A reflection on a lifetime of being “different”

Introduction

The world is not particularly kind to those born different. In obvious situations where the difference is visibly apparent, like physical or mental disability or deformity, the attitude varies from pity to abhorrence, seldom acceptance. Sometimes the difference is malevolent, like in the case of violent criminals, bullies and dictators. Society has clear rules and guidelines for most of those, yet they persist. I understand the human need to “belong” but all too often that means excluding all those who don’t fit the prescribed mold, even if the perceived difference represents no threat and may even be beneficial if understood and valued. Instead, we fear, ridicule, torment and exclude those who don’t easily fit in.

I was one of those that was born different and never found a way to fit in beyond making myself useful. (After a lifetime of having to hide most of my “too strong” emotions, I am now emotionally numb and can usually only feel sadness and anger.) The criticism, even within my own family, was constant. The only relief, the only unconditional love and acceptance to which every child is entitled, was the eventual support of my Mother, a brilliant but often highly judgemental woman whose life had been torn apart by polio in 1953. In spite of paraplegia and an often-absent husband, she managed to raise four children almost single handed. My siblings were quietly cruel. Not obviously, not physically. Emotionally. I was told, over and over again, that I had a bad temper and needed to control it. I was too intense, too this too that. My very popular sisters, in particular, liked to remind me that I was “Dumb, Stupid and Ugly and would never have any friends”. I admired my older sister and was inclined to believe her. My little brother tended to side with our sisters. They were socially successful, I was not. He opted to back what he saw as the winners in our family dynamic. In my late teens, while at art college, depression had begun to corrode my emotional health, so I sought psychiatric help. When I told my Father he shook his head and said “I don’t know what’s wrong with you. Mental illness doesn’t run in either side of the family.” This from a man who was often away and once told my Mother “You make me impotent, but that’s ok. I have lots of lovers.”

Later in life I learned that I was indeed different, but in a way that the psychologist saw as a positive. I was told I was extremely gifted both in terms of an intellectual and an emotional IQ. Creative, analytic, constantly assessing the world and the people around me in both a micro and a macro context. I was devastated. It was confirmation that I would never, ever belong, never be accepted. I would always be on the outside looking in. So how do I shift my focus? How do I stop caring about being unwanted? How do I walk away from the window on a world that may sometimes need me but otherwise doesn’t want me?

The hardest part of trying to walk away is my children. I was married to a man who was bright and capable but very broken emotionally. Something I didn’t realize till we started having kids. I had determined that I needed to leave him when we had only two sons. He had difficulty interacting with the boys. Then tragedy struck. Out youngest was killed while in the care of a sitter. You don’t abandon someone in the midst of that level of tragedy. You stay and try to hold your family together. My eldest was only three at the time and began to express ideas of the whole family trying to get broken so we could rejoin his little brother. Suicidal ideation in a toddler. I sought to get pregnant again to give our family a reason to move forward from unbelievable grief. I was successful. My daughter was born and pretty much saved her big brothers life, saved our family. Another son was unexpectedly conceived and born two years later. I stayed hoping to heal our family. I told my minister when in the hospital for a hysterectomy, that I was content to live a gray existence if my children were happy. But they were not. At one point my eldest came to me and said “Mom, I love my Dad and don’t want to hurt him, but if you don’t leave, I’ll have to run away.” We left.

In the years since life has had far too many challenges, but through it all the kids and I shared many positive adventures. Their Father paid child support of $400 a month for three kids (early 90’s) and then nothing. I signed him up with Family Maintenance Enforcement and received an envelope with six cheques for six months. He called and told me there was no point in trying to cash them as they would all bounce. I was on my own with three children and no means of support in a job market that would not pay well enough to afford child care. The kids Father had taken up with a new partner who had three daughters. They became his financial and emotional focus. He was not very interested in seeing his own kids very often. I tried to create an income through my writing so we could stay in the same community. Wrote a sewing best seller. The publisher did well. Book sales did not, however, generate enough income for our survival.

Since then, over the years, I’ve managed to maintain a decent roof over our heads and a reasonable quality of life for the kids. We only had one really rough Christmas. They’re all adults now, with kids of their own. I love them all dearly and adore my grandkids. My kids, however, have rewritten family history to portray me as an abusive Mother who raised them in poverty and tried to keep them from their Father. According to their telling I was not the primary caregiver, their Father was. Ironic, when I think back to having to offset their anger towards him and encourage a relationship. Now my relationship with my adult children is based almost exclusively on my utility. I am usually excluded from Christmas, Thanksgiving and Mothers Day. For my birthday I’m lucky to get a phone call from each of them. I even had to face my battle with breast cancer alone. Yet still I answer the call when they ask for my help. I’m still their Mother and will always love and support them and their children, to the best of my ability, without condition. But oh how it hurts.

In my struggle to find a way to set the family history straight I first thought that I would write them a long letter. Sadly, they would probably not read it or deny it and judge me even more harshly. So instead, I will write the story, my story, of being different. I will create a character that captures my essence and tells the true family history, my childhood story as well as the history of my parenting life, as this characters story.