Oooo I would love to hear what parts resonated!
I'll try to list them off - there were several things, actually!
- I had a few strange illnesses as a child, although to my knowledge none of them were life-threatening. I did almost die at birth (asphyxiation via umbilical chord).
- I was also cuddly with boys from the get-go, and since most of my friends were boys, we spent a lot of time playing basketball, climbing trees, going swimming, riding bikes, etc. I was very uncomfortable touching or being close to other people,
except for those male friends of mine. Not much has changed on that front.
- I was bullied relentlessly in school, and suffered no end of drama with female friends whom I thought I could trust. My early years were marked by betrayal after betrayal. In order to avoid being picked on about my "boyfriends," I didn't hang out with the guys at school, but I couldn't hang out with the girls, either. They were anything but safe company. Being an only child, I had no problem being alone and simply decided that others couldn't be trusted; I would have to look out for myself.
- Whenever I
did come out of my shell to play with the boys at recess, they'd do pretty much whatever I told them to. (Queen of the Playground Syndrome?) I would put up the chocolate bar I'd earned for good grades as a "trophy" for them to win, whether by having the highest jump off the swings or by sinking the farthest basketball shot, whatever. By the time I'd been given my first camera, the boys loved posing for me. Meanwhile, the girls continued to torture me in every other sphere of my life.
- I had perfect grades in pretty much every area, but I've always been especially good with language. When I was either three or four, my mother tried giving me a lesson on the alphabet and got as far as the letter "F" before I walked away from her and demonstrated that I could read pretty much anything. No period of struggling to sound anything out, no slow and staggered syllables.
- So I skipped preschool and kindergarten, and when I was in first grade, I had advanced reading, spelling, and math courses that were supposed to be tailored to my needs. I finished my homework the second it was handed to me, but I didn't really mind because I loved my free time. My inner world and never-ending fountain of creativity have always been core aspects of my personality, and I was happy to nurture them without homework on my plate.
- This was the weird thing - I took piano lessons and started scribbling sheet music whenever I needed to kill time! I wrote song lyrics, too, and I remember some of them. They were catchy, in an innocent nine-year-old girl sort of way (in other words, nothing I'd write now). When my parents sold the piano, those compositions stopped and my focus shifted to other creative outlets. I wasn't musical prodigy status, though, so it wasn't the end of my world.
- I also looked unhappy in nearly every picture taken of me, maybe up until I was sixteen (I'd smile around friends, but I hated it in pictures). In fact, I was so unpracticed at smiling that I really didn't know how to smile on cue at all, and this is something I've only roughly figured out how to do recently.
- I was a responsible kid when it came to schoolwork and things of that nature, but I had a rebellious, impulsive streak. Another trait that lasted into adulthood.
Some other stuff about my childhood, in general:
- My father was away on business at least half of the time. I've always been on good terms with my dad, even before he got sober. My relationship with my mother was a lot more tense. She was a total
mom; she was very critical, very controlling, but she wanted the best for me. She would cook, clean, do laundry, etc. If I tried to do these chores, I couldn't perform them to her standards, so I just let her do them - I think that's how she expressed her love. There was a lot of pressure to be perfect. If I fell short at whatever I did, I was going to hear about it, but I knew that I'd done something well if I heard no feedback at all. (My dad's a type 5, my mom's a type 2, for what it's worth.)
- When I was very little, my parents wanted to have another kid, and asked me how I felt about a little brother or sister. I found the idea abhorrent, and told them so. I didn't want to share anything; I feared having my resources taken from me so much that I then had nightmares about it, regularly. I was an independent only child, and although my parents tried, I remained that way.
- I've kind of downplayed just how much trouble I had with my classmates when I was a kid. Every day came packaged with a fresh onslaught of emotional distress, and whenever I would go to an adult about my problems, they'd give me the "just ignore it" speech. Maybe that works for some kids, but it didn't for me. It was really heavy, in a way that I can't (or just don't want to) describe here.
- I was mostly unhappy. I'd cry for an hour or two when I was alone in my room at night, then act like absolutely nothing was wrong during the day. Sometimes, I couldn't even pinpoint the source of my sadness, but it was important for some reason that other people not
see my pain, that I try to bury it.
- After my family started taking road trips for reunions, vacations, and the like, I would obsess over faraway locations and draw pictures of what I hoped would happen there. I wanted to be Lara Croft.
- I loved researching random topics that were of particular interest to me. I was especially fascinated by volcanoes, earthquakes, and severe thunderstorms. I would voluntarily soak up as much information as I could about each exciting topic until, by the time we'd reached the subject material in our science books, I already knew more than the elementary school teachers did.
- I was on our modest co-ed basketball team and liked playing with the boys. I thought archery was a lot of fun, too, but I loved broomball (ice hockey in street clothes) more than any other physical school activity.
- At some point, I started winning things. I was already a great student, but my energy converted itself into a pretty big collection of trophies in all spheres: academics, athletics, and art. State competitions, representing the team, winning city-wide art shows. More than anything, I think, I learned what the emotional high felt like, and I started chasing those emotional highs.
- I was twelve when I started to self-mutilate, not knowing that other people did this. (I'm not asking for pity; I've managed to stop.)
- In high school, I somehow found myself back in the middle of a group of girls. Due to my preference for male company, there were a handful of guys that I saw also, and I was attracted to them. I was the first of the girls to become sexually active and I was ostracized from the circle for it. I'm not sure why, as they had plenty of their own crushes. Either way, it reinforced once more the lack of support from my own gender, and pushed me further into the addicting arms of men. (Not even remotely in a codependent way - it just felt good, that's all.)
Whew, I think that's enough for now. Of course, there's more, but this is already getting very long. I'm not even sure what it might say about the state of my inner child; it feels a little scattered.