Contextualising Myself

Who we are today and why; Contextualising myself.

Are lives are full of significant events that make us who we are today. Lots of things can make us who we are as a person, our surroundings, relationships with friends and family ect. 

Recently I feel my life has been turned upside down, it has made me rethink and re-evaluate what exactly is important in my life. 

Family -

I was brought up to believe and hold the view that family is most important. This was drilled into me growing up, we had family meals at the dinner table, we didn't eat in front of the TV or in our own rooms. Dinner time was a time to talk to the family about our day. We always went on family holidays camping, festivals and even going abroad when we could afford it. 

We have very big family, most of it is on my dads side of the family. My mum didn't have much of a family growing up. Her dad was an abusive racist husband with lots of money and a foul temper. This was traumatic on my mother growing up, she was left to look after her older and younger sister.  After her mum left her abusive husband, she became self obsessed and not in my mothers words 'easy' out every weekend and bring different men home every night. To the point my mum was so embarrassed she left to live with her Nan. Her mum cared so little, she even ironed her cloths and packed her bags. Unfortunately that was a happy ending for my mother either. My mum had a close relationship with her Nan she looked after her in her old age and they spent a lot of time together. My mum was one day forced to go on holiday with her mum and dad to try and "fix things" when my mum came home. Her Nan was dead, she spend the day baking in excitement for the return of her grandchild, she went to bed to rest and he had a stroke.

My mum and dad met at a very young age, my mum was 16 when she met him and was married at 18. She had my big sister Kerry at 20. I feel that my mum was married at a young age because of the events that happened in her life, with her upbringing she matured quickly. My Dad was there to support her though anything, or so she thought. 

The one thing I have learned the past year is that in a relationship, if you don't grow together as a couple. It will put a strain or even break a relationship.

Growing up I never had a close relationship with my Dad, to me honestly he was a man very uninvolved, and uninterested in me. 

Tragedy -

Everyone has their fair share of tragedy, some more then others My tragedy is very personal and dark, it changed me and i will never be the person I was before it. 
I never had the attention of the boys growing up, not that I wanted it. I wasn't "popular" nor was I worried about my apprentice growing up. However when I entered my teens and moved school in the start of year 9 I started to. It was my new beginning. No one really knew me in my new school, I didn't grow up with any of them so I could reinvent myself. Start fresh. 
Doing this I gained confidence, made new friends but kept in touch with my now distant friends. Some of my distant friends where older. In a different place in life then I was myself. They didn't smoke, however they did drink have boys over. They even staid in the same room! To me this was a big deal, I was invited to my friends birthday party with a boy girl sleep over. The first guy I got real interest from would be the person who haunts me for the rest of my life. I became infatuated with him. I really like him something I had never experienced before and I thought he felt the same. Unknown to me boys of that age where only interested in one thing and he was willing to get it by force. I lost my innocence that day and it has a catastrophic effect on life as I know it. I sank into a pool of darkness, I shut the world out and I wanted to keep it that way. As the darkness got thicker and thicker, I defaced my body with real scars that will stay with me though adulthood and probably never fade. A consent reminder of  the place I had fallen too. I never would have pulled through it without my mum. No matter how much a fought her off, screamed at her and hurt her emotionally and pushed her out she kept reaching for me, until the day I stopped fighting her. She knew she could never take the pain away, but she made me want to live again. My mum became my best friend and my guardian angel I am forever grateful  for her and frankly I wouldn't have made it without her.