Failed To Thrive

    Let me be clear right from the beginning. I am broken. As a child I had no one tell me that they loved me ever. I was not held, ever. My psychiatrist tells me that the only reason my emo self didn't fade away from Failed To Thrive syndrome might be that my big brother Michael was across the room wishing that he might pick me up when I lay in the crib offending the world by crying.
    As I grew, long before I could speak I suffered abuse, spanked and shaken for dirtying my diapers or for daring to cry in despair and need.
    I was an emo kid with terrible attention deficit issues, yet I never showed that because I expected to die. I believed that I had no right to impose on anyone my needs, my expectations, my beliefs. I knew I did not get to have any of those. I didn't even dare to have any of those. I didn't believe I deserved to. I expected that any sign that I was less than a silent perfect boy would be met with a whipping with a leather strap (a belt) until I didn't know if I would survive. Usually, it would just go to welts all over my bare bottom and my back and my legs. Sometimes, though, I would bleed. To this day, the sound of a belt coming out of belt loops destroys me. I can't in any way support my belief in my right to exist if I hear that sound or see the belt being pulled. Part of the damage came from the abuse, but more came from the training to submit. I was taught that a good boy would take his punishment without crying, without putting his hands back to block the belt, without believing that he had any right to exist in a world without abuse. I was taught that it was me -- my fault -- my shame. I was taught a learned helplessness. I was taught to be victim and that it was never ok for me to have any opinion or control or existence in my own life.
    I would be frozen, for example in church, with my hands perfectly folded as the nuns taught us and in such ADHD torment that every moment was terror, yet I did not show it. I was beat into submission. I was, (and am), frozen into a cringe, and I knew better than to ever show that I was less than the quiet perfect submissive child. I never believed in any of that perfection though. I believed myself horrible and deserving of torture. I believed that my job in the family was to hide the shame of the truth of my existence so that my family would not be shamed. I carried the shame for the family, and I always knew that the shame was mine.
    Needless to say, I never bonded with my parents. Even with siblings, it is hard to bond when you are just trying to survive and when expressing concern for the abuse of a sibling might threaten your life. I do not know how my brother did it. I will not speak about his concerns and his damage, but you can see it to this day. If there was any saving grace it was that for us, there was something, some care, some desire for the abuse to not happen. Thank you Michael. I hope that if I were the older my care would have been some shelter for you.
    So that brings me to today. In spite of 45 years of mindfulness practice, (since I was 15), in spite of metta, in spite of my finally found ability to feel a deep compassion for myself, I have never shaken that foundational view that I am bad -- flawed -- horrible -- disgusting. I hate myself for being so horrible that my father had to suffer by beating me. I don't say that that makes sense, I say that all of my understanding of the universe, all of my language was built above that truth. It is what I am. I never expect anyone to tolerate me. I never expect anyone to tolerate my presence. I don't mean that this is what I think. I mean that I knew this as a foundational part of my world-view before I could think. My psychiatrist does not believe that self hatred will ever leave me because before I was able to even speak, I was taught that it was harder for my father to suffer through beating me that it was for me to be beat. I was taught that I was so horrible that my father must suffer in a futile attempt to try to rein me in. She tells me that I will never be the person that was not abused. I can ameliorate but not cure. Sigh.
    You may be one of those people that sees broken people doing broken things and thinking, why don't they just stop doing the broken things, and start doing the healthy thing.  That shows a basic misunderstanding of abuse. We have been taught that nothing we want or believe matters. Any attempt to assert that they do would have been met with excessive punishment. We learn early that we do not control anything, that we are not in charge, and any attempt, however minuscule to assert this will be met with violence. We learn that we have no power even over our own beliefs and actions. We have a learned sense of helplessness. Believe me, that lesson sticks. So fast forward to supposed adulthood and we decide not to do things and find our selves doing them and we do not know why because we do not understand our own victimization. This leads to drug and alcohol abuse and to the abuse of others because however horrified we find ourselves unable to stop, unable to stop seeking anything that looks like love. It can be pretty horrible.
    So. That brings me to the reason for this post. After a lifetime of damaging others and dealing with the consequences and healing and growing, I still don't believe in myself, but others do. I am fundamentally unable to understand why they do, but they do. I step forward in life by faith, never believing in my ability to do good, but acting as if I do based on the faith of others. There is a coffee shop I go to, Philz, where all of the baristas love me. Someone told me today that it was because I have a heart of gold. It made me cry. Right in the coffee shop. I don't understand why they believe in me, but I know that they do. For years, in penance for all of the harm I have done I have been stepping forward in love and compassion, trying to listen to everyone, no matter how broken because I believe that's important. I believe that if I just keep doing the next right thing it will make a difference.
    I have, years since, sworn a vow of compassion for all beings. It is pretty hard sometimes. I don't like some people. Some of them scare me. But I am able to find compassion for them by imaging how their lives brought them to this place. For myself it is harder. I can do it sometimes, but I haven't found the ability to give myself the  slack I give others. I know the people that I love that I have harmed. I do not believe in my innate goodness, yet sometimes, with effort, I can find compassion for my broken self.