Stolen Childhood - Now Frozen in Childhood

[Nonconformistlaw]

I want my childhood back! It was mine...Straight took it away without my permission. Whlie locked within those walls, glued to my blue chair, motivating my ass off on cue, and all the while in a state of fear and confusion...what was left of my childhood disappeared.

I WANT IT BACK! IT WAS MY CHILDHOOD...Straight had NO right to steal it from me!

I missed out on all the things normal teenagers take for granted. We all did.

I went to a formal dance a few years ago even though I despise formal shindigs. But I wanted to pick out a formal dress for the FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE at age 34. I picked out the most beautiful red dress I could find, and then I just started crying because I didnt get to do that in high school. As I write this it almost seems like such a trivial detail I missed out on...but it was one of those moments where I was painfully aware of how much was taken from me.

And as the years have passed, I've always noticed how I have hung on to childhood for dear life. On my 19th birthday, I promised myself that I would always be 19. I am an overgrown kid in a lot of ways and I know it was because of Straight. In my heart I am the teenager I was not allowed to be. Now matter how old I get...I will always be frozen in childhood.

[Froderik]

yeah.

[Woof-a-Doof]

Once, not long ago I worked in a hospital and I told a counselor while in a personal conversation that, "I was having my second childhood." She, knowing that I had been thru Straight, looked me dead in the eye and said..."No, you are experiencing your first childhood", I was in my mid 30's at the time.

I agree, much was taken from me, almost my entire adolesence (sp). Rather than learning lessons that most learn during adolesence, I was being taught how to be "rational"...more or less I was being taught to think like a 45 y/o.

Simple things, like how to get along with the opposite sex and how to relate/date with the opposite sex. I missed it all. When conversations come up...the kinds of conversations that start off something like..."I wish I was 15-20 again" I always cringe...while others relish in the memories of thier youth, I shudder and do what I can to change the subject.

I was robbed.

[starry-eyed pirate]

Right On!  i have the same experience.

[starry-eyed pirate]

Nonconformistlaw(At first your name was a little awkward but now it seems to roll, i like writin' the whole thing out)  Uh... anyway, i know you been sayin' that you been like re-experiencing str8.  i' been kinda doin' that too.  i mean i always was thinkin' about str8 by myself for so long until i heard about this Str8 Inc. American  Drug War P.O.W and Veterans Discussion Forum.(that sounds cool,huh ??)  Now i'm sort of re-livin' some shit too.  Thing is though...ain No goin' back.  Can't step in the same river twice.  Such is life.  i'm 37 now myself.  i still am the same way i' always been(Well, a little gnarlier, i reckon, for all the fuckin' 'n' fightin).  i am like the river actually...

i fe'l what your sayin' about what you've lost.  i fe'l that way too sometimes.  There really is no justice for crimes committed.  People should not be made to serve some use.  When people are forced directly, as in by direct threat of loss of freedom of movement of body or mind(freedom of thought) or of bodily harm or loss of life, or indirectly as in by economic or social circumstances into servitude to some authority, whether that authority be one individual or the leaders of the G8 economic summit that is injustice.  Justice is in the present. Peace.

[Nonconformistlaw]

Pirate- I know what you mean. I can never go back and recover my childhood. But that's what is so hard to swallow about it. Straight deprived me of being a normal teenager....they robbed me of my childhood and had no right to do so. Yeah...that is injustice...taking away something that is lost forever. No lawsuit, money, apologies, publicity etc. will ever restore my childhood for me.

Reliving straight is no fun. But, one thing "good" about reliving the nightmare, is that its allowing me to grieve for the childhood that I lost because of Straight. And its forcing me to face that I will always be stuck (frozen) in my childhood to a large extent because of that loss. I never could do this before since I was so busy trying to forget.

Grieving sucks!  :sad:

[Anonymous]

They say get back,
I say fight back.
We wouldn't take it
if they did us
like they did Iraq...

[Woof-a-Doof]

A woman by the name Elisabeth Kubler Ross MD put together an observation and called it the Five Stage Grief Model(5SGM).

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

I hope not to imply that this is the "end all" of observations of the grieving. Yet, in my own experience in regard to the Straight issue I have experienced all of the 5.

It is also my experience that the 5SGM is also a cyclic series. Meaning that this goes on and on thru our lives...least mine anyway. Also I have noticed the 5 don't always come in the order listed. There is a sister experience as well...uncover, discover and disgard. I read those words somewhere along the line and assumed them as my own because they mirrored my experience.

No where in the whole process of the two is there really any reference to happiness. It's all about putting one foot infront of the other. Somedays are better than others, no doubt.

My mother said to me once while taking me to school..."I don't understand, high school age was the happiest time of my live. It should be the happiest time of your live". I think that was my first understanding that I could never truely be able to shake the whole Straight experience. I knew I would look back at my teen years and think Oh God, and this was suppossed to be the happiest time of my life? WTF? You see, it doesn't take much to allow smouldering embers to once again burst into flames.

Sooner or later the 'fire' simmers down and once again the coals rest beneath the surface, out of sight. And for a moment in time, I truely think all is well. Inevitably a name will be mentioned, or a memory will surface into conciousness and the flames are stoked once again. It's a cycle.

