Last week I was watching this fun series, Masaba Masaba. Apart from being a superb tale about a single parent and a biracial love child, it had a lot of unique concepts. In situations of fear and stress as well as achievements, there is often a small girl with the protagonist, which is her inner child. It was a beautiful way to show her vulnerability and childhood trauma. I could relate to the concept, in fact, a lot of people with an abnormal or painful childhood must have related to it. Especially children who were abandoned by a parent or both parents.
Such children actually never grow up, yet on the contrary, become extremely mature before their age. As a result, there is always this child who is searching for someone in every person. And an adult who doesn’t want anyone and pushes away every person. So there are two different people in the same body and mind. Sometimes the adult consoles and pampers the child. Sometimes the child acts stronger and encourages the adult. As the adult has lost all hope after failing and being disappointed repeatedly.
Abandonment does something terrible inside your mind. An abandoned child is always looking for parenteral support, love, care, adoration, attention, and time. All that they did not receive from their parents. So they often don’t understand their own expectations from their partners, friends, and close ones. In their own twisted realities, they are searching for something that would equate to that loss.
The child in a dysfunctional family is silently screaming for help. Searching for arms that will hug and cuddle them. Searching for the chest they can lean their head on. Searching for someone who will feel happy to meet them, be with them. Someone who will not leave them to get lost in a crowd full of evil and selfish people. In this process, two extreme things happen.
They build an iron shield
As parents were never there to help, a person becomes hyper-independent because they know there's nobody coming to help. They do everything for themselves and become capable of taking care of each thing in their lives. They gain maturity before time, they become risky and courageous. In the fear that they've already lost a lot of things, they don't want to lose out on more things. At one point, they also become impulsive in a good way. Where they just think that life is slipping from their hands. They have waited too long for people to care for them, love them, to be there for them. Now they cannot afford to wait anymore. They have to live this life, otherwise, it'll be too late.
They feel deserted and trapped inside the shield
The other thing is, that they become too needy, too fearful of loneliness. They're afraid to piss off anybody for the fear that people will leave them and they will be lonelier than ever. So, they constantly fall into the trap of people pleasing. Especially pleasing their abusers. Their lives are full of pain and constant hurt. To run away from this pain, they find different ways to make their lives exciting.
In these extremely contradictory personal journeys, they gain varied experiences. They start enjoying their life more than anybody, they know. More than their friends who have so-called good families and loving people around them. They do things that other people around them dream of doing. And they realize that no matter where they go or what they do they are still lonely.
In an endeavor to move forward in life, they become quite wealthy. Financially, mentally, and especially emotionally rich but they still find themselves begging. And the worst part is they find themselves begging from beggars who have absolutely nothing to give them. These beggars shamelessly keep asking for pennies from your bowl to feed their egos. This is so humiliating!
You realize that you still have so much inside you and you are more blessed than you know! Talent, creativity, power, courage, intelligence, high emotional quotient, empathy, and understanding of life. And you are still begging from beggars, who have nothing of what you have. These beggars are manipulative enough to keep you in a loop by saying “come tomorrow, I’ll give you something, I want to be there for you”. And you return from their door every day disappointed. That humiliation needs to seep in…
But it doesn’t seep inside in one go, just like a nail needs to be hammered several times to finally anchor it in the wall. Maybe we need to get humiliated several times and finally, at one point just like the nail, humiliation stops seeping in. There is no room and you realize that there is no need for any more hammering. You’re good, you don't need to beg anyone, you don't need to wait for anyone, you don't need, what you think you need.
More than being afraid of loneliness, we are afraid of never being able to find anyone. We are afraid to keep that search going on. The search for better people coming into our lives. Rather than stooping down to begging perpetually, embracing the fear of that search is better. The search is difficult to keep on but is bearable than the humiliation people constantly make you endure. Both pills are hard to swallow and several times, we chose humiliation. For once let’s choose to believe in that search.
So yeah, I'm here waiting like the Nandi and keeping the search on…!
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