There is so much I learned and unlearned from my childhood. My father was emotionally abusive. My earliest recollection of his abuse, I was eight years old. My stomach and chest would always tighten in his presence which lead to health problems. I never ever felt comfortable around him. He made me feel less than and when he called me "stupid" I believed him.
It took alot of internal work to undue the trauma I endured. I am aware of my triggers. The word "stupid" is a tigger. To this day a loving embrace between a father and daughter is a trigger. When I reaached my early 20's I was done with allowing my childhood trauma to ruin my adult life. I allowed the anger to surface and I journaled through the pain. Journaling continues to be a big part of my life.
As bad as it was, I couldn't say I would change a thing because I love my life today. I learned alot. I learned how to dismantle my childhood trauma. I learned what NOT to do when raising my sons. I learned that pain can be transformed into purpose. I learned to live in joy.
For me, it's the 11-year old who I have been talking with in therapy. That year my sister, who was my whole world, suddenly left home (she was 18 and needed to get out for her own reasons). It left me with a fear of abandonment that still lingers. I'm finally getting a handle on it, and learning to feel compassion for her rather than being angry that she's mucking up my relationships. So much of our adult traumas arise from these childhood events... Thank you for sharing and making this a safe place to share back!
What can I learn from 6-year-old me? That there is nothing wrong with being a dreamer. The bigger, the better! What I wish I had learned then, and held onto throughout life, is unshakable fearlessness (not to be confused with carelessness). While I was (and still am) a dreamer, most around me were not, and my two older sisters (nine and ten years older than me) would constantly tease me about being different. I wish I had had the courage to follow at least one of the dreams. Alas, life still turned out okay.
Favorite childhood book - Charlotte's Web. Least favorite: Where the Wild Things Are - I was absolutely terrified of those monsters! lol...
In his book The Myth of Normal, Gabor Mate talks about how extraordinary it is that our minds/psyches employ such defenses when we are children to help us survive. It’s true that those defenses can become difficult or detrimental for our adult selves, but they did what they were meant to do. So part of the unlearning or breaking of those defensive cycles is recognizing why they are there in the first place, and healing the original wounds. It’s hard work, but it is well worth it.
Hi Chris, my childhood, when i was four to five year old i lives with my grand parents common in Côte d'Ivoire. And my parent was farmer and we slept on the field. Today i graduate to Bachelor on sciences, but i love farming, planning cassava.
Chris, are you about to throw a curveball in that shot? I loved baseball as a kid too, but I was too much a minor talent to get to the minors. However, the 6-year-old me was a sneaky wiseguy, and perhaps not much has changed. Our household was bedrock suburban middle-class, my parents loving.
So maybe that's why I had a shoplifting business all through high-school (and a bit after), about which I wrote a memoir. The former altar boy had to generate some excitement. Lucky now I get excited about reading and writing, not selling tape players to fellow adolescents.
He's a kid that is scared and needed love. His family blew up in his face and he grew scared of cats because of it (he didn't understand that the marriage was doomed from the beginning and the last large argument was because the cats were left inside by accident, which lead to a major argument). He would be confused and unsure, eventually having to uproot from his home in the midwest and migrate west where the second worst year of his life would occur and damage his life forever.
He, much like I am now, are in quite reactive states. It is a hard thing to unlearn, a hard habit to break, but one that needs to be done. He was a little martyr even back then, taking the blame for the divorce and knowing he was the problem of it all (because his parents used him as a bartering chip in a cold war that put the USA and USSR to shame).
Ooooh - favorite childhood book! Can that be plural? Here's hoping! Anything by Walter Farley - all the Billy and Blaze books when I was younger, all the Black Stallion books when I was older. All the Misty of Chincoteague books I was, (and still am,) that horse crazy girl). I also loved the Betsy Tacy books and the Five Little Peppers books. As a matter of fact, I just searched them out on Amazon last week and bought myself a present of the Five Little Peppers books - Betsy & Tacy will have to wait till my next paycheck...
