Childhood Trauma

Childhood Trauma  (E) A true story of how abuse tends to follow one long after the fact. #2103425 by Chris Breva

400 words

I was not one of those fortunate people who grew up in a perfect home as a child. My childhood started out very rocky and continued to get worse as I grew older. While I won't say I wish these events hadn't occurred, I can see how they have influenced my life. I can clearly see how they have had both a positive and negative impact on my life.

Though my family all lives in a state of either outright denial of the situation or at best wishes to sweep it under the rug and pretend it didn't happen, what I am about to relate is true.

I lost my younger sister when I was around 12 years of age. She died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, which science now knows is due to using a used crib mattress. Her death naturally and deeply affected my father who was never good at dealing with death anyway. As a result he began drinking heavily and plummeted into chronic alcoholism. As such he became very abusive. Since he and I had never really had a great relationship to begin with, matters between he and I grew much worse. Over a period of years I failed to see him as a father figure. Instead I saw him as a bully and a tyrant. Looking at my life today I can clearly see that this has had a very powerful impact.

Recently I was in a classroom setting with a man who stood a head taller than myself and who had a gruff voice and manner about him. One day this man disagreed with a comment I made and became very verbal about it. We had a major argument about it, during which I made it clear that he was nothing more than a coward and a bully.

It wasn't until later when I was calmer that I realized that when I had been arguing with the man it wasn't him I was seeing. Instead for the time of the argument I was once again a small child being bullied by an adult. In this case however the small child had enough adult strength and size that he refused to be bullied!

Never let anybody think that one's past doesn't influence our present. The past has a tremendous impact on the present. Just ask the therapist who treats my post traumatic stress disorder!

I won't say that my father was a bad man. He became one of the best people a person could know. In fact, I called him a few years before his death and thanked him for putting a foot up my backside when I was young. it shaped me and made a man out of me. however there were times when he was outright abusive when drinking. Those times were painful and the scars still exist today.