I really want to know why I am unloved.

I was eight years old when I realized I was all alone in the world, and no one would ever rescue me.

I remember lying down on the dirty wood floor after carefully arranging my insurance card on top of the empty Tylenol PM pill bottle.

I was lost and alone and everyone I thought loved me had abandoned me and told me they didn’t want me anymore, and blamed me for all their problems.

I was twenty-one years old.

My mother arrived to the ER…but my father didn’t come.

I spent a week in a locked ward. I felt like a little child surrounded by adults with real mental health issues. I was the youngest one there, but I felt even years younger because I had never been allowed to transition into a normal adolescence or adulthood.

I wrote about my suicide attempt a long time ago. I think about it too often.

I’m not supposed to be here.

I’ve had many cries for help that all went unanswered.

Why am I unloved?

I don’t share much on social media, to protect my family’s privacy but also because I’ve been criticized for it. Every post I make, I question whether I should post it.

I’m friends with some of my cousins whose political stances do not align with mine. I’ve unfriended and unfollowed so many over the years who just wanted to see drama, and I often wish I never got on Facebook at all. Those I thought were friends were too quick to unfriend and forget us when we moved away.

I had few outlets to vent about my life, my parents, struggles with frequent military moves.

Not much has changed over the years. I’m still alone with my memories.

My goal now is to make sure my children know they are loved and valued. I want them to grow up and have good memories and know that their mother loves them, that it’s not just performative.

My mother had a stroke and I had to rush down to help last year. I had to place my parents in a care home last year. My father passed last summer. So many memories and trauma rising up and bothering me at the most inopportune times.

I never knew what wasn’t normal while I grew up an only child with toxic parents.

Surely, everyone in the extended family knew something, but no one did anything.

No Privacy

My father warped or reset the latch my bedroom door on purpose so it wouldn’t close.

I was never allowed to use the bathroom alone – without one or both of my parents walking in – while on the toilet or in the bath or shower. No doors could be closed.

They went through my room and read anything I wrote, so I stopped writing.

They listened to my phone conversations and were furious if I used the phone late at night.

I’m thankful we didn’t have the technology then that we do now. My kids want the 360 app to keep track of me! haha

Control

I had forgotten about a lot of the weird rules I had growing up that I didn’t have anything to compare to, so I didn’t realize they were odd until I got married, moved away, had my own four kids.

Like, that scene with the penguin figurine in the movie Misery? I lived like that. I understood that scene too well.

I wasn’t allowed to use bath mats. I had to dry off completely while still standing inside the tub or shower, or wipe down my legs and feet before stepping out. And I realize now how odd that is, and also somewhat dangerous if I slip and fall.

I had to be silent. When I had to travel to Atlanta last December to put my parents in a nursing home, the month that I was trapped in the house with them brought back all the stressful memories of having to creep around, close and open doors and cabinets silently, load and unload the dishwasher silently, and just do everything so carefully and quietly. My husband and kids never believed me. I didn’t exaggerate.

Neglect

I have no memory of my parents reading to me. They didn’t play games with me.

So many books I discovered when my kids were small, from library story time or recommendations or my own research. I still love reading to my kids! We often read books together and my kids share their college texts and assignments with me. I love it!

I was constantly dismissed and sent to play alone in my room or outside. I spent many hours alone with my thoughts.

My preferences didn’t matter. My color choices, fabrics, styles, tastes. I realize there wasn’t a lot of money, but I didn’t get to choose. Later, when finances were healthier, I still didn’t get to choose.

My mother wasn’t a great or interesting cook and prepared the few dishes my father would eat. I was a rather picky eater. I never had fresh food beyond fruit or iceberg lettuce. All vegetables were canned and she cooked them to a pulp. I drank Kool Aid, sweet tea, juice, and Coke. I developed disordered eating. I realize now that my mother had disordered eating. I found her journals with detailed notes about her eating and voiding activities.

No Social Life

I wasn’t allowed to have friends over to the house if my father was home. I seldom had anyone over, ever. I accepted any and every invitation to get away. I’m sure I became a joke to my peers.

I never learned how to be appropriate with peers. I missed social cues and still struggle with social norms. I feel like an anthropologist.

I wasn’t successful in social situations and struggled to make friends. Out of sight, out of mind. No one contacted me during breaks, summers, or after moving to a different classroom.

I was not good with relationships with boys or men. I was too desperate and lost myself. I used promiscuity instead of authenticity. I have many regrets.

Three husbands who didn’t love themselves, so how could they love me? In-laws who never accepted me nor cared at all about me nor my children.

I still have no friends. I am mostly content with the peace that comes with that.

I know it’s said that it’s a big red flag for someone to have only complaints about their relationships, but when every single one has been toxic, and I’ve examined myself and done my shadow work, and I realize where I made mistakes and what I could have should have done differently…it’s not just me.

I grieve for family I have never experienced.

One of my son’s baseball team dads asked like a joke, “Well, what’s wrong with you, Jennifer?” Indeed.