2 – The Beginning

First off, I would like to apologize for the large gap between my first post and this one. I was in a week long training and was doing some “networking” with some buddies, so I was unable to sit gather my thoughts for my second post. So anyway, here’s The Beginning.

I chose to call this one “The Beginning” because I am attempting to use this as a chronological layout (but I am old, as most of my colleagues, my son and my wife like to point out, so I may bounce around a bit) of not only my life with the Imposter, but how he, or rather “they,” were born. And no, this is not some pronoun thing, I don’t play that game. I realized through my journey that it is not one overarching voice that insists that I am not worthy or tells me that one day they’re (everyone around me) going to find out that I am a fraud, but rather a committee of past “me’s” and other influences in my life. I am sure, if you are living with the Imposter, or Committee, you understand this completely.

One thing I want to clarify, I did not start this venture to place blame on anyone whatsoever, I wholeheartedly believe that everyone around me growing up, did the best they could with the information they had at the time. I do not believe any of it was intentional, nor would I ever intend to insinuate that. That being said, I do believe that a couple people you will hear about soon, did some pretty harsh things for their own benefit or to fulfill their narcissism, but I can honestly say that I do not believe it was done to me on purpose. It would have been done, and was done to most of those around them, regardless of relationship, age, etc. Disclaimer aside, let’s get back to it.

One of my earliest memories, was after my parents divorced. It was not a particularly clean divorce, and both parents had remarried. I was around five years old. The custody battle had more or less ended, and I remember my dad, let’s call him “Q”, coming to pick me up from the quaint little home I lived at with my mom, “C” and my stepdad “R” (will explain more later on R). I believe it was a Tuesday night, and I only remember this because the custody plan was for me to be with Q on Tuesday evenings for an hour (I think?) and every other weekend. Q picked me up with his new wife, and I remember him carrying me across the street to his Dodge Ramcharger. I don’t exactly remember what we did that night, maybe go to their house briefly, or maybe a park, not important. I don’t recall any sort of the Imposter at that time, as I did not have a ton of life experience to base it off of, and my innocence was still intact, other than being from a “broken family.” I was the only child in both families at this time, so most of the attention was on me.

Fast forward a couple years, because my old man memory doesn’t compute much in between, my little brother, “M” was born to Q and his wife “K”. About six months later, almost exactly, “RJ” was born to C and R. So within about six months, I went from the only child from my now split family to two families with brand new baby boys, one on each side. I was six-six and a half, and I was no longer the center of my parents’, all four of them, nor my grandparents’ lives. However, because of the age gap, it wasn’t like I was going to play with these little shit machines (sorry M & RJ if you’re reading this 😂), so I had to become independent and find things to do on my own. Both families were made of working people, plus tending to these baby assholes that stole my glory all the time (I really don’t think this way about them, but I am the big brother so I can talk a little shit here and there), so time with the only people I really knew was now limited. Later I did make some friends, some I still have some sporadic contact some 37 years later, but during this period, it was just me.

At the time, I remember it hurting my feelings that they got all the attention, not their fault obviously, and I honestly don’t have any dormant feeling that would allude to that, my feelings of resentment were to the ones that took care of me, or sometimes pretended to take care of me. This is the point, about seven-ish years old, when I first began thinking that I was not good enough. Eventually, the resentment did bloom a little towards my two brothers, and later my little sister, but I would almost lean more toward jealousy, rather than resentment. Nowadays, that feeling is long past with M and my little sister, “MK”, but there is still a bit of these feelings with RJ, which I will expound upon throughout the journey. I believe this because my main residence was in the same house with RJ, so it was much more visible to me on a daily basis. With M and MK, we only saw each other briefly every other weekend, and a lot of that time, I was the one caring for them. Due to these circumstances, the jealousy and maybe a touch of resentment sort of washed away with them two, because unfortunately, they were just blips in my life. We have a much better relationship now, although we do not talk a lot, and we live across the country from each other, but we talk when we need to, no hard or harsh feelings (at least from my side, I can’t speak for them).

Weekends at Q and K’s house were much different than my mom and R’s, different dynamics, different styles of pretty much everything, décor, parenting styles, location, expectations, etc. At the Q&K household, I was looked upon as the live in babysitter, no requests to use my services, no rewards for doing an adult’s job at the age of seven to whenever (regardless, too young to be saddled with taking care of two toddlers), all while Q&K were, more or less, nowhere to be found much less bothered. I was in charge of making sure M&MK were fed, changed and put down for their naps. Occasionally I would be able to get out in whatever neighborhood we were living that year, to try to make friends which proved to be mostly futile. I have always been able to make friends quickly, and I would but they pretty much all became temporary friends because of the constant bouncing around different residences with Q&K, not to mention, only being there a total of about 5 days a month. Resentment building. Not for M&MK, but for Q&K.

Not much time went by until I made it known that I did not want to go over to Q&K’s house, for a litany of reasons. There was nothing to do, all of my “stuff” and friends were at C&R’s, I was always watching the kids, trying to entertain two children while being a child is not the business, and just the general feeling around Q&K. I will try to keep their private lives private, but I know they both (if Q was alive) would agree that their marriage was toxic at best. Why that is, is between them, I have a pretty good grasp on it now, but it is not my laundry to air out. Bottom line, it was not a happy, loving place for children to thrive.

After a couple of years of having to fend for myself for the most part, I was looked at by both sets of parents as the one that can figure things out on his own. In the Q&K household, I had shown that M&MK could be taken care of without much help from Q&K, and at the C&R household, a lot of time was spent with a less-than easy child in RJ. Again, no blame on any of the siblings whatsoever, and both sets of parents, IMO, were kind of happy to have one child they could treat like a vertical chicken cooker, for those of you that are too young for that reference, the tagline for this product was “SET IT… AND FORGET IT!” Doing the best with the knowledge they had at the time. Also remember, this was all the way back in the late 1900s, somewhere around 1988-1991ish, so the internet wasn’t even on the horizon for another almost decade. We had to go to actual libraries and learn the Dewey Decimal System (don’t even get me started) and check out actual books if we wanted to learn anything.

I digress, our parents’ generations mostly relied on what they saw and learned in their journey to parenthood. Long lasting echoes of love, tradition, acceptance, toxicity, alcoholism, depression, and every other feeling that every single parent or step-parent in the universe has learned from previous generations, but may try to tweak a little to give the next generation a better life experience from what they grew up knowing.

That is why I am here. To be better, to help others be better, and to show those I love and whom love me, that I know mistakes have been made, mistakes will continue to be made (hopefully less drastic ones, less frequently), but I have taken it upon myself to live a healthier life mentally, spiritually and physically.

Stay tuned for Post #3: The Chairman

Thank you. -Mike