I have recently come to believe that some of the issues we have with our mental health is caused by what we see growing up. I’m actually not talking about the bad stuff, I’m talking about the good stuff, our escape, TV, Magazines, Books. How great does everything seem? Everyone lives happily ever after, especially the things you see as a child, fairytales, princes, princesses, love conquers all, evil never wins. Talk about set you up for a fall.
Speaking from a woman’s perspective, I grew up believing that there was this man out there for me, we would fall in love, get married have babies and literally live happily ever after.
My family wasn’t like this at all. My parents were the only living couple still together, my parents had me in their teens, we were pretty poor, but I had an amazing childhood full of love & laughter, I didn’t have all the latest toys or clothes, but luckily, those things didn’t matter to kids like they do now. My parents had a very traditional, old fashioned marriage, my mum was a stay at home Mum, up until we were all at school and then she got a part time job in a school so she was always home for us before & after school, it’s only now as an adult and stepmother, that o realise how truly lucky I was to have this, not only never coming home to an empty house, but to have my mum. I’m pretty rubbish at showing my mum how grateful I am, we’re so very different, I’m much more like my dad, and I can be very off and short with my Mum, which I obviously don’t mean to be. I grew up thinking she should stand up for herself more, don’t get me wrong, my mum could give as good as she got, I found it odd when I got older and men would apologise for swearing in front of me, I would think, you should hear my mother!
I think I was a bit of a feminist as a child, thinking, Mum, why are you doing all the housework? Why is Dad complaining that his shirt isn’t ironed properly? Not realising they were both so young and still learning!
It is only now that I truly see why & how my mum dealt with this. Love. Not the love you see in the films, where he sweeps her off her feet and whisks her off to Paris and they cheers with champagne and eat truffles and she’s a size 6. No true love, love where he doesn’t call or text when you think he should and when he does, he doesn’t spout his undying love like it happened in your head, but what he does say makes your stomach flip anyway. Where he leaves his pants on the floor and you want to rub them in his face for doing it for the 1000th time but you wash them anyway because you don’t want him to run out
Love really isn’t like the movies, not in the long run and neither is life. But you know what that’s ok, if everything went your way and there were no obstacles in the way, what the hell would you learn? What would you talk about? Yes it’s really shit when things don’t go how you think they should. But if everything went how you wanted it to, you would never end up having the job/house/friends/figure/lifestyle/partner you have now, if it’s not great now I have no doubt in my mind it’s coming. I’ll give you my example.
I broke up with my husband, we’d been together almost 8 years, I followed my gut, never done that before, I met someone else, thought he was the one, pretty much put everything I had into being with him, only to find out he had a girlfriend and child, broke up, thought my world had ended, at this time my boss started hating me as this was affecting my work so I applied for a new job, which i happened to get, made some amazing friends, rented a flat from a girl I’d met at my last job, met a guy through a girl from my last job (now my best friend) that didn’t work out, me & my friend got dumped on the same day I decided to rent her flat, closer to all my friends, did some dating, got another job, made some new amazing friends, went to a festival with new amazing friends and met my now husband.2018-08-16 15:43:57