Those are just a handful of the hundreds of books I devoured both from my school library and my town library. The Scholastic Book Club got most of my pocket money, and books were always at the top of my Christmas list - at least until I got my first horse - after that, books moved down the list to just behind all the stuff I wanted for my horse.
I still have a passion for horses and books!
I don't have enough spoons to answer any of the other questions ATM, but I may circle back around...
Lovely post, Chris. Just as it’s hard to be mad at someone when we imagine them as a small child, it’s hard to be mad at ourselves when we think back to ourselves as children.
Favorite childhood book, one that I’m certain planted the seeds of my becoming a writer: Old Hasdrubal and the Pirates by Berthe Amos. Stunning language, funny and mysterious and strange.
And one that made me feel understood: When Fletcher Was Hatched (about the less-loved creature in a family, who must go to great lengths to prove his worth:) It’s easy to trace so much of who I was and what shaped me psychologically through my utter attachment to that book.
Isn’t it interesting (and either exhausting or heartening depending on how you look at it) that we keep returning to these lessons/discoveries throughout our lives? There is no arrival, and once we can accept that, it’s easier to relax into the process. I say that after spending two weeks locked in a box with anxiety, and this morning finding some space to breathe.
Great share Chris. I've enjoyed reading the year as it unravels. I'm part of a recovery group for childhood trauma and one of the things I've learned is that I developed a number of traits that I've had to unlearn with action coming from love for myself. That unlearning process is ongoing because the coping strategies I devised were in place for such a long time.
A confusing memory from early on - my Grandad would play a game with me called "smell the cheese" and would encourage me to smell the imaginary cheese in his hand. He'd then slide his fist up and knock me on the nose.
This was funny to him and completely bewildering to me. But as a 5 year old there's not much I could do.
Childhood is hard. Even if it might also be wonderful at times, if you're lucky.
Parenting brings up A LOT of childhood memories.
I bonded with another parent about only having one child in part because being a "conscious" parent is exhausting and we didn't think we'd have the bandwidth to do it twice / two simultaneously.
Even when you're being concsious of your actions and reactions, it's still hard to be patient all the time with children and hold space for the tough extreme of their emotions (the joyous extreme is wonderful, I am very grateful for tight hugs and being told "I love you sooooooo much").
It makes much more sense to me now that so many adults are scarred by various events of childhood. If it wasn't at home, there was probably someone impactful and unkind at school or in the playground. Things as a kid loom so large and important and it's hard to unlearn it / put it in an appropriate perspective.
Thanks for sharing and for the thought provocation. x
1. I feel like there’s a lot about six-year-old me that still guides my life. I was a bright, spunky, confident kid and that remains true, thankfully. I suppose I sometimes need to remember that, like, say when my life is going through a big upheaval and I don’t know where I’ll land or whether I’ll have a job and so on.
2. I still have a soft spot for "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish," which I was chastised for reading when I was six because it was "below my reading level," but it's not like the book stopped being fun. But hands down, best childhood books are "The Phantom Tollbooth" and "Harriet the Spy."
3. The summer I turned 7, we took a family trip down to Virginia to visit an aunt and uncle outside of DC and some other places (Shenandoah). So much happened. It was fun, but I remember being stuck in traffic because there was a motorcycle accident, my brother got sick and went to the hospital (in retrospect, I think he was having some sort of sensory overload), we (the three siblings) fought in the back seat because that's what you do when you are between the ages of 6-11, the vacation ended a week early because my dad was "homesick" (but probably also sick of three bickering children). We never took such a big vacation so far away (NH to VA is a substantial drive) ever again.
Just read somewhere that kids who receive excessive homework grow up depressed. Catholic school gave us so much homework it wasn’t possible to finish it all. You were never caught up. There was no escaping this endless to do pile. On the one hand it made me a reader. On the other, it made me sacrifice play time and time in nature I’ll never get back. The school is shuttered now (but not burned down—the building was brick).
There is so much I learned and unlearned from my childhood. My father was emotionally abusive. My earliest recollection of his abuse, I was eight years old. My stomach and chest would always tighten in his presence which lead to health problems. I never ever felt comfortable around him. He made me feel less than and when he called me "stupid" I believed him.
