Watch For Falling Walls

 *Strong language warning

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Tap, tap, tap. 

Therapy is insistent. The slow, consistent chipping away at the solid walls around me. Walls I believed until very recently to be impenetrable. But, now there are small fissures in the stone. Tiny places of weakness. Of escape.

Things are beginning to slip out. The pressure is too much, and I can’t hold them in any longer. The things I have held for years that are not really mine to carry. The amount of shit I was expected to handle as a child is astounding. It took so long, but I see it now. How fucked up it was.

Seeing my perceived weaknesses as what they really are - responses to trauma and ways to stay safe - it really cuts deep. I was taught to doubt my own mind. My emotions. The things I could feel were off even when I was told everything was just fine. My sense of self and the confidence I should have had in my choices were dismissed or mocked. These were things I needed to function safely in society. Not trusting my gut feeling has gotten me into some seriously bad situations in the past.

My safety was stolen from me. My childhood was stolen. I will never know how it feels to be loved and safe. To be taught how to handle life. To be treated with kindness and humanity. I will never know how it feels to be a child. The freedom. Happiness. The lightness of not having to carry the wounds of my mother.

So, the walls went up to protect me. I had no other recourse. I didn’t know there was value in emotions. Only shame. A constant, gnawing emptiness. An aching heart. My walls kept me safe, but they made me someone else. The things held behind them were accumulating, and a part of me has always been aware of the unfairness. Questioning why my existence could not be light and easy like my sister and my cousins. Why I couldn’t stop being a fuck up. My walls made me hard and cruel as a defense. I never felt safe. I was always ready for the next attack. I truly believed that everyone in the world wanted to hurt me.

Ah, narcissism. I used to yearn to be able to assimilate with my family. I picked up some of the traits and used them to keep myself safe. Or safer, anyway. My anger was not easily controlled, and a girl with a mouth was just asking for whatever she got back then. (Back then - ha - and now.) 

I have been convinced so many times that I was wrong. That I was a liar. I was taught to believe it was all my fault. And, it was done meticulously. Now that I know what I know about covert narcissism, enmeshment, parentification, etc. I can admit there is artistry in my birth mother’s manipulations. So many things that I found profoundly confusing in my life have become crystal clear when I look at them in the web she has woven.

It’s disheartening. That I was fighting a losing battle for my whole childhood. I just wanted acceptance. I had no idea my own mother was working against me. They were never going to believe me. Never try to protect me. Nowhere and no one was safe. Of course I have walls. 

It’s scary to watch them begin to crack, and in some places, crumble. Acceptance is painful. But, I can no longer pretend that things are good. It is a broken family - not a perfect one. Not even a good one. Not even close. 

My walls kept me safe. They served the very vital purpose of keeping me alive. They are nothing to be ashamed of. But, also nothing to be proud of, either. They were a response. I didn’t have the words or the knowledge to understand what was happening to me, but my body knew how to keep me alive. I made it.

Behind the walls I hid my shame, but as they seep out of the cracks, I see them clearly now as well. I was not a bad kid. I tried really fucking hard. I got straight As until eighth grade when I was assaulted and also groped almost daily on the school bus. I fell into my journal in those days, and writing replaced homework. I still graduated with a high GPA and went to college. I even won academic awards. Anything to make my parents happy. 

The “bad” things I did usually came from one of two places. I was either looking for an escape, a way to numb the aching, something to fill the emptiness in me, or I was pressured into something that I did not want to do by someone I desperately wanted to like me. I was so hungry for attention. Friendship. Love of any kind. Even if it came with a heaping side of bruises. 

I’m beginning to think that the shame hidden behind those walls wasn’t really mine. I was scared and unsure with no guidance. No one listening. No one answering my questions. The shame lies with the adults, and almost every single one failed me. I was embarrassing, and the harder I tried to be seen, the more they wanted to hide me in the shadows. It wasn’t my shame. I was just a vessel for theirs. 

That’s a tough one. It makes me really, really, really sad. I am once again the sad little girl with the big eyes and serious expression. Just waiting for whatever comes next. On guard at six years old. Already knowing there is something wrong with me. Something I need to keep hidden. It’s a physical pain in my guts. The same pain every time. And, that’s when I want to shove it back behind the walls and go back to the blissful ignorance of before. As if that was actually possible. And, reality check, it was never blissful.

My walls may be thick, but they have created a solid foundation for my children to grow. On top of keeping me alive, they held me together while my babies were young. I had enough strength to know that I would not raise my children the same. I would do the opposite. I would give them the parent I had always wanted. I would do whatever it took. Give them whatever they needed – emotionally as well as just keeping them alive. This was long before I opened my eyes to reality. Long before therapy. I was still deeply enmeshed in my role at the time, but I still refused to parent like them. I knew even then that something wasn’t right there. That something had to change.

My walls kept me safe and together as I raised my babies. By the time I discovered the truth hidden behind my walls, by the time they began to crack, my kiddos were already confident and well adjusted, certain in their parents’ love. Certain that we have their backs. That we value them as individuals. That we respect them and are open to criticism and dialogue. 

I have raised good people. I have given them all the love I could. It is now okay to divert some of that love to myself. To the little girl inside me who just needed a hug. My walls can come down now. My family is safe. I am safe. It’s time to actually live.