What the fuck have we done! I’m sorry to say but I often regret having kids.
We’re visiting family in Austria on our way to Italy where we probably will be spending two weeks on the beach with our camper van. But the camper regularly brings us to the limit. The space is confined and the weather is as hot as the emotions.
I totally get why my kids drive me crazy. I have issues. My childhood was not that great. I actually can’t remember most of it. That’s probably not good. You know what they say: we have nothing to complain about. We have everything we need. A roof, food, safety. What more is there to want for?
Well, maybe someone who cares for my emotional needs. Someone who is not overwhelmed by my emotions like I am. Someone who is mature enough to be there for me even when the shit hits the fan. My mother was and still is emotionally unavailable. This is actually hard for me to put in writing. It was hard for me to realize. That I was the one taking care of her. Sure, she took care of my body. She had a pill for every possible ailment. But when it came to emotions, I was on my own. Starting day one. You know, I even once told her a few years ago that I could use a mother by now. She just responded that she does not know how that works.
Well, no, she does not. And it’s probably not even her fault. It’s a failure through all the generations before her. But well, I don’t feel like this should be my problem.
As I’ve learned since transitioning ten years ago, I’m a lot. Sometimes I’m even too much for myself to handle. I’ve got emotions. And a lot of them. Probably more than most people. I don’t know about you, I only know how it is inside me. And at first I even had to learn what to do with emotions. I was thirty at that point. I didn’t know what to do with anger but to swallow it. I didn’t know what to do with frustration but to swallow it. I didn’t know what to do with disappointment but to swallow it. I didn’t even know what to do with joy but to put it in a very, very, deep hole. I was so far away from my emotions that I didn’t even realize I was trans until I was around 28 years old.
Around that time I moved in with my partner and this was the first time in my life that I had a lot of time for myself. No one else but me was in the house. She was away for work several days a week and I was by myself. This was when my shit hit the fan.
Today I say I was burnt out. Burnt out of keeping my emotions locked up in that deep, dark, hole of mine. Burnt out of not being who I am. I was never someone else. I couldn’t betray me that much. But I was not myself either. I was no one.
And I was working on it. I thought. Then my kids turned two and things went south. Kids (at least mine) somehow have the ability to find all my weak spots. They triggered me regularly which at first I only knew one response to: yell at them. This is how things are done with kids. They do something that triggers me and I’m overwhelmed by my unconscious reaction to it. Which results in me yelling at them for no apparent reason. At least, at first. Until I noticed whats happening.
I usually do not get a clear memory, but somehow history repeats itself. It’s like I’m my parents (which I probably triggered very often) and I repeat their response to me. It took me a while to get control but then I just sat there and cried for a while instead of repeating the reaction. By now it is a lot better. But it still happens that they trigger me. I hate it and at the same time I am grateful. They drive me crazy and at the same time they help me each time to heal the wounds of my family a little bit more. It’s hard though. And boy do I have a lot to heal…
Love, Julia