Where Do You Belong?

Belonging – the feeling of being comfortable and happy in a particular situation, or with a particular group of people, and being treated as a full member of the group.

Source: Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary.

Children suffering abuse in their family home will always face difficulties with belonging. The people who should provide safety and love, are the ones hurting them.

Child abuse is one of the worst tortures a human being can be exposed to. A child’s basic needs of love, and safety are replaced by trauma. It also comes with threats and punishments, which follow that child throughout the rest of their lives. The children who grow up in an environment of abuse, trauma, and confusion, desperately seek safety and love.

I was this child. Perhaps you were like me?

I was sexually abused and neglected. I was resented for being alive. My presence was not welcomed. I was in the way of the parties, and the loud music. The more the grown-ups pushed me away, the more I wanted love from them. I never got it, and my teddy can testify to all the tears I shed from being repeatedly ignored by the adults who should have cared for me.

On the other side of the coin, I was a sex toy - loaned out to dirty old pedophiles who showered me with cringey attention and torture. I was confused, and in constant pain.

How do you turn something like that around, so it becomes almost bearable?

This is how I did it. In my mind, I turned away from them all. I started looking around me for snippets of light in my dark world. I craved it like the air in my next breath. I needed to know that there was something good in this life. Something worth holding on to, when the darkness of abuse came, and robbed me of my existence. During those early years, I clung to those tiny snippets of life through nature.

A blue sky with fluffy white clouds sent my imagination into overdrive at the possibility of me just flying off into happy oblivion. A tiny yellow crocus pushing up and out of a frosty winter morning blanket of snow, its stubbornness to grow in a hostile environment got me through some very dark moments. A tree with a strong trunk, sprouting big fat plump branches and laden with juicy red apples. I imagined myself climbing that tree all the way to the top, and reaching for those juicy apples. The sun shone on me, its warmth caressing my skin and warming me up from within.

What do you do when this coping mechanism isn’t enough?

As I grew older, I needed more than the sun, the trees, and the sky. I needed people but I didn’t trust anyone. I couldn’t let anyone in because I had been threatened into silence. I spent most of my childhood, fearing for my life. I only trusted kids my own age. I found that I could speak to them, and they would speak the truth. It was a relief to have someone who could talk back after years of being a selective mute. My teddy never talked back.

Were you ever confused by the adults around you?

I started observing the adults around me, and noticed my friends acting lovingly toward their parents after school. I tried copying their behavior of running into my mother’s stiff arms. I felt as welcomed as a person could be whilst running into a brick wall covered in a thin jacket. It didn’t feel good at all. Why did my friends carry on doing it? The world was confusing.

I kept on observing the world around me, and especially how kids were with their families. In the food market, I spotted mothers holding their children's hands and smiling down at them. I had a go at this too, but it felt odd holding a cold leather gloved hand that was mothers. There was no smile, and the hand holding didn’t last long. She said it was uncomfortable holding my hand.

What was so special about hand-holding? I didn't understand what it meant.

It bothered me that some kids had a bond with their parents that made them happy. It was like a special secret code between them. I couldn’t understand what it was, but I wanted it real bad. I wanted to be happy with mother but it just wasn’t like that between us. She was cold and matter-of-fact. My so-called father was terrifying me all the time. His presence put the little hairs on my body at full alert. His voice was all it took to make me tremble at what was coming next.

I remember standing behind a mother and her daughter in a queue to a water slide in the water park. They were so happy together, laughing and leaning into each other as they talked. I wanted some of it too, and I leaned towards the mother, listening in and almost touching her back with my hair.

I’m sure it was rude because she gave me a funny look and asked me who was with me. I was alone so I just shrugged my shoulders. I saw mothers and fathers dote on their children in the pool area, playing with them in the water. Parents toweling their kids dry after swimming.

I never had that.

I had to get myself toweled dry, and dressed under lots of threats to hurry up. I started to believe it was me, and that it was my fault that my so-called parents were so cold.

Have you ever felt that you did not belong anywhere?

Over the years, I gathered lots of glimmers of what belonging meant for others but never for me. I was the odd one out. I was different. I was unlovable, and nobody wanted to be with me. I always felt on the outside looking in.

At school when we were learning about the holidays, and had to share our experiences with the class, I pretended to be the same as everyone else. I took bits and pieces from others and made it my own tailor-made holidays. The version I wished to be true because I could never tell what really happened to me during the holidays.

My whole life was consumed by abuse and threats and I had to reinvent it to be suitable for others. I became a liar to protect my abusers. Yet, I still had feelings like everybody else. When I allowed myself to let my guard down, I felt it, deep in my soul.

Who did I belong with? Who wanted me for… well me?

My vivid imagination, and storytelling saved me. In my young mind, I conjured up worlds full of laughter and happiness. I drew and wrote to my heart’s content into a giant collection of everything I saw and heard. I was good at seeing details, and boy did I see and hear things!

I saw people and my favorite pastime became watching others. The more I saw others’ interactions, the more confused I got. Until finally a new dawn sunk in that it was my so-called parents, and the adults around me who were the baddies.

Have you turned to TV and Movies for a grasp on reality?

Since my own family were different from everybody else, I turned to the TV and movies to get more experience with people and situations. My second year of school brought me a lucky lifeline, in after school activities and camp. My teacher was selling these to all parents including mother.

School can be a refuge for abused kids

A new nature class was starting near our house, and a gymnastics class. My friends’ parents were excited, and signed up on the spot. Mother was cornered by the other parents and signed me up too. I knew she didn’t want me to go, but I made it impossible for her not to let me.

I succeeded, and it was like a waterfall had started to run out of control. I signed myself up for every class, and new adventure I could manage, that was free. I didn’t like gymnastics, but I still did it because I belonged somewhere - just for a little while. It felt good. I also felt so much lighter when I was not at home.

The holidays were no longer bleak and boring but full of activities away from home. It was also a valid excuse not to go to my so-called father’s place. Sports and hobbies became my refuge, and my way of belonging to something. It was my family.

Did you ever feel like an outsider, not belonging anywhere, growing up? What was your refuge?

My name is Lizzy, and I’m a mom, teacher, author and mental health blogger. I write for those who don’t always feel that they have a voice. For more about me, my books and articles check out my website:

www.elizabethwoodsauthor.com

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