I remember my second school. And I was only around five or six years old. We moved from my first school in Belgium to my second school. And what do I remember? Feeling utterly miserable, resigned, intimidated by it's cold, dark atmosphere. I was alone. No support. No one with me. No friends. I was the alien, the stranger, the weirdo, the outsider, the one who didn't belong. I felt so alone.
Fast forward a couple of years. My parents dropped me and my sister off at a christian youth camp somewhere in Holland for a week. I reckon I must have been eight or nine years old. And yet as I made my way to the barracks style tent - I felt exactly the same way. Intimidated, alone, closed in, responsible for myself.
When I look back I don't see my mum comforting me. Allowing me to talk through my fears, hurts and pains. Instead I see that I was responsible for me and my sister. No one to talk to. No one who asked me. No one who was looking out for me. If my mum were to read this I'm sure she would cry out in anguish - telling me I was not remembering right. I can only remember what I can remember.
My bedroom in our second house in Belgium (I lived there from around 5-8) was right at the top of a three story house. It was an old house - this being early seventies, so the house would have been very tall. It was on a main road near the train station - so was quite grand, if not too wide. My parents and sister were on the first floor, I was on the second. As far aware from anyone else as it was possible to be. The stairs were on the other side of the house, my bedroom was cold. And when I was in there I felt alone. And yet I'm pretty sure I chose to go in there, unless of course the spare room (also on the top floor) was reserved for guests by my mum. No doubt she would have made me think it was my choice.
When I was in my bedroom, and my parents were downstairs on the ground floor -they felt very very far away. They wouldn't be able to hear me move around. I could sit at the top of the stairs and they would not have been able to see me. I remember once when I thought I could hear a mosquito buzzing in my room. I went all the way downstairs in some trepidation to ask my dad to come and find it. He came up, and convinced me the sound was a dripping down some guttering. And he left. And I was left very alone.
And when I look back I realise how alone I was. Apparently before I went to Belgium with my parents (who went as missionaries to start a new church) we were in Birmingham. We lived next door to some dutch people and I played with another lad my age called Robert. Apparently we were thick as thieves. But all that stopped the moment we left England. From that moment, until the moment we came back, I had not a single friend. I was never invited round to anyone else's house. I can remember no parties. I'm sure my mum encouraged me to invite others round for tea at our house (though I can't remember that either) - but I know I didn't have a single friend. No buddy that I would laugh with, joke, with, play with, fight with.. There was no one.
- So, my dad was unavailable - and I was having to deal with his pain and rejection.
- God only knows how my mum was - devoted to my dad as she was - in this foreign land
- I was responsible for my sister (I still remember she was invited to one party)
- I had no friends - none at all
- I had no one to talk to
- School was imposing, intimidating and cold/dark
- And I was alone
Poor kid.
From two years old to eight years old. Not one friend. No one to talk to - because somehow my mum needed to defend my dad more than she did me.
I remember feeling extraordinarily responsible for myself. Felt like I was an adult. When I was eight. That I had to somehow look after myself despite the fact I did not have the tools (or age!) to do so. I had to walk to school whilst looking after my sister, and walk back (while braving the bullies). So I was responsible too.
What would that do to a boy? No friends. Two till eight. Those formative years. A dad who was abusive and fearful, a mum who was somehow lost, sister(s) who looked up to me as their saviour, and me totally alone.
It taught me I was all I had, and that I couldn't be weak. I couldn't show weakness (even though I didn't know how to defend myself) I just had to take it. Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me - as taught by my mum. But names did hurt me. I never cried. I never talked about it with my parents. I never let on how miserable I was. And they never asked. They never probed. They never got it out of me.
When we got back to england, dad went to teacher training college and we had, as before, no money. Our clothes were second hand stuff placed in blag bin bags on our doorstep. My shoes for high school had to be dyed from brown to black.
After teacher training my dad went to teach in Liverpool. It was very stressful for him. And he was very stressed. The school was not a good school. That made him unbearable at home. He was also itinerating (speaking at any church that would have him) and I saw many miracles, healings, people become Christians, demons being expelled etc. I was encouraged to give my testimony.
The point being that home got tougher. Sister numbers 3,4 and 5 were born. And this from my father who didn't want children because of his own upbringing and fears. I have no respect for that. He made the best of it, and was very proud. But never the less. And we lived in a 3 bed semi (until my grandfather died, at which point we moved (again) to somewhere completely new into a much bigger 5 bed house (so big in fact the first time I saw it I asked where our front door was) at 14/15.
But anyway. I excelled in being on my own. Coping on my own (or at least trying to). In fact to go to my parents meant that I would have to be open. And to be open would mean that they could come over my walls and take advantage of me. Something I learnt very early on never to do. Mum would be smarmy, guilt ridden, emotionally incestuous - making me think or feel things I didn't want to. Dad would make me feel that it was my fault, that I was somehow not doing something right, and ultimately it would allow him to sow whatever poison into my spirit. To become vulnerable to either was like giving power to a wraith like creature who would suck the life out of me. Like wilfully deciding that I would walk into a second world war Japanese POW camp, and submit myself to the camp commander. And that was not something I was going to allow myself to do.
So I built defences. Walls. I'll do it myself, because you guys can't help me. Can't look after me. Can't support me. In fact, you want to take whatever I do have and give it to you. But you can't have it. You've wanted it all my life, and even now the only way to make you happy would be for me to enter that POW camp and do all the commander asks of me. But I aint going to do it, so you can sod off. Literally.
My problem is, I've been so alone and coping all my life, that now to become vulnerable means risking the POW camp with people like my wife, my therapist and my neighbour. The feeling that I feel when I look at how I feel, and ponder being vulnerable is nothing short of violating the trust of the little boy inside me.
I've spent years defending myself from a very real danger. I've committed my life to it. So now to dismantle those defenses (albeit for a small group of people) still feels like a bridge to far, a task too great, an ask too much. All my alarms go off. My insides turn to mush. It's like facing my worst fear. Absolutely my worst fear. Allowing someone to come into my inside, past my defences, to see me as I really am. Confused, hurt, in pain, rejected, soft, sensitive, hoping, caring, frightened. Moving past the theatre mask as Jung calls it, past what I project. Past the confident, bullish, optimistic, gregarious, coping, has it all together mask. And see the soft frightened mush that is me.
And yet that's what I want to do. I want to allow my wife, my therapist and selected others into me. But the very act of allowing them feels like wilfully walking to the gallows, the POW camp, allowing my dad to abuse and violate me. So it's no easy thing..
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