The real heal

This is where the real work on recovering and healing began. So far, all I had done was put bandages over the turmoil that we could see on the surface. The alcohol addiction, not having any hobbies to distract me, and finding friends that weren't constantly putting me down. This is where the real work began, and where it started to get incredibly tough. I had to enlist the help of a Psychiatrist, a Counsellor, a Doctor, and someone who was there for me always to help me find my way to the light through this one. I had plenty of help, and plenty of service people that knew I was trying to help myself, so they were ready and willing.

This is where my line Manager at work was a real godsend for me. She had made herself constantly available to me for any questions or any help that I may have needed. Sometimes I look back and think that she was there more than she needed to be, but I was a needy person. I understand it was about me feeling in the right place at the right time. She had positioned herself as my mentor, and right about now I was going to need a person to lean on with the realisations I was about to make.

The rest of this chapter will be about the important parts of my childhood and the realisations that I made. It was difficult. Truly difficult. And believe me, there were times where I felt like running for the hills as fast as my feet could carry me, leaving my cruel past where it should have been kept.

***

My Parents

Dad

Think of my Dad as the world’s worst womaniser. He had a woman in every port. My Dad travelled the world, and every time I went to see him he would introduce me to a new woman. This was while he had a wife, and I knew full well that he had one. Being the good kid that I was I didn't have to agree with it but I had accepted that this was my Dad and if I wanted to see him this was how it was going to be.

My Dad since my birth had never treated me very well. He didn't take his fists to my face but he may as well have done that. Every time my Dad shot me an angry look I would hold my bum and run away crying. Dad had such a temper.

Mum split with Dad when I was five. She had found out about his many other women on various ports and was no longer going to be sold down the river by his silver tongue. I spent five years after that away from him with no contact. He had told her that he didn't want any contact, and that was fine with Mum because of the kind of man he was.

It wasn't until I was ten that he had decided to come back into my life. One fateful day at my Grandads funeral my Mum and Dad met up for the first time in years and talked about me. Mum explained how well I was doing in School; that I was one of the top students in my class and the good solid friendships that I had made, and that of course, I missed my Dad.

He and her agreed that he'd be back in my life for the foreseeable future. He would visit me when he had the time; he was a world traveller and an important man in Nuclear Electric, his job had significantly progressed since we last knew him. My Dad would visit me once or twice per year, which wasn't much, yet I was happy to accommodate that because he was my father after all.

His attitude changed significantly to me when I had gone off the rails as a fourteen-year-old boy. Mum had a very long term boyfriend that we slowly watched die from the inside out and that took its toll on me. From there I swiftly turned to drugs, alcohol and hanging in unruly street gangs. The friends that I once had didn't want to know me, and I ended up socialising with the sort that you would be scared to meet down a back alleyway. My life was headed for significantly worse if it hadn't been for my Dad that took me by the collar and showed me the value of a hard day’s work.

My life improved significantly since then but his attitude to me never changed. Dad ended up jobless in the latter half of 1996. Something went down in Thailand and him and the people he was with had to vacate the country very quickly. What happened I'm unsure. But what I'm sure of is that since then my life with him was incredibly difficult. He was always judging and blaming me, making me feel worthless and not treating me like a Son that normal fathers do. Why? I'm still unsure. But that's the way it was right up until he died. He died in 2011, but not before we had made our peace together.

***

Mum

Mum was the parent that was with me through most of my childhood and part of my adult life. In fairness Mum was there for me as a solid parent and she tried to do her best as much as she could with the options that she had. She always tried to give me strong men to learn from and she was always there when I needed comforting. I can't say that I had it that bad with Mum because she was and is my biggest fan. Yet that's not to say that she's made some whacking mistakes in her past (as we all do, sorry Mum!).

Mum had a certain fondness for alcohol and although my experience with Dad and pubs in my teenage years were limited, Mum allowed me to drink far more than she should have. I now know enough about alcohol to know that it's not something you should be allowing your teenage boy to do whilst his body is still growing. That age limit is there for a reason. It was through Mum that I can remember getting a taste for booze, and through her that I had my first drink. I think it was cider and babycham she was drinking with her friends but I really enjoyed the taste.

If Mum still had her man that previously died of cancer I doubt there would be any way on earth that I'd be allowed to taste anything until I was at least the appropriate age. He was a fair man yet strict. But because he died, and Mum and I were grieving of sorts she allowed me to sit in the house at 14 and 15 and have a few drinks with her. It'd often replace fun days out with my friends and how she'd coax me to stay in the house. I didn't mind, I was getting pie eyed!