It took alot of internal work to undue the trauma I endured. I am aware of my triggers. The word "stupid" is a tigger. To this day a loving embrace between a father and daughter is a trigger. When I reaached my early 20's I was done with allowing my childhood trauma to ruin my adult life. I allowed the anger to surface and I journaled through the pain. Journaling continues to be a big part of my life.
As bad as it was, I couldn't say I would change a thing because I love my life today. I learned alot. I learned how to dismantle my childhood trauma. I learned what NOT to do when raising my sons. I learned that pain can be transformed into purpose. I learned to live in joy.
For me, it's the 11-year old who I have been talking with in therapy. That year my sister, who was my whole world, suddenly left home (she was 18 and needed to get out for her own reasons). It left me with a fear of abandonment that still lingers. I'm finally getting a handle on it, and learning to feel compassion for her rather than being angry that she's mucking up my relationships. So much of our adult traumas arise from these childhood events... Thank you for sharing and making this a safe place to share back!
What can I learn from 6-year-old me? That there is nothing wrong with being a dreamer. The bigger, the better! What I wish I had learned then, and held onto throughout life, is unshakable fearlessness (not to be confused with carelessness). While I was (and still am) a dreamer, most around me were not, and my two older sisters (nine and ten years older than me) would constantly tease me about being different. I wish I had had the courage to follow at least one of the dreams. Alas, life still turned out okay.
Favorite childhood book - Charlotte's Web. Least favorite: Where the Wild Things Are - I was absolutely terrified of those monsters! lol...
In his book The Myth of Normal, Gabor Mate talks about how extraordinary it is that our minds/psyches employ such defenses when we are children to help us survive. It’s true that those defenses can become difficult or detrimental for our adult selves, but they did what they were meant to do. So part of the unlearning or breaking of those defensive cycles is recognizing why they are there in the first place, and healing the original wounds. It’s hard work, but it is well worth it.
Hi Chris, my childhood, when i was four to five year old i lives with my grand parents common in Côte d'Ivoire. And my parent was farmer and we slept on the field. Today i graduate to Bachelor on sciences, but i love farming, planning cassava.
Chris, are you about to throw a curveball in that shot? I loved baseball as a kid too, but I was too much a minor talent to get to the minors. However, the 6-year-old me was a sneaky wiseguy, and perhaps not much has changed. Our household was bedrock suburban middle-class, my parents loving.
So maybe that's why I had a shoplifting business all through high-school (and a bit after), about which I wrote a memoir. The former altar boy had to generate some excitement. Lucky now I get excited about reading and writing, not selling tape players to fellow adolescents.
He's a kid that is scared and needed love. His family blew up in his face and he grew scared of cats because of it (he didn't understand that the marriage was doomed from the beginning and the last large argument was because the cats were left inside by accident, which lead to a major argument). He would be confused and unsure, eventually having to uproot from his home in the midwest and migrate west where the second worst year of his life would occur and damage his life forever.
He, much like I am now, are in quite reactive states. It is a hard thing to unlearn, a hard habit to break, but one that needs to be done. He was a little martyr even back then, taking the blame for the divorce and knowing he was the problem of it all (because his parents used him as a bartering chip in a cold war that put the USA and USSR to shame).
A very interesting thought to process indeed.
Ooooh - favorite childhood book! Can that be plural? Here's hoping! Anything by Walter Farley - all the Billy and Blaze books when I was younger, all the Black Stallion books when I was older. All the Misty of Chincoteague books I was, (and still am,) that horse crazy girl). I also loved the Betsy Tacy books and the Five Little Peppers books. As a matter of fact, I just searched them out on Amazon last week and bought myself a present of the Five Little Peppers books - Betsy & Tacy will have to wait till my next paycheck...
Those are just a handful of the hundreds of books I devoured both from my school library and my town library. The Scholastic Book Club got most of my pocket money, and books were always at the top of my Christmas list - at least until I got my first horse - after that, books moved down the list to just behind all the stuff I wanted for my horse.