I don't know that I am "frozen in childhood", I have always hoped to evolve from the rage and in some respect I have accomplished that. However when I do revert back, I revert back to what I know and to what I was taught. I suspect I am not alone in this. I am glad ya broached the topic!

[Nonconformistlaw]

On 2005-10-22 05:02:00, Woof-a-Doof wrote:

"A woman by the name Elisabeth Kubler Ross MD put together an observation and called it the Five Stage Grief Model(5SGM).

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

Could you explain the bargaining part? Not sure what that implies in the grieving process.

"It is also my experience that the 5SGM is also a cyclic series. Meaning that this goes on and on thru our lives...least mine anyway. Also I have noticed the 5 don't always come in the order listed."

Seems like I spent the past 20 years in denial and acceptance. By that I mean that most of me denied that it happened, buried it, and the other part of me accepted in the sense that I thought I should "move on." From what I have been told that was an understandable reaction considering how traumatic Straight was...but not the healthiest reaction. I skipped the most important part...the pain (depression, anger, sadness, etc)

"No where in the whole process of the two is there really any reference to happiness. It's all about putting one foot infront of the other. Somedays are better than others, no doubt."

I noticed there is nothing remotely near happiness in the grieving process. Its one of the toughest things I've ever been through. Its absolutely miserable. But yeah, some days are better, or should I say, more bearable than others.

"Sooner or later the 'fire' simmers down and once again the coals rest beneath the surface, out of sight. And for a moment in time, I truely think all is well. Inevitably a name will be mentioned, or a memory will surface into conciousness and the flames are stoked once again. It's a cycle."

Hopefully the "fires" will  simmer down before I have to go back to the real world! Right now it doesnt seem like "all will be well" anytime soon. I'm not looking forward to the cycle when something retriggers the memories. I cant exactly stop my life every time I start going through this. My hope is that I learn to live with it...and can learn to balance it with the real world. Is that possible?

Damn, you wrote a lot of things in your first post that I want to respond to that made me think. Oh well. One post at a time. Yesterday was too rough to post on this topic more than once...its a heavy one.

[webcrawler]

Bargaining meaning "if you let this happen, I'll do this" etc. An example would be "if I don't have a heart attack right now, I'll stop smoking." Ahh yeah, you can imagine the insides of my brain now.  :rofl:

[dragonfly]

[Nonconformistlaw]

On 2005-10-21 02:59:00, Woof-a-Doof wrote:

"Once, not long ago I worked in a hospital and I told a counselor while in a personal conversation that, "I was having my second childhood." She, knowing that I had been thru Straight, looked me dead in the eye and said..."No, you are experiencing your first childhood", I was in my mid 30's at the time.

I agree, much was taken from me, almost my entire adolesence (sp). Rather than learning lessons that most learn during adolesence, I was being taught how to be "rational"...more or less I was being taught to think like a 45 y/o.

Simple things, like how to get along with the opposite sex and how to relate/date with the opposite sex. I missed it all. When conversations come up...the kinds of conversations that start off something like..."I wish I was 15-20 again" I always cringe...while others relish in the memories of thier youth, I shudder and do what I can to change the subject.

I was robbed."

I think right after I got out of Straight, the 7 years or so that I was wild was my way of  extending my childhood (among other things like rebelling against/forgetting Straight). The moment I talked about picking out the dress...it was a moment I felt like a kid again, even though I was crying about my lost childhood. It was a small way to "re-experience" a moment of childhood as I would have wanted it to be back then.

But different from your experience, I guess my reaction became more of remaining stuck in childhood permanently, instead of later experiencing childhood for the first time in your 30's as you mentioned.

I also know what you mean about not learning the normal adolescent lessons because of Straight. Instead of learning how to relate to/date the opposite sex, our normal human inclinations were completely suppressed. We were taught not to look, talk to, interact with, or even think about the opposite sex.

So when I got out of Straight, I was completely at a loss on how to act around the opposite sex. I think I acted like I never had contact with them at all, as if the concept was completely new to me. It took me a long time to start to relax and to start learning how girls were really supposed to interact with boys. Yeah, that is a glaring example of how damaging losing a chunk of childhood to Straight really was.

When people talk about wanting to be a teenager again, I cringe as well, for my childhood, before, during, and after Straight was no picnic. But at the same time I always wish that I hadn't had my childhood stolen from me by Straight, and then I feel a great loss.

[Anonymous]

I'm watching Rocky and Bullwinkle right now. I much prefer The Simpsons to Extreme Makeover, which comes on at the same time. My favorite foods are cereal, pizza, and sweets.

[Nonconformistlaw]

I guess you could say there is a flip side to being "frozen in childhood." There are times I like it when I dont think about how I got this way.

I still love cartoon characters!   :grin:   I decorate my Christmas tree with cartoon characters and use cartoon characters on my cell phone display. I also have tons of stuffed animals and use stuffed animals as Christmas decorations too. I'm very childlike during the Christmas season.  :lol: I also drink mountain dew....never coffee.

[Anonymous]

On 2005-10-25 13:04:00, Anonymous wrote:

"I'm watching Rocky and Bullwinkle right now. I much prefer The Simpsons to Extreme Makeover, which comes on at the same time. My favorite foods are cereal, pizza, and sweets. "

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