It did however place a strain on my current friendships. I would often be met with cocked heads and asked why the hell I would want to stay in with my mother when I could be out running wild like everyone else? In fairness, I was jealous that my friends didn't have the duty of keeping their mothers company, but I was being bargained for by alcohol, and I was fine with that. My friends had to wait for sometimes hours to get some random to go into the shop for them whereas I had my Mum. It wasn't every day this happened but regular enough for me to be put out and my friends to take notice. She was grieving though, I understand that now, and she was having to put on her brave face every day to get things done. I couldn't imagine how it must have been for her. I was her only solstice in a horrible world.

Mum was pretty much a solid parent apart from the alcohol, and the ideas of women that I gained from her. Now perhaps if I had a strong man all the way throughout my childhood then maybe my ideas of women would have been balanced but the only input I was getting was from my mum. My Mum had taught me to be everything that my Dad was not; kind, loyal, respectful and faithful. In fact, she drummed the idea of infidelity and how much destruction it can cause into my head so well that I have acted strongly with others and their decisions in the past where perhaps I should have just kept out of their business.

All well and good, right? Kind, loyal, respectful and faithful. Every girl wants a man like that. What she didn't teach me alongside it though was how to be strong. I don't blame her for that though, she did her best and it's not something she could have taught me herself anyway. I was the ultimate chivalrous man. Super nice, loyal and would do absolutely anything for the woman that I loved at the time. Sadly, I learned later in life that women like strong men that can hold their own, they liked a challenge, and with me bowing to their every need it became super boring for them and ended very quickly.

Mum was a solid parent though. We all make mistakes. I have already too.

***

What I learned from analysing Mum and Dad

The most important thing I've ever learned through counselling was on my third session with a Polish lady that was working for the NHS. I remember it well. I was sat there talking about random things in my past, I can't remember what exactly. She said something to me that felt like a jolt to the system. Her words had cut through my energy like the sharp edge of a Samurai sword.

Whoomph!

She hadn't said anything forcefully or angrily. She was a soft lady and spoke calmly, but what she asked halted me in my tracks for the rest of the day. I can't remember what she had questioned me on but that wasn't what was important. What was important was the train of thought that I had taken. The lady had given me a thought that would neatly unravel the biggest discovery that I have made to date about myself.

That I was just like my Dad

I had spent my entire life trying not to be like this man. My entire life. But in a strange 360 I had landed just like him and I was going the same way. Of course, it's obvious I was going to be just like him because he is my parent and kids mimic their parents. It wasn't obvious to me though! I had prided myself on being different to him. People had told me I was different, but if I was truly honest with myself I was starting to become him. There was no denying it. Apart from the womanizer there was a large part of Dad nestled inside of me.

Oh boy how the tears came after that realisation. I was sat alone in an empty house with just my thoughts for company. I couldn't be like that fucker. I had spent my whole life trying not to be him. The realisation was hard on me. I must admit a couple of times that night I had a few fleeting thoughts of taking my own life. To be him was the worst for me.

The following day I went into New Thresholds and spoke to Thecla and she told me something truly magnificent. She said,

"Well, at least you know now right? You can finally take action to change that"

And she was right. Now the path had been laid bare for me I understood why and how I was changing and the pitfalls and loopholes that would have led me back on the horrible path I was previously taking.

But that wasn't the only thing I learned through analysing my past. There were a few others.

It's scary how much of our parents troubles we take into our adulthood. I was 27 when I first realised that what happened between my parents was realistically nothing to do with me. What should have been my business was the way that they treated me as a child and an adult. Their direct communications with me. But what happened between them should have been between them.

I had blamed my Dad for all of my childhood and most of my adulthood for treating Mum that way that he did. Yet it would probably have been better for me if I had kept my nose out of that stuff. It was between them. As a child, I was too young to understand and as an adult their day was too far past to analyse. As soon as I let their troubles go and told myself whatever happens with Mum and Dad is between those two my life eased up a hundred-fold. I felt like the world had been lifted from my shoulders.

Another significant realisation that I had was the childhood of my parents; particularly my fathers. It was no surprise to me that he had it rough, and as my Auntie has told me in the past that his wasn't particularly a shining bright light. It led to the understanding of where all the abuse came from, where the narcissistic behaviour originated. It led me to being less judgemental and having a wider berth for my Dads shenanigans.

Yet I still feel (personally) that everyone has a tipping point, and that Dad’s should have been reached many years ago. I feel he should have sat himself down and thought to himself, shit, I'm a Dad now, I need to buckle up. I think we can blame the parents of parents of parents only for so long until a balance needs to be struck, because then no-one would heed the responsibility for anything. One needs to own their responsibilities in life. (more on that later)