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“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” ~CS Lewis
I started life in a poor family with one parent who left when I was very young, never to be seen or heard from again, and another who stuck around but made it very clear that I was not wanted and that I had ruined their lives.
For some reason, I had very little contact from their parents, my grandparents, and their extended family.
So, as a young child, I knew I had no practical or emotional safety net. There was no one to fall back on, no one to soften the impact when things went wrong. I have to stand on my own two feet to survive.
As an abandoned and scapegoated child, I was very independent and resilient, and I was driven by the goal of getting away and making a life for myself. But with no safety net, I couldn’t take risks or concentrate on my studies.
During my school exams, I will work full time before vacation and part time during term time. I was tired then during the exam and had little time to revise. At points in my undergraduate degree, I was working almost full-time to keep a roof over my head, always living off my overdraft.
I kept inside what happened and what was happening at home. I didn’t talk about it. No one knew. Two of my peers had parents, and they could not understand or support my life. In those days, teachers and other adults were not as knowledgeable as they are now, and I was never asked or given support about my home life. So there was no emotional safety net.
Since I was financially responsible for myself, I really learned to budget. This meant that when I started a career in my twenties, I progressed much faster than my peers. They were learning the world of work following university; I already had it for a few years.
No mold fitting
In my youth, when I found myself in the professional-class world, my friends would assume I was like them. They talked about single-parent families and people with broken homes who couldn’t achieve.
I was not used to talking about my condition. It’s not something that comes up naturally in conversation and, like many difficult family situations, people are usually awkward to respond and may inadvertently say something that makes you feel bad. (I even heard “My daddy will never leave me!” as if they couldn’t believe it or pay attention to me.)
There isn’t a simple toolkit for supporting someone who has been abused or abandoned by their family, and it’s something that’s only recently started to be talked about more openly in social discourse. So I didn’t know how to talk about myself in an authentic way when it came to family.
On a daily basis, at work or at social events, at Christmas or on Mother’s or Father’s Day, people talk about their family of origin and assume that others have the same. This is the norm for most people, and they struggle to support someone who has a different reality.
I realized a few years ago that many of my friends had no idea about my situation, so I felt misunderstood and a core part of myself was invisible.
Filling the void… or learning to live with it
As a young adult, I decided to create a family of friends or chosen family with people I met while studying or through work because I needed people around me. Years later, I realized that all of my relationships were affected by growing unwanted and unpleasant feelings. So, I didn’t understand who was in my life and didn’t understand that I had my own needs in relationships. If someone wanted to spend time with me, who was I to say no?
This led to friendships and romantic relationships that were, at best, mismatched without real connection and at worst, abusive. Also, when the holidays came, my friends’ families would disappear to stay with their real families. So despite my strength and efforts I have not filled the void in my life.
I was trying to remove myself from the pain of not getting a family by creating a new relationship. Through therapy, though, I realized that the key is learning to live with the emptiness of what I didn’t have—to process it, face it, and actually feel that pain.
Reconnecting with myself, especially my child’s self, was important. I had to take some of the energy I put out outwardly to please others and turn it inward to learn to deal with my loss, heal, and improve my choices.
An amazing therapist helped me realize that I was living with a kind of sadness. “Suffering is being attached to something that isn’t there,” he explained. I now live with emptiness and pain, grieving the loss and abandonment rather than distracting myself from it. Not trying to fix it or fill it but learning to accept it as part of my story.
Although the pain won’t go away completely, I now choose from a place of connection with myself, which has led to more fulfilling relationships and much more energy to put into meaningful activities.
Survive and even prosper
Growing up without a safety net means focusing on survival. Throughout my childhood, I worked hard to get somewhere safe with my own independence. Between this effort and what I was enduring, I was exhausted. As a young man, I worked to build a secure life of my own.
In my mid-thirties, I had a few basics: a safe home, financial security, and some good people in my life. That’s when it dawned on me – that I was constantly imagining and planning for horrible things that never happened, that I was always on high alert in normal situations and that I was exhausting myself with my constant ruminations.
I was working in survival mode even when I didn’t need to. My body and mind did not accept the reality that I was finally safe. I have to learn to live, not just survive.
Some talk about recovering from trauma as coming back to yourself, but when you’ve endured it throughout childhood, you haven’t been given the chance to know who that self is. Who would I be if not in survival mode? I had to discover who my core was and learn how to simply live.
This realization was the first step. I was fortunate to have great therapists, full courses of EMDR, group therapy where I learned from others, and other treatments to process and reinstall new pathways in my mind.
One moment during the installation was EMDR (a process that helps replace negative beliefs with positive beliefs) when I was asked to imagine what would help me as a child during a difficult experience I had.
At first, all I could think about was changing what was happening to me and having someone be there to intervene. But then I imagined hugging my child. That was all he needed in that moment and for many more.
Since then, I’ve tried to focus on my needs and nurture myself, which has helped me move from just practical survival to thriving.
It wasn’t easy or immediate, but shortly after moving into the world post-therapy, I noticed that I had a lot of energy. It felt like I was carrying a dead weight around me that had been lifting my whole life, and I suddenly felt lighter in my daily activities.
I was able to identify and walk away from unhealthy relationships, which reduced negative, diminishing interactions and increased my positive interactions.
I put this energy into nourishing and meaningful activities outside of my work—volunteering, research, engaging in active hobbies. Instead, I gained strength from doing them and reached my potential. I became myself. Beyond being a victim of my circumstances, I can thrive.
If you’re going through life without a traditional family, know that you’re living with a milder form of grief, and that it will never leave you, that a loving, secure, and fulfilling life is still possible.
The first step is to understand and process what happened to you so that you can take care and nurture yourself. This is what will give you the strength, resilience and compassion to thrive.
about Nisha Wilkinson
Nisha Wilkinson holds a PhD in War Studies and has worked on international conflict and security for over fifteen years. He is interested in the human behavior that creates violence and insecurity and advocates for socio-economic diversity of voice in state institutions.
