Here’s your weekly Therapy Thursday breakdown.

One of the biggest breakthroughs came, as is often the case, near the end of the session. It was the first time I had really put the case against my childhood all together in a single package, and it went something like this :

I spent my childhood ashamed of my existence without knowing why. The reason was that I was unplanned and my parents, and to a lesser extent my siblings, never forgave me for that. That’s why I learned to be invisible. To pretend I didn’t exist. I knew deep down that drawing any attention to my existence would end badly for me. It would make people angry and get me in trouble. So I certainly wasn’t allowed to have needs, let alone call attention to the fact that they were not being met, and as for getting anything that I wanted (outside of birthdays and Xmas) merely asking would have brought down the wrath of our lack of God upon my head.

So it’s no wonder I have such massive self worth issues despite all my gifts.

My parents hated my existence before I was even born.

I guess I should be glad that, despite her atheism, my mother does not believe in abortion, or I would have been flushed down Doctor Morganthaler’s drain.

Now I am not saying my family treated me like dirt. After all, dirt gets attention. I am saying they treated me as though I was less than dirt.

They treated me, in short, like I did not exist. And I played along.

Kids always play the role you write for them, even when they don’t know why. All they know is what makes people mad and what makes them happy.

And that becomes their world.

I can’t say it made my parents happy when I pretended not to exist. To be happy about it would have required acknowledging my existence and that would have defeated the entire purpose of punishing me for existing.

Like it was my idea to be born.

We also discussed my feeling that I have been stuck in a very long freeze response for all of my adult life. How, like I have said, the freeze response says “only in remaining unnoticed can you be safe!”.

Like I am being hunted by a saber toothed tiger.

Doc Costin correctly pointed out that the tiger in question was really my parents and their disapproval of my being alive and therefore their problem.

And yeah. The greatest fear in all children is abandonment, and I grew up feeling like if I pissed off my parents and/or siblings bad enough, they would get so fed up with me that they would leave me. Abandon me. Throw me to the wolves.

Not a realistic possibility, but you don’t know that as a kid.

Even before I went to school for the first time, I knew that I could only be safe if I stayed quiet and still and did nothing to attract attention to myself.

Exactly as if I was being hunted by a predator.

Turns out the bullies had nothing to do with it. My parents were the tiger all along.

More after the break.

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The tragedy of my childhood, latest edition

So there it all is, laid out as compactly and neatly as I currently can make it.

I think that, until now and until today, I was subconsciously blaming the bulk of my problems on the bullying I suffered in elementary school.

That way I could avoid facing the real problem, which is how I was treated even before elementary school, while distracting myself with relatively less important traumas.

But this, as far as I can tell, is the real deal. Well, that and being raped when I was 4.

Can’t forget about that. Though not for lack of trying.

But today we are talking about the chilly reception I got upon being born.

i can see now how nervous and scared I was when I was with the family back then. Cheerful too, in a brittle way, because it goes Fight, Flight, Freeze… and Fawn.

And that’s the real deep down dirty business of my soul : my trying to placate everyone and make them like me.

. This is when the sabertooth tiger finds your hiding spot and you respond by saying, “Here, kitty kitty. Nice kitty. Good kitty. ”

Clearly I learned this lesson well. I tried to be the nicest, easiest to get along with, funniest, cutest little disposable doormat you’ve ever begrudgingly barely tolerated.

And it really hurts to realize that. I have invested a fair bit of self worth in what a sweet and lovely guy I am, justifiably, and to realize that it all started from a desperate and ultimately doomed attempt to make my family love me cuts me to the quick.

I’ll get over it, I think. It’s a harsh blow but not a fatal one. However I got there, I am a genuinely nice, sweet, caring person, with a lot of love to give.

Plus, ya know, a fabulous treasure trove of talent and intellect. I don’t generally think of that as an interpersonal asset – if anything, the opposite – but I am told that there are people besides me who find that kind of thing attractive.

I guess I could live with being loved for my big, hard, throbbing brain. Just as long as I get the cuddles n’ loving I need.

Once more I imagine myself in a relationship with someone I essentially think of as a pet due to the huge difference in intellectual capacity.

I mean, what the hell. If they’re cute and they make me happy, I maybe could live with them not being the wittiest of conversationalists.

And I suppose there are worse models for a relationship. If I am happy because he makes me feel warm and loved and he’s happy because I make him feel safe and “owned”, I guess there’s nothing wrong with that.

But could I respect him? There is no love without respect.

Anyhow, what the hell was talking about?

Um… me good. Childhood bad. Need love.

The rest can come later.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.