Who am I?

Such a small question. Only three words. And each word smaller than the previous. Innocent words. Yet they contain such power.

Who am I?

I thought I knew who I was. A young man, married, father to two girls. I thought I was going to serve God full time. I thought I was a leader, a visionary, a rescuer, a saver of souls, gregarious, charismatic, able to cope in any situation, emotional, sensitive, empathic, sympathetic, caring. I was the one who was ok, better than ok. I was better than most if not everyone else. I had the answers, I knew the way, and that was part of my attraction - why people were drawn to me. I believed it myself.

Then things started to go wrong. I didn't get into church leadership despite trying everything I could to get there. That took me to my early thirties, and the set back was massive. It knocked me for six. I didn't understand it at all, and the conclusion I came to was that I must have got it badly wrong and that I was supposed to be a successful businessman. So off I went. I knackered myself in the process, and forgot that being married and a father was more important. I forgot my wife of my youth. I forgot my two beautiful girls. I worked long grueling hours, home after they had gone to bed. v ag jagjagjasljg asg/ .

Now here I am. I've done it. I've set up a business and now have a management team in place. Sure there's still plenty of risk, we could lose it all, but it's there. I did it.

But at what cost? To me? To my wife? To my girls?

Incalculable. And even as I sit here, I'm aware of the cost. Like a mist seeping up from the ground, cloaking everything as far as the eye can see. Not knowing the boundary thereof. What cost?

And why? Because I was living someone else's dream. Living as I thought I ought to, rather than because of who I was.

My wife and I took our 15 year old daughter into town tonight to buy some clothes. As I was stood there in places like H&M, Topshop, Topman etc. I was aware of how many groups of girls were shopping together (remember we were shopping for girl's clothes). I asked my daughter whether boys shopped together too? "Yeah, of course, just not as often as girls".

I never went shopping with friends for clothes. Never ever. In fact I had no male friends who could go shopping with me until I went to university - and then we had no money anyway. So although I'd stopped going shopping with my mum from around 12/13 (I'm guessing) whenever I did go I only had her advice and guidance in my mind. I didn't have mates, and I certainly couldn't step outside the boundaries of what my mum would have allowed. But that's not the point, the point is I never went shopping with mates. In fact, from 12-18 I never really had any mates bar my best mate who died at 22. The problem was he lived an hour away (we went to a grammar school, I was furthest south you could be, he furthest north). I went to his house for sleepovers, and he mine - but this was maybe from the second year at high school, and lasted till my fourth year. Thereafter I moved..

So really, for most of the week bar Sunday mornings when he started to come to church I had no mates. Matey mates. I fancied a girl at church, but they were all girls at church. No blokes. No mates. I was on my own.

So I had no mates from 2-8, and then again from 12-18 bar a good friend who lived too far away to be a day by day mate. That's not good.

And so, back to the question. Who am I? If I'm not a church leader or a successful business man, if I am not defined by what I do, but rather by who I am - then who am I? And as I look for the answer, it's as if I'm staring into a black hole, a void. I have not the faintest idea.

When my wife is crying - what do I do for the best? If she asks me what I want to do today - what is the right answer? If I want to spend some money on myself - how can I do it? How can I justify it? Guilt comes riding over the hills at full gallop ready to thrust it's blade into my guts.

A]DFKJ ASFJ SDFA FJASFJASF JASF JASG ASG HSDKFG HASLG HASG ASLG H

Sigh. I feel emotional. I want to cry and sob and blub. Yet I find it so hard. I want to cry at the injustice of it. The pain of it. The emotional wreck I am. The fact that I can't empathise with my wife when she most wants me to, can't give to her emotionally. Why not? Because I don't know there is such a thing. I wasn't given emotionally to - had to take on things by myself, and fail. I couldn't make friends, I was the outcast, jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj ###

I so wanted to make friends. All my adult life I've desired to make friends. I chose friends at university and told them I wanted to be real friends. I invested in those relationships, spent time with, talked with, prayed with, laughed with. Bollocks. Not that I didn't, I did, but bollocks because I had to work so damn hard at it. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Why?

Why? Why why why - it wasn't my fault. I did nothing wrong. My bloody parents, and their overwhelming control blanket, domination city. I had no choice. Coulnd't face the real world. They didn't have real mates, and it turns out neither did I. I did with my mate from school - but as I say he was distant. And I did when I first came back to england - for four years which were wonderful. We did everything together. Absolutely everything. But I pulled back from him at about 12 as he was getting into girls, and that was his sole topic of conversation. When I used to talk about the girl at church who I fancied, he would ask me how big were her tits? Had I felt them? Was I going to feel her fanny? When was I? It was his sole topic of conversation. And after one night where he (with me there) managed to fumble a girls breasts and I got a subsequent invite to a party and heard she fancie me I decided to bail out.

gj kkkkghhhhhhhhhhhh

Frustration. Anger. Pain. Grief. Involuntary. Ever present. Hurting. Why. Why me? What did I do wrong? I tried so hard. I didn't do anything wrong. Why me? Why did you pick on me so? Why did you spoil my life? ?Why did you close my options down? Why didn't you teach me to make friends? why didn't you support me emotionally? Why weren't you there for me? On my side? Why weren't you on my side? Why were you against me, like everyone else was? Why didn't you love me? Why didn't you support me? Why didn't you want to see me, hear me, listen to me, comfort me, take care of me, stop the bullies, help me make friends? Why was it so difficult? Why was I so alone? It needn't have been so. You could have changed all that for me. You could have sorted it out. You could have helped me, fixed it, cared for me. You could have made such a difference to my life. But you didn't. You held back, stopped, withheld. And I couldn't do it without you, no matter how hard I tried. You were my parents. You were supposed to be looking after me. Instead we looked after dad.

Dad was more important. His anger. His pain. His needs. That came first way above anything we needed. We had to protect dad. We had to pretend all was well. We had to pretend to ourselves that dad did not have problems. Did not get angry. Could not relate normally. Mum went into this pretense world - presumably because she thought that was the only way to cope.

We were all subservient to dad. His needs. His pain. His anger. His emotional cracked up being.

And poor me. Poor poor poor poor little me. I was lost. I got lost. I wasn't there. I wasn't allowed to have needs. I wasn't allowed to be upset, be angry, be emotional, have my own needs. I wasn't allowed full stop. Dad was all consuming, I was nothing. I was there for dad. Didn't I realise how much he'd sacrificed to have me, because he didn't want children because he knew from his own upbringing and anger that he's struggle. So instead of being open and honest about that they and we had to pretend it was about dad.

Dad fucking dad. dfhddjk And me? There I was in my cot - crying. Shut him up please. I can imagine it. Oh he would have been proud and frightened. But when I got in his way, when I had needs which didn't coincide with his needs - it was me or him. And he won. How do I know? Because by the age of four I had no friends. I was afraid of going to school and made no friends. I couldn't cope with going to school but had to go anyway, without being able to talk, share, be upset, cry, show that I needed my mum and my dad to love me, care for me, take me, hold me close, affirm me, love me.

Pffff. Sigh. So - who am I? I haven't the faintest clue.