Behavioral Improv’s

A couple years ago when my youngest brother was like 3 or 4, i remember watching him searching for this outfit and not giving up till he found it, when he found it there was serious focus in putting it on and once he put on his black spider man mask to complete the outfit, he went right into character without even trying.. I let my mind drift back to his age and the moments when i could convince myself i could be anyone i wanted….

my first time watching “Harriet the spy” i completely thought i was a little spy myself and once i had all those things that i believed to make me a spy, i was completely convinced, i even took notes from blues clues to become a better spy.. Being raised by women i was completely mesmerized by Their long dark hair and all the colored heels they wore, the different colored strings, the bra’s, the purses, nylons, jewelry, tight spandex, glitter and all the layers of make up they spent so much time putting on, as a little boy that was another character i convinced myself i could be and having a little sister who liked to play dress up was perfect, between the barbie dolls and the women in our lives it inspired the make up we wore down to the heels we picked out… i could go right from that into a full blown construction worker… maybe being a gemini made it even more so easier…

I realize that i didn’t lose that side to me right away and it would serve me as long as i needed it… when i was older and certain things took place i felt i needed to “pretend” like everything was all right around everyone… what took place when no one was around and behind closed doors that left me feeling broken and altered but as soon as i got in front of someone or walked back through that door i went right back into “pretending” like i was happy and fine.. I could fool most, but i realized it only added to the fact that i remained lost and untrue to myself. The things i pretended i had found comfort in…  i started thinking about the fact that as children we can go into being someone else and pretending certain things to be true even though they’re not…

I am sure everyone has there reason for pretending to be okay or alright, i remember when i was younger seeing my mother cry and when i asked her if she was alright she would say “everything was fine” as she wiped her eyes, her pretending to be okay so i wouldn’t worry… some people can pretend so well no one would ever guess there is something wrong, i noticed though there are people who can see right through the fact your pretending… but how long could you really pretend for, at some point even an actor gets burnt out… i became exhausted and tired in pretending certain things, i found myself looking back on my life and the process of becoming true to who i was began to take place..

Coming to terms with my past i didn’t find it necessary to continue pretending with certain things, and i found this Real me character far more fascinating than anything i pretended to be…

Dynamic Walls

In understanding myself i went back as early as my mind would allow me, to my first taste of what it felt like to be hurt…

my inner child started piecing together this place that would provide a sense of security and keep everyone out, i could see it as a whole, and i could see it in it’s earliest stages of taking it’s form… i could see his confidence in the fact he knew what he was building and the purpose it would serve me, life didn’t seem to stop handing him bricks, which worked for him because he wanted it multiple bricks thick and high enough to reach the heavens, something so you couldn’t tell what was going on and no one could breakdown… This child stood back and excitedly acknowledged this wall he built… he realized that while it is invisible to the eye, it would be felt and serve a purpose only to be recognized and understood later on in life.. knowing he had shut everyone out he created worlds all his own, in his own way so he wouldn’t feel alone.. he included and excluded anything and everything he wanted…

Recently i started acknowledging these walls i built… i saw the magnitude of it, i saw how teddy protected himself from the things that happened and all the future things that would take place… he couldn’t do it psychically but he could emotionally… i see that when things take place as a child the walls go under immediate construction to provide some kind of shelter or safe place within… the walls had kept everyone out for so long that no one knew me, knew how i felt or knew what was going.. the walls seemed to intensify under certain situations i feel like they took on a life of their own or perhaps that’s how i designed them…

when i was a little older the youngest of my uncles gave me “The wall” by pink Floyd and i was completely fascinated by the movie and the album… Sometimes things are handed to you in life to help you make sense of certain things if not now then later on in life…

as I began to understand myself i saw and understood these these walls more clearly, i saw how my life revolved around building these walls and instead of tearing it apart i would leave it up but i created a door into it and instead of keeping everyone out, i let certain people in….

there’s something powerful about your walls, although you can build it willingly, life will put them up for you automatically…

Distorting Memories

I am all for disciplining children and teaching them right from wrong so that there’s a certain level of respect but not to the point were the child fears you…

at least for the men i knew growing up i think it went beyond them wanting to correct their child’s behavior, i feel like there are those who enjoy seeing children in fear.. there where talks from both these men how they were “bad asses” and nobody fucked with them when they were younger, how one of them ran his own cell block (in prison) and how they other had a biker gang who wanted him to join because of how bad he was , both of them having similar stories of being “bad ass”… yet both of them seem to get off on having children fearing them…

