be over. I, too, have had my fair share of moments where I have needed to be patient with myself.

Not having my mother but seeing almost all of my friends having the occasional siblings, and most of the time having both a father and a mother, this lead me to always wonder what I did wrong and why I only knew my father’s (now ex) girlfriend’s, and only ever saw my mother a number of times I could count on one hand. Or wondering why I was pretty much raised by my grandmother when my father was working multiple jobs and barely ever home and rarely got to see my father, although I got to see him more than I did my mother. Or why I was bullied relentlessly in school and people were so cruel to me when I only simply existed, although I could be annoying at times, however it was not right for how much pain I went through all by the hands of kids in school.

I always wished I could change myself. My hair was never down like other girls had their hair. Instead, I always wore mine up because my grandmother told me to, and it was all I ever knew growing up. I always wore skirts and dresses, and I never wore “cool” clothing like everyone else wore because my grandmother wouldn’t let me. I never wore makeup like a lot of other girls did because my grandmother always told me it was ungodly and that I’d go to Hell if I did. I never had anything other than my ears pierced because my grandmother said that was ungodly and I’d go to Hell if I did that too. I never swore as I got older even though a lot of kids my age at that time already were swearing, and their parents let them, I never did. I never followed social trends, so I was never fitting in with the popular crowd. I hated how I was living; living in fear, in the shadows, and barely keeping my life together at such a young age.

A fair amount of this was due to how I was raised and who raised me. Yes, my grandmother was overly religious, and I was a naive kid who just wanted her own suffering to end. All the trauma, pain, suffering, bullying, etc… made me scared to even exist as myself and I felt I couldn’t get close to anybody or do anything without someone constantly judging me, which I still struggle with from time to time to this day, along with other personal issues from what I went through.

In trying to change myself and nearly losing myself in a desperate attempt at finding popularity and ending my suffering, I learned I had to be patient and not rush my healing from past trauma. I had to not rush healing from years of abuse, bullying, living in fear, etc… I had to learn it doesn’t happen over not, and can take years, if not a life time.

Healing from past scars is never easy, and is something few manage to do. It is far from an easy thing. I learned the hard way that I had to be patient with myself as I slowly healed, and am still working on healing from, the wounds inflicted by my past.

“broke” by George_Washington is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.