There is a version of you that is still waiting to be cared for.
Describe them.
How old are they? Where are they hiding? What are they afraid of?
Now: take responsibility for them.
Write a daily care manual for your younger self.
Not how someone else should treat him — but how you will from now on.
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V.2
I find myself in the woods. I’m sitting on a stone wearing my green “Forrest pants”, a ragged woollen sweater and rubber boots. My “Forrest uniform” as I called it. I would say I’m about 9-10 years old.
I would put on my “uniform”, grab a small bag with my knife, a bottle of water and my first-aid kit in it and say something like “I’ll head out for a while. I’ll be back around dinner time,” could be a sentence I would say before heading out. No one batted an eye at this. The rest of my family was busy with their own doings. It was usually how it was. Everyone has their own stuff to deal with and I don’t blame them for that. It was that nobody seemed to care much about my goings and comings and what I did and where I did it. I could be outside until close to midnight in the summers, and when I got back in they were just surprised that I had been gone.
I didn’t really feel seen. Not for who I was at least. I felt ignored and at times as a nuisance. I didn’t feel cared for in the way a child should. I didn’t lack anything. In fact I would perhaps say I had too much of things. I was living a life of plenty what items and such is regarded. It was the emotional care and closeness that I lacked.
I felt lonely, I felt at times abandoned. I would be taught how to play and to perform on a stage. I never liked it and I had a full nervous breakdown at a couple of occasions when I was to play in front of people. I cried and was terrified, but all that was shown towards me was disappointment that I wasn’t going to perform.
Sometimes kids have to be pushed a little. But there is a difference between “pushed” and forced, and I felt “force” more often than a “push” or “nudge”. It wasn’t nurturing or encouraging. It was something that had been decided that I had to do.
In school it was much the same. I wasn’t good in most subjects. The more theoretical they were, the harder it was to I hated math, and instead of finding way and help me to learn I was more or less given up on. Ignored. “There are other people that haven’t been good at math, and they have done great in life,” was something said to me almost as a mantra. That could’ve been okay to be told, had I been given the help I probably needed. I ended up instead dropping out of middle school.
If I were to write down a daily manual for me at this age, let’s call it 7-11 years old, I would start with the morning. Perhaps a bit obvious, but still.
I hated mornings and they were always a struggle. To get out of bed was perhaps one of my mom’s biggest issues with me.
I would wake me up around 15 minutes before I have to get out of bed. But don’t just open the door and pull away the curtains. Engage me somehow. Start a conversation or perhaps ask about something. Anything, but let the brain start working. It is slow going in the morning, but being engaged with something, preferably something that is interesting, is the best way to go about it.
Breakfast shouldn’t be too heavy. But something light to eat – perhaps just sandwich toppings – and a glass of juice would do it, unless anything particular was asked for. If there was freshly baked bread, I would make a sandwich with that.
During breakfast the day should be mapped out by me. What is to happen later, when it is to happen and what tasks or assignments is to be done. When are people going to be home, are you to be home alone for a while after school etc. To be able to predict things and to know what’s coming is important. It creates stability and safety.
Help with homework is important! It is tedious work, but time and help is needed to make sure that the information is understood and applied correctly.
During holidays and weekends and such, make sure to engage him in some way. Find something that interests him and let him explore more around it. Some days it is okay to send him out to play or to just drift around, but to engage and make him feel seen in his interests is important to him.
The same goes for what he is thinking about when he is silent or brooding or showing signs of contemplation and thought. What is he thinking about, why and how does he want to talk about it.
Take his hurts seriously. Don’t just brush off everything and tell him it’s no big deal. Clean the wounds, put on the bandaid and take him to the doctor if he has hurt himself badly. Don’t yell at him if he falls down the stairs, even if you are scared. Be calm and comfort him.
Listen to him if he really doesn’t want to do certain things or activities. He doesn’t need to attend every single concert in church or choir arrangements and such. It’s not necessarily a place for a kid.
Show him new and exciting things. Not all day every day, but now and again. Make him see and learn and touch things. Not every thing will be to his liking, and that’s okay. He might find a few things that interests him and that he likes and it will help expand his knowledge of much.
Don’t condemn him for everything he does wrong. Explain and show why it was wrong, and perhaps teach him instead how to do things properly. He needs to fail and do wrong to learn.
Learn him better the value of things and possessions. Show him that everything gained requires work, dedication and commitment. Money doesn’t grow on trees, and often patience is needed to get or achieve goals or things wanted.
There are probably many more things that he needs and should have that I can’t think of right now. Times changes, and needs do to. What is needed or necessary one day may not be what’s needed the next day. But the important things – such as care, comfort, to be seen and heard, help with school stuff and similar – is very important. The same goes for knowing the value of his things and emotional understanding. Feelings are not to be suppressed or hid. Talk about them, let him know it’s okay to feel and be open about it. And teach him to acknowledge and respect the feelings in himself and others as well.
Treat him like you want him to treat others when he grows up. Don’t be superficial, but be caring, genuine and real.
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V.1
I find myself in the woods. In my green “Forrest pants”, a ragged woollen sweater and rubber boots. My “Forrest uniform” as I called it. “I’ll put on my uniform and head out for a while. When’s dinner? I’ll be back around then.
