Insightfully Yours

The First Man She Ever Loved

(Chapter One of From Rage to Richness)

     The first man Laura ever loved she loved with her whole heart, her WHOLE being.

He became the world to her the moment she laid eyes on him and could see his face clearly. Before that she had already come to recognize his smell, his touch, the way he held her closely... so strongly...so tightly...as if he never wanted to let her go. A tightness and need for control that later became a threat to her mere existence.

With each passing day, week, year, and with his many trips away, she suffered a sense of abandonment.  Much like an addict going through withdrawal Laura would suffer love and touch deprivation each time he was absent. Like most addicts, when he returned and her fix was again available...she would do or say anything to get a token of this man’s love.  Enthusiastic and brimming over with love and affection for him, she would rush to his handsome presence only to be brushed aside until he was in need of love and affection.  At those times he would hold her for a short time, for he was not a man to sit around unless under the influence of alcohol and passed out.  Yet, to Laura it would seem like forever.  When safe and secure in his arms, she felt as if she was indeed in heaven.  The happiest Laura felt throughout her early years was when she was wrapped safely and securely in her father’s arms.  Until the day her life almost ended there.

She is not sure of the exact time or age that she was.  What remains clearly stamped in  Laura’s memory and unforgettable are the sounds, feelings of confusion and discomfort followed by her inability to breathe.  All the while this was escalating  no one else seemed to be aware of what was happening to her, they were so caught up in their own dramas.  

As her perception recalls, it was a pleasant scene at first.  Laura’s father arriving home in a good mood, laughing and teasing them all.

 Everything seemed to be going well. She was in my favorite place up on my father’s lap, snuggled in until supper would be ready.  Content and at peace and reveling in her childhood glory. Safe and Sound...

Laura doesn’t remember how or when the conversation between her parents became louder and more agitated.  She was so caught up in the blissfulness of her own world. Even as her father’s gentle stroking of the back of her neck became tighter and more like a vice grip...She remained in a state of disbelief and shock...almost a dreamlike state in which she was actually the observer rather than the recipient of this suffocating act. Even as the air became cut off and Laura’s tiny hands began to pull at his, it was like watching a movie she was starring in.  Finally, her mother became aware of what was happening and once she drew attention to it, his hands let go...air rushed in...and life went on as before. 

Later, her mother shared with her the story of how Laura’s father had for quite a while carried around  the cat he loved so dearly, oblivious to the fact that he had strangled it by holding it so tightly.  He had not intended to hurt his favorite pet, only love it. Somehow hearing this story gave Laura an understanding of how loving someone or something  too much could end up in pain and death.  At a very early age she had already formed her first dysfunctional belief and built the first layer of walls around her heart. Trusting someone you loved was painful and suffocating.

            Yet, at this early stage of Jenny’s life, she was still naive enough to keep trying to be  better behaved and the most perfect child she could be if that would help her father to love her without hurting her.  She even blamed her mother (as he did ) for getting him so upset when he had come home so happy. Laura later realized this meant  he’d come home the happy drunk.

  It would be years before she understood what her mother was going through.  How much she too was desperately trying to win his love, the love he gave to another woman time and again, leaving her mother feeling that she was never good enough for him.

It would be many years before it became evident of how much of her  mother’s anger she continued to carry with her throughout the key relationships in Laura’s life.  

This is the First Chapter of a book I am writing that is loosely based on My Own Personal Story. It will be in fiction style with me as the counselor Laura tells her story to.

Wish to Read the Next Chapter?  Subscribe to my Blog or add Yourself to My Mail List Below and I will let you know when it is posted.

Love & Light, Carolyn