A Story Of Trauma Passed Down - Love In All The Wrong Places

I lost my virginity at 13 years old on a leather couch in my friend's basement. It was the middle of the week, after school, in grade 8, I just casually had sex with a fellow classmate. I can clearly remember why I did it and it wasn't raging hormones, I actually didn't really want to have sex at all ( I was not raped, I consented) but rather to feel closeness. I wanted to feel like I was special and like I was important, you know, all eyes on me kind of thing. I thought If I gave something as special away as my virginity, then I would be seen as special in someone else's eyes. Then I may really matter to someone else.

This goes deeper than just having the sex talk with your kids, although that's important too. If someone had told me about hormones, which I knew NOTHING about, I would have had a better understanding of what was happening and I quite possibly could have been better equipped to say "no" knowing that the guy just wanted to have sex, he wasn't actually into me specifically.

If you have trouble talking to your kids about sex, periods, hormones, etc, TOO BAD. Truly, I mean no disrespect, but your mild discomfort is worth saving your child from making a decision they are not yet ready to make. Kids should not be making adult choices period, and the more involved you are, open you are, and honest, the more they trust you, come to you, and will respect and listen to you. I grew up with so much SHAME around sex and periods, because again, if you read my previous blog post, my grandmother and my mother also did. The trauma blueprint was passed down for me to use, which was filled with shame, avoidance, secrecy and lies.

Filling The Void

So really, the reason I lost my virginity at 13 was not JUST because no one had the sex talk with me, it goes so much deeper than that. It was because I wasn't feeling emotionally valued or seen and my default setting was 'avoid abandonment at all costs'. So I would say and do anything to avoid someone leaving me. I would give up my morals and values, cross boundaries and do things completely out of my true character and nature to please others so they wouldn't leave me. Absent father, inconsistent mother, emotionally unavailable grandmother, hardly ever saw my grandfather...I needed so much more than I got and it was nobody's fault. Everyone was simply working their own trauma blueprint, with all the holes and cracks and sharp edges. I was simply molding and adjusting myself to my environment and working out ways to survive within the lack.

I'm not a parent, so I never thought I would be fit to ever give a parent advice, like who the fuck am I? I don't know what it's like to be a mother...No, I don't. But I fucking know what it's like to be the child. The child who had lack, the child who was emotionally stunted, the child who witnessed violence, the child who went through abandonment, pain, hot and cold love, shame, fear, guilt, addiction, abuse...So please hear me, if you're a parent reading this, I share so I can help. Period.

Hot And Cold Love

Im sure you have heard it before of course, because it's so important; to be consistent with your kids. Consistent in their routine of eating, play time, homework, showering, sleeping, etc. Yes all so very important. But the MOST important thing to be consistent with is your love and how you show that love to your child.

I grew up with hot and cold love. One day, I would be showered with love and affection. It was like I was the whole world to my grandmother and I felt like we had a real bond, we were really connected and I felt SAFE. Then the next day it was like I was a nuisance, a pain, or sometimes I would sense that she was mad at me and I would desperately try to figure out what I had done to upset her. I always thought everything was my fault, that I did something wrong, if things were not running smoothly, even at a very young age. Because I didn't have a strong constant driving the ship, I assumed we were all a team of equals, instead of having a clear hierarchy. I didn't consistently feel safe so I started to think I had more responsibility than I actually did. I had to provide MYSELF with the safety I was lacking from the parental hierarchy.

I can remember one particular time when I was around 6 years old. My grandparents had a fight and in the middle of the night ( or so it felt at that age), my grandmother wanted to leave and wanted me to go with her. But I didn't want to go with her, I wanted to stay with my grandfather, stay in my house, in my bed, at home where I felt safe. Needless to say I didn't go anywhere and while my grandmother DID leave, she came back shortly thereafter.

Now, parents fight, and sometimes the kids see that. It sucks, but it DOES happen. This wasn't the problem though. I could FEEL my grandmother's coldness towards me for not going with her, like she was emotionally punishing me for defying her, for not taking her side, for not being there for HER. Again, revealing her trauma blueprint of abandonment and needing love and value, she perceived my wanting to stay home as a betrayal to her. And I know this because this was the rest of my life with her into my adult years. It is extremely damaging to do this to a child and it made me believe that this was what love looked like. Hot and cold, all about loyalty, and if you fought with a person, well, life was fucking over.

So you can only imagine my relationships going forward. Already forming my own trauma blueprint with a foundation of abandonment from my absent parents, now I see that defying someone means you do not love them, and above ALL, loyalty was MOST important regardless of your own feelings. My feelings were secondary to the feelings of others in a relationship and this was exactly how I showed up to to others later in life. I would constantly search for the opposite sex to save me, to be loyal to me, and I to them. I would go out with guys I knew deep down were NOT good for me, but would meet my need of value, loyalty, and attention. But my deep fear of abandonment would NEVER let me get close enough to really connect, or when I did, I would sabotage the relationship so they would have to leave me, verifying my story that I was unworthy of love and everyone eventually abandons me.

Shattered Yet Whole

My messaging was SO fucked up, I just kept going where I could fill my lack, where I could have my needs met, like an addict, just getting my fix for love in all the wrong places. But it was never really love, it was just voids being filled and needs being met. All because trauma was passed down. All because no one knew how to break the cycle, or maybe that there even WAS a cycle. We're all so fearful of rejection, judgement and of being left alone. I know this like the back of my hand, it IS me. See, I kept trying to walk around like I FIXED myself, when in fact, I see now that not everything is fixable. We can HEAL it, but like a dish once shattered, glued back together it is never like the original piece. It is whole, but different. It shows cracks and some shapes are weird, it's not like it once was and it never will be.

More over I see how our trauma blueprints make us unique, and that it's not eliminating pain altogether, no, that's impossible. Rather it's identifying the pain, exposing it, and utilizing it for growth and change. We all have that power within us, to use our pain for wisdom and purpose. It's when we avoid our pain that we begin to bleed on others, repeating the cycles over and over.

I didn't want to truly acknowledge my cracks, in fear that I would never heal them, but I see so clearly now, THIS is the healing. Exposing all the truth, in its ugliness, bringing it to the surface and laying it out brings about healing. No one wants to talk about the hard stuff, about the ugly stuff. but THAT deepest ugly inside you is the source of your greatest power. Shame serves no one and furthermore it is most damaging. Shame says 'I am bad' when you are in fact NOT bad.

I let so many hands touch me in the name of what I thought was love, which was in fact, need. What I thought was connection was really attachment, trauma bonds, and desperation to FEEL something. I did so many things that could cause me great shame if i let it, but I am CHOOSING to let it empower me instead. I am choosing to share myself and my story in hopes that my pain i was once endured can now have purpose.

I am still scared, I am still shaky, mouth dry, afraid of judgment, of persecution, of rejection. Maybe I always will be. But one thing I know now at least is that I will no longer make my life decisions through the eyes of the abandoned child. She is there, with me, like a passenger, or a shadow, she is there. I can feel her presence and I sense she may always walk with me. But she doesn't run the show anymore. I don't let her make the decisions for me, and I will push through, with courage each and every day, with every finger that touches this keyboard, with every word forming on this page, I will keep going. Or else what was all that pain for?

Amanda xo