I have water and my knife,” could be a sentence I would utter before heading out. No one batted an eye on this. The rest of my family was busy with their own doings.
My favourite time and place was either early spring or early autumn in the woods. It was always the woods I sought out. Trees, moss, squirrels, birds, spiders and a million different other creatures and plants. I could sit among them all and just exist among them. They wasn’t going to harm me. They didn’t scare me or make fun of me. They didn’t ignore me. They just went about their life as usual. They were aware of me, and I was a part of it all.
I loved it.
As I am sitting in the Forrest I am around 9 years old. I am lonely and don’t feel seen much, unless I do something wrong, or something on a stage. I am not really a big fan of being on stage at this point, but that is what I am supposed to do.
In school I don’t have many friends. I played football with the rest of the kids, but they weren’t my friends. I would often spend recess walking together with the adults in the schoolyard. We could talk about the Forrest and plants. Weather and crops or animals or the seasons. I wasn’t a prodigy in any aspect of school. I struggled with most subjects and hated math beyond hate. At home the struggle was met with exasperation and frustration. I think I stopped doing most of my homework at around this age.
It turned into a sort of fear of going to school. Every morning my mother had to force me out of bed and out of the door. Often I would come late to class because I would go slowly on the road.
I didn’t feel seen, heard, tended to beyond what was perhaps necessary. I was given everything I could want and had, what I would call, a “good childhood”. Big family and I was taken on trips and was a part of things when my family toured around the country during the summers.
But I wasn’t cared for as I should’ve been, I think. I wasn’t held and told I was loved. If I hurt myself I was given a bandaid and told to put it on and told not to get blood everywhere. I broke my ankle, but it wasn’t anything to go to the doctor for. I was just being dramatic. A “twisted ankle” wasn’t anything to bother anyone with. One May 17th I stayed at home. I had horrible stomach pain and wasn’t able to stand up. My mother thought it could be the appendix and told me to rest and stay home as the rest went out to the parade. When she came back a while later I was still on the sofa in pain. She took my temperature and I had a fever. But it wasn’t high, so she went out again and didn’t come back until later.
I knew early that I wasn’t supposed to be cared for. I wasn’t important. I was a nuisance and a strange kid. I would be taken out to entertain guests, and then I would be sent out again.
I developed a horrible fear of the dark and of wolves. I was afraid of being alone, being hurt and not cared for, to be a burden to my parents, of not being good at things. I was repeatedly told how good my siblings or classmates had done in this or that subject or sport. I was asked why I couldn’t be more like them. I didn’t want to be more like them.
If I am to write a manual for this kid, I would start by a very simple thing.
“Talk with him”. Sit down, talk to him about what he likes and why he likes them. It would be easy to learn that much of what I liked to do I did alone. Why did I like the solitude?
Ask so if you could accompany me into the woods or go to the library or play with Lego’s. Show that you would like to spend time with me in my safe places. And when I would get hurt, apply a bandaid or make sure I had ice on a bruise (I had never used an ice pack until I was a teenager).
And tell me that it is okay not to be good at subjects. Try to find other ways for me to learn. Find a way for me to find interest in subjects and don’t just roll your eyes when I can’t understand how to write up multiplication. You can hear I don’t have an issue with multiplying in my head. I just can’t seem to get it on paper.
Ask me if I actually want to attend all the concerts and events I am being taken to. I really don’t want to sit for three hours and listen to local choirs sing accapella versions of horrible songs out of tune.
Don’t make me the odd one out – because there’s no room in the car – every time people are going to attend something that does look like fun.
Attend a football game now and again. Just try to spend some time with me doing things that I like. Not make me always do the things you or everybody else want to do. I know I am much younger than everyone else in my family, but please, don’t take away my voice. It only makes me feel I have to shout and cry to be heard. And that is truly annoying.
Most importantly in all of this is the learning and the solitude. If I don’t know how to do things, talk to my teacher or the school. Figure out an alternative way for me to learn.
See where I am going and when I am going to “my places”. I go there when I am ignored or have been hurt.
Ask me why I like that one particular tree so much when I go to the Forrest. Why I prefer to sit in that particular space.
When I hurt myself (which I do a lot) ask me gently what happened. Not shout at me for getting hurt again, even if you got scared when I fell down the stairs. And help me dress the wound or lessen the hurt.
These are perhaps the three most important things for that kid. To be seen and heard, to be helped with difficulties either with subjects in school or of a more personal matter, and to be taken care of when hurt.
Don’t make me out to be someone I am not and make me do all the things I didn’t want to do or enjoyed.
I didn’t talk much about what bothered me. I suppressed it all, and being from a family that didn’t talk much about feelings, nobody asked when I got a bit strange and quiet.
If anything was commented about, it was more about how others would perceive me, not that if I was perceived to be a bit depressed, I should stand up straighter and show that I wasn’t. It was never questioned if I was depressed.
Allow me to be me, but see me first. Then you can see what I need help with if I am not able to express it myself. Make me feel safe and cared for. Help me understand the emotions I am feeling and can’t make much sense of. Teach me how to be a human, not just how to be someone’s tool. I am more than that and I deserve more than that.