 

i wonder if he thought he was a “bad ass” spanking a child till his hand was stinging and his shoulder was sore.. i wonder if the other one thought he was “bad ass” in smashing a kid’s cell phone and then turn around and go after the older one with a flashlight… does it make a man more of a man to throw a kid through the wall, drag them up the stairs by their shirt collar or choking a kid? is that how fathers prove their the man of the house? is it only okay doing that to your own, or if the child isn’t yours does it make it fair game?

i wonder if any of their stories were true, or if they made up the stories and convinced them selves they were and the only way to prove it was making children fear them…

i would have thought how they raised us was learned behavior but later on in life i found out that they were not subjected to abuse in any form and in fact had great childhoods… maybe all of what they did was okay being they were on meth… i feel like those little boys were more of a man then they were and in some distorted way they felt that to be a challenge….

They must have realized that with these once little boys they were a lot older and couldn’t get physical with them anymore, they started to instead of owning or even acknowledging what they did it turned into denial and in fact they managed to make it out to seem as if they were the victims of abuse saying “the children abused, tormented, and made him fear for his life” which is quite a statement coming from the man of the house and we as children managed caused all that abuse and chaos or saying “those kids are fucking liars making all that shit up” and it amazes me how everybody in these peoples life say “they never deserved to be treated like that from those kids, and that they feel so sorry for them for having to put up with that”… to see men go through great lengths to hide all there past is one thing but then to see a “man” turn the whole thing around and make it seem like children abused him and he’s the real survivor of abuse is something that amazes me…. as they go on in life trying their hardest to forget all of what they put the kids through they create these stories to make themselves feel better and they believe that in being older we must have forgot what happened and we have it all backwards….

 

The “Real dad”

my mother asked “did you come to terms with your Dad”….. i paused to think about that question for a minute……..

early on my real grandfather thought that being a young child i was ready to be told that who i thought was my father was not my father at all…  i don’t recall my initial reaction but i can still feel the confusion felt… thinking about it now i don’t know that it ever bothered me, or that younger me was so good at making it seem like i was always okay maybe i’ve tricked myself into thinking that i wasn’t bothered by it…

by nature i was curious about him but being a child it seemed i was to concerned with enjoying some kind of normal childhood but when i got into middle school and things seemed to be at it’s most dysfunctional the random thoughts came up more… middle school, my thrill for fist fights and weed kept my mind occupied from what was going on and from those random thoughts of my “Real Dad”…. even though i had random thoughts of him it didn’t mean that i needed him or wanted him around but i did wonder if he was any different from the man who was raising me.. what could a mother possibly say to comfort a kid who knows his “real dad” wants nothing to do with him as i was constantly reminded growing up, but mom in her own comforting way would tell me that maybe life was protecting me from something worse, which was hard for me to understand being that the environment i was living in was chaotic&dysfunctional .. a phone call or 2 all my life from him which was completely pathetic and when the phone call ended he insisted i say “i love you dad” which was the biggest fucking joke from this man and when i refused to say it he just like all the other men in my life resorted to the cut downs (why grown ass men cut down children is beyond me) the only name i can recall is him calling me a “sissy lala” which i am still confused to what that is and if i should take that as a cut down or not… i gave the phone to my mother, i wasn’t about to tell some “man” who wanted to hear his son who he knew nothing of tell him that he loved him which wasn’t gonna happen… in 17 years i never got anything on my birthday from him which wasn’t a big deal by any means but then on my 18th birthday i got a box in the mail from my real ‘real dad’ and when i opened it up there was 18 gifts , a cheap attempt to make up for all the birthdays he missed… perhaps if i had gotten other birthday gifts or even a note throughout my childhood from him this gift might have mattered.. it might have even meant something if he took the time to get to know me instead of getting me shit i had no interest in.. probably bought me gifts he liked and clearly my step father had a interest in…

years went by and i never heard from him again until i got a facebook friend request with my “real dad” and some kind of a classless attempt at being a father through a social media site. and that was the last of him…

i answered my mothers question .. there wasn’t a lot to come to terms with because i was never pissed off at him… how do i get upset at the fact he wanted he to live and enjoy his life without the responsibilities of having a kid, i look at it like thank you for doing me the favor and staying true to your choices…