Every time I see a little kid seeking attention, wanting to be seen, pulling her mom’s skirt, I remember who I was…in my late 30’s.
I had learned in counseling and in books that children who do not get the needed attention as babies and toddlers grow up physically but not emotionally. The love hole remains and we behave like children for the rest of our lives.
But it takes time for intellectual knowledge to make it to the part of the brain that controls behaviour—at least in my case.
It would be nice if when we find out the error of our ways we were also able to turn a switch off and act completely different. But, out of habit, we continue making the same mistakes, less often with any luck.
The good news for me is that I am finally acting like an adult, sometimes. I try, with some success, to save those unguarded moments for my husband and for therapy. But I can turn childlike very easily when I get too excited, like when watching live tennis, for instance.
My biggest problem is when people seem open and accepting. Then I open up, my childish behaviour rears its ugly head, and then I wear the unsuspecting stranger out. Then they’re sorry they ever started a conversation with me.
The problem with that situation is that it seems I should never open up to anyone, because I lack brakes. But being always guarded makes me an aloof, unapproachable, boring-to-be with person.
The answer is, of course, balance. But how can a person who received so little love and so much hate aspire to such precious virtue as balance? I don’t know.
All I know is that in an ideal world, I would have people who accept me just the way I am: likely to get super excited like a child sometimes, but able to be a sound adult with an enormous capacity to make decisions and to perform efficiently at others.
People who deal with me should, ideally, have the capacity to bear with my multiple personalities, also known as moods: quite happy and childish, extremely disappointed, very angry, deeply concentrated and on task, confused like a deer in the headlights (when the facts don’t add up).
It just downed on me that when an employer asks me, “So, Unrepentant, what’s your greatest weakness?” I need to find a nice way to tell them that I am moody and have extreme emotions.
I think I have my work cut out for me.
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8 comments:
i have the same characteristics i think you are describing. i get excited when i have a new friend and i want to say every word that goes through my brain. but a lot of people either don't like the things i say or perhaps it's my enthusiasm they dislike. perhaps i seem too intense. but i think that this impulse isn't bad on our part. i mean yes, we need boundaries, and we need to be able to judge who are the right people for us to be friends with and who aren't so we don't experience a lot of rejection and waste our time. but just that way of being, which you call childish, i wonder if it's not just us being our open, true selves. abuse taught us not to be ourselves. not to be open, trusting, spontaneous, expressive, but that is our natural state of being isn't it? one of my favorite books on this subject is called "healing the child within" i think. and yes, moodiness has it's downside. but it has it's good sides too. i mean, better that we feel things than that we're numb and detached right? it makes us capable of things like being inspired, feeling passionate about people and issues, and feeling empathy, for starters.
Hey Lorena! Lovely post! I feel that hole inside too...feel like I wasn't held enough or appreciated enough.
At the recent workshop, tho' when I did the inner child meditation, I found to my surprise that deep within I felt my childhood was great, I was loved and wanted, it's been my adulthood that's been tough...and it's because (my instinct tells me) of things that were not done, not said and and not taught to me as a child. So I grew up and was under attack by others and din't know how to hold up...because I hadn't been given the tools to do so.
And I think there's a difference between child-like and childish! I am child'like and want to be like that...not get all cynical and OLD! I do behave childishly when I'm off-balance, and THAT I'm working on very hard to correct!
And yes, your observation about kids who were adopted is bang on for my son and many of the other kids in our support group. They inappropriately trust strangers and there is that hole inside that needs fixing. My son is expressing it in his behaviour and I can feel his anguish, rage and utter despair when he cries...and he doesn't even understand it at the intellectual level yet. Funnily enough his distress brings up my own distress:(
Starry,
I suspect that we smart, strong women weren't prepared as children for a world that wants submissive, sweet, tame women.
I know that I have been beaten and deeply hurt by people who expect me to apologize for walking the face of the earth just because I am a woman. They almost expect me to hide away my intellect, because they're not used to females using their brains, let alone a member of a minority in a multicultural society.
In my case, that situation has multiplied the childhood issues. My family did a great job of making me believe I didn't belong, and the rest of the world confirmed it multiple times.
I am not sure the pain would be less if, like you, I would have grown up loved and accepted and then had discovered that the rest of the world had a problem with me.
It's a bitch, isn't it?
MMM
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I don't want to be childlike. I want to grow up. At the very least, I want to have friends with whom I can be childlike, so I can be an adult in the business world.
In the business world there is no room for silliness. There are situations I can't change, so I need to learn to manage them so as to get hurt as little as possible. Taming my behaviour reduces the pain, so it seems like a good idea to me.
Being detached is a good idea when we are among strangers. There is no need to give the best of me to people who couldn't care less and instead of appreciating it, will judge me. My in-laws are a good example. They don't deserve to see the real childlike me.
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Did you know that foster children and adopted children exhibit similar behaviour? I've read about it and seen it played out.
They tend to idealize strangers and want to go with every adult they meet.
Like me, they probably think they will be unconditionally accepted by that new person, and instead of being liked, they end up overwhelming and scaring the person.
It seems to me that it isn't the behaviour that needs fixing. It is something deeper inside that's fundamentally broken.
This is so enlightening.
Whereas others get love automatically, and naturally, people like us had to fight for it.
Temaskian,
I stopped fighting for love, actually. I've given up on it, because it doesn't matter how much love people are willing to give me. It appears as if I am unable to get any. It is as if I were a broken jar that can't hold any water.
Currently, I only take love from me, or so it seems. Or maybe it's that the best way to love myself is keeping myself safe from people. Who knows?
I know that being alone makes me stronger and being with people weakens me. So I keep the latter to a minimum.
Another thought:
It seems that I am a fragile broken water clay jar, so that when I receive water (love), too much of it tends to break me further.
Weird, isn't it? But it makes sense. If you want to mend a broken clay water jar, you let it dry, mend it, and after you keep if for decoration. If you use it for water again, the jar breaks.
Not destined for love maybe? Is the effort of fixing ourselves even worth it?
"Not destined for love maybe? Is the effort of fixing ourselves even worth it?"
Anyway, there's not much else to do. Might as well try to make the best of whatever...
It's not the end. It's the process, I guess. Just remember to smell the roses on our way to nowhere. lol.
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