I still have a passion for horses and books!
I don't have enough spoons to answer any of the other questions ATM, but I may circle back around...
Lovely post, Chris. Just as it’s hard to be mad at someone when we imagine them as a small child, it’s hard to be mad at ourselves when we think back to ourselves as children.
Favorite childhood book, one that I’m certain planted the seeds of my becoming a writer: Old Hasdrubal and the Pirates by Berthe Amos. Stunning language, funny and mysterious and strange.
And one that made me feel understood: When Fletcher Was Hatched (about the less-loved creature in a family, who must go to great lengths to prove his worth:) It’s easy to trace so much of who I was and what shaped me psychologically through my utter attachment to that book.
Isn’t it interesting (and either exhausting or heartening depending on how you look at it) that we keep returning to these lessons/discoveries throughout our lives? There is no arrival, and once we can accept that, it’s easier to relax into the process. I say that after spending two weeks locked in a box with anxiety, and this morning finding some space to breathe.
Great share Chris. I've enjoyed reading the year as it unravels. I'm part of a recovery group for childhood trauma and one of the things I've learned is that I developed a number of traits that I've had to unlearn with action coming from love for myself. That unlearning process is ongoing because the coping strategies I devised were in place for such a long time.
A confusing memory from early on - my Grandad would play a game with me called "smell the cheese" and would encourage me to smell the imaginary cheese in his hand. He'd then slide his fist up and knock me on the nose.
This was funny to him and completely bewildering to me. But as a 5 year old there's not much I could do.
Childhood is hard. Even if it might also be wonderful at times, if you're lucky.
Parenting brings up A LOT of childhood memories.
I bonded with another parent about only having one child in part because being a "conscious" parent is exhausting and we didn't think we'd have the bandwidth to do it twice / two simultaneously.
Even when you're being concsious of your actions and reactions, it's still hard to be patient all the time with children and hold space for the tough extreme of their emotions (the joyous extreme is wonderful, I am very grateful for tight hugs and being told "I love you sooooooo much").
It makes much more sense to me now that so many adults are scarred by various events of childhood. If it wasn't at home, there was probably someone impactful and unkind at school or in the playground. Things as a kid loom so large and important and it's hard to unlearn it / put it in an appropriate perspective.
Thanks for sharing and for the thought provocation. x
1. I feel like there’s a lot about six-year-old me that still guides my life. I was a bright, spunky, confident kid and that remains true, thankfully. I suppose I sometimes need to remember that, like, say when my life is going through a big upheaval and I don’t know where I’ll land or whether I’ll have a job and so on.
2. I still have a soft spot for "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish," which I was chastised for reading when I was six because it was "below my reading level," but it's not like the book stopped being fun. But hands down, best childhood books are "The Phantom Tollbooth" and "Harriet the Spy."
3. The summer I turned 7, we took a family trip down to Virginia to visit an aunt and uncle outside of DC and some other places (Shenandoah). So much happened. It was fun, but I remember being stuck in traffic because there was a motorcycle accident, my brother got sick and went to the hospital (in retrospect, I think he was having some sort of sensory overload), we (the three siblings) fought in the back seat because that's what you do when you are between the ages of 6-11, the vacation ended a week early because my dad was "homesick" (but probably also sick of three bickering children). We never took such a big vacation so far away (NH to VA is a substantial drive) ever again.
Peppermint, by Dorothy Grider - it's an old kids' book (it was old when I got a copy in like 1985 or so) but it was life-changing in many ways.
Just read somewhere that kids who receive excessive homework grow up depressed. Catholic school gave us so much homework it wasn’t possible to finish it all. You were never caught up. There was no escaping this endless to do pile. On the one hand it made me a reader. On the other, it made me sacrifice play time and time in nature I’ll never get back. The school is shuttered now (but not burned down—the building was brick).
Grateful for your insights and beautiful writing. Clear, thoughtful, and always so honest and authentic. Thanks!