I grew up without a father. So naturally I missed out on a lot of things I never even knew about.
How to shave properly. How to talk to girls. What to do when life gives you lemons. When to shut the fuck up.
I never knew him and there is no guarantee that my father was a wise man. Maybe his suggestions would have been wrong, maybe.
But they would have been something. And something is is much better than nothing. Nothing is crippling. Nothing is damaging in unimaginable ways. A child starved for attention with no moral compass goes to dark places in his mind and so did I.
I felt like I was a mistake, a void and waste of resources. Something unworthy of love that even his father would abandon.
I would steal. I would lie. I would hurt my peers.
Looking back now, I understand that all of the above are a natural coping mechanism of a young mind, starved for love and attention. Negative attention is still attention. At least someone cares enough to take the time to shout at me.
No father meant my mum had to work three jobs to barely sustain us, so I never saw her and when I did, she was unimaginably tired and try as she might, she understandably had no capacity to give me what I needed.
But then I grew up. Life happens whether you want it or not, whether you’re ready or not. For the longest time I thought I was fine, while not seeing how I’m trying to stuff my internal voids with food, alcohol and every possible way of keeping my mind away from all the hurt and the pain that was obviously still there.
I’m fairly certain that I wouldn’t have survived my suicidal phase without Feeling Good by David D. Burns. I am also confident that I would have no friends or a career to speak of without Carnegie’s “How to win friends and influence people”.
The most recent book-sourced revelation for me is that I am not a sexual deviant. My always-ready libido does not make me a weirdo creep.
This should probably be obvious to most, but wanting to have sex regularly is not wrong or weird. It’s healthy for our minds, relationships and bodies. It is essential to sustaining marriages.
It’s kind of crazy that this only clicked at 33.
