How I Met My Mother

Part 2

I won't lie, I haven't reread the first 9 parts (I consider that to be part 1), so I will probably be repeating myself a lot. Then again, I need to remember more often that when I write, it's for me first and foremost. Still, I feel it's fair to give a warning. PTSD comes with memory issues and I certainly have both. 

That being said, I want to put my English final in here. It fits in, you'll see.

"It's so easy to take having a family for granted if you think about it; It does not reflect people's character or anything like that. Having a family you're related to by blood is the norm. It's normal to have a family. Knowing loneliness before you know what it is to have a home and a family is abnormal. That abnormality was my regular; finally, getting a family was my greatest gift.

At two years old, my birth mother died due to mysterious, unknown circumstances. My birth father was, unfortunately, a drug addict as well as an active gang member. He had to choose between either straightening up his act and keeping his children or allowing them to be split up and sent to different orphanages, likely never to see each other again.

 Unfortunately, he chose the latter and broke my heart. He changed my life forever, maybe even for the better, in the end. Who knows what kind of life I would have lived without a mother and a criminal, drug-addicted father, right?

My birth father broke my heart more than once as if once wasn't enough. For the first few years of my being a ward of the state, he was allowed visitations for whatever reason. I was too young to know things like resentment, and never felt bitterness until I was much older. I looked forward to these visitations quite a lot. 

One day, he just disappeared. I remember crying so much because I was so upset at his absence. My social worker couldn't say much other than, "Sorry, kiddo. Want a happy meal?" I never saw him again. It was painful and I've only recently overcome the majority of that pain thanks to weekly therapy sessions.

From my understanding, orphanages were constantly underfunded and crowded for such a lack of funds. There also weren't very many of them, I'd gather because they sent a toddler to an orphanage for teenagers. That's the only logical explanation for putting such an impressionable child to live with many troubled teenagers. 

Stability and consistency were nonexistent for much of the first eight years of my life. I was lonely and confused. Due to behavioral issues caused by heavy abuse, many foster homes felt they were unequipped to give me everything I needed. So, I'd be sent back to the orphanage like an overcooked steak at a restaurant. That's the part that would confuse me because no one wanted to explain to the little kid that they're too much for the average Joe to handle. No one wanted to explain why the little kid constantly had to say goodbye to families they had grown fond of.

I was always an observant kid, utterly fascinated by the world around me. I saw the other kids interacting with their parents at various points: the beginning of the day to drop them off, the middle of the day to sign them out or into school for the day, or the end of the day to pick them up. The parents always seemed so genuinely happy to interact with their child overall, and I remember envying that in itself very much. We, orphans, didn't get to have birthday parties or Christmas presents. Funds just couldn't stretch that far. 

So, the classroom birthday parties and Christmas parties kind of just made me feel sad, especially when they would ask what we got for Christmas, and I'd have to say that I got nothing in front of everyone. Getting adopted changed all of that.

One of the things that happened because of tight funds was food shortages. Meals had at the orphanage were first come first serve and I was the youngest, as well as smallest, person there. Many times I would get shoved back so they could get more to eat, and I didn't get anything. I was never one to make a fuss over things like that, so I kept quiet about how hungry I was. 

The reason this comes to mind is because that food problem created a major eating disorder for me. I would sneak food despite not needing to do so anymore, and the memory struck me as significant and worth sharing in this recount of mine. Even though I had been blessed with a family and security, the survival mode was challenging to shake, not to sound ungrateful, however. I know how blessed I am to be away from such a place.

When I was finally adopted, I finally got to know the joy of celebrating your birthday. I finally got to understand that it's not just another day. For a little while, I got to feel the magic of Christmas Eve, staying awake to try and hear Santa's footsteps. For a change, I wasn't as lonely. I finally had the family, love, and general security every child needs and deserves, the greatest gift I could have received. A family truly is the greatest gift of all the things there are in this world." Kal Wilson, 10/21/23. 

In the About Me part, I forgot to mention the animes I like, I'll go ahead and do that now because why not? I love Naruto and feel I can relate to Naruto himself a lot, as well as Sasuke. My life has been a very lonely one, not that I'm trying to be sad or mopey about it. I'm just trying to state facts.

 While I'm certainly no pillar of perfection, I do try my best. I try to do good and to be good and I aim for better and better all the time. Yet my life at times feels like it's just a revolving door that's constantly moving, cycling people in and out. The first eight years of my life were nothing but that- forming bonds and then never seeing them again. My gosh, of course, I had behavioral issues!

Feeling lonely all the time sucks. We are social creatures. Our development as tiny humans depends on lots of things, a majority of those things being centered around socialization and general contact. 

I was never really given proper therapy, even my mom would agree with me that they all wound up being very intimidated by a child having such grown-up issues. They would always want to focus on strictly day-to-day things and would avoid talking with me about my past. 

I'm not trying to shame those people or anything. I have sympathy for them when it comes to the matter of discomfort. It's just, that I wish they would have stepped up as mental health care professionals and gotten me to whoever would be able to help me. It wasn't enough to medicate me, and the therapy did nothing other than give me a distaste for therapists. 

I feel like if I'd received the therapy I needed, there's a good handful of bad decisions I made that might have not happened. I was lonely, I felt misunderstood, like an outsider, no matter where I was. So, of course, I acted out. Of course, I had an attitude. I was in near-constant emotional pain and felt like I was expected to pretend like it wasn't there.

People don't like things that make them uncomfortable, and listening to a past like mine as well as the aftermath of it all, can be very uncomfortable to bear witness to. At the same time, though, living with the aftermath was easily three times as uncomfortable as being my therapist would be. Don't care what anyone says.

Everything happens for a reason, though, and the constant shitty therapists helped me to see what it is I'm here for and what it is I wanna do with my life. I'd like to go more into depth about that in the next part.

If you're reading this, I want you to know that I appreciate you so very much. Thank you.