My Childhood

Chapter 9

When I think about my time on the planet I am extremely grateful my parents were able to teach me enough practical life skills and principles that enabled me to lead a relatively happy, productive and satisfying life. However, I also know that both my mother and father had their own untreated childhood wounds of which they were both unaware. Regrettably this left a void in their parenting ability. And so with all their best intentions they were unfortunately unable to raise me with sufficient feelings of self-love and self-worth.

My parents were good people…thoughtful, caring, protective. However, both were emotionally unavailable and physically unaffectionate. Feelings were never identified, acknowledged or expressed. My father was also an alcoholic and a womanizer who left our family when I was seventeen. My mother was often overpowering, controlling, critical and judgmental. They were both extremely good looking. I never saw them touch, hug or kiss each other, any of my three brothers or me. I never heard one of them say to the other: “I love you.” I don’t remember either of them ever saying to me, “I love you.”

As my brothers and I grew up I was always grateful my mother made sure that no expense was ever spared for our education, culture and recreation. In fact externally we really had a positive exposure to life. Unfortunately there was never enough money to pay for it. For much of my childhood my parents constantly fought. Most often it would be my dad yelling at my mother for spending money we didn’t have, “on the kids” and putting him in debt. I figured my brothers and I were to blame and it was probably why I sometimes felt my dad didn’t like me.

By the time I was a teenager my parents fighting had escalated. However, the role of attacker had switched. No longer was my father yelling at my mother for putting him in debt because of “the boys.” Now it was my mother who would scream at my father about his extramarital affairs. Often he would come home from long trips or long nights smelling of scotch and women.

For years I tried everything to prevent their fighting and make them get along with each other. To protect myself from their horrible scary fighting I unconsciously became hyper-vigilant. I would search for the tiniest behavioral signs in their facial expressions or body language that might indicate an imminent explosion. When I saw or felt even the slightest foreshadowing of a fight I would do or say anything that would hopefully create a diversion. If I sensed even the slightest tension I would try to be funny and make one of them laugh. Eventually I even found myself doing this in situations with people other than my parents. In fact I would try anything to have people get along with each other and prevent any potential form of anger or violence.

I have often thought that the powerful connection I felt with horses had its roots in these same two qualities found in their genetic hardwired survival skills. The first being hypervigilant, especially in reading body language, and the second is herd dynamics and their ability to peacefully work out differences and establish a respected pecking in order get along and live together in the safety of large herds. These are also the two primary characteristics that have enabled their species to survive for millions of years.

The summer after my father left home and my mother finally stopped crying I had my first beer. In fact I had two. I immediately felt something I had never felt before and can remember as if it was yesterday…I liked myself…and I felt comfortable in my own skin. I drank for the next 20 years. I loved the way it made me feel. What I didn’t realize was that it wasn’t so much that I liked how I felt when I drank, it was that drinking enabled me to not feel all the painful emotional wounds from my childhood. Feelings of shame, inadequacy and fear. However, if someone were to ask me if I thought I had had a rough childhood, my answer would have always been: “It wasn’t that bad.”

I remember there were times I wondered if I was drinking too much and perhaps I should stop. These turned out to be of little consequence for in order to continue and prove to myself that I was in control of my drinking, I would stop every now and then. However, no matter how many times I tried, I couldn’t stay stopped. And just like my father I discovered I too was an alcoholic.

In 1982, twenty years after my first beer, I did something that eventually led me to a life of overwhelming joy, love, self-fulfillment and gratitude…I stopped drinking and have remained sober ever since. Today when I say this was the best thing that ever happened to me it’s not only because I quit drinking. Getting sober compelled me to discover and feel all my previously unconscious painful emotions from childhood. This in turn motivated me to ask for help in finding ways I could heal my old underlying feelings of inadequacy, hurt, anger and sadness.

As time went on one of the most wondrous yet completely unexpected gifts of sobriety was discovering a love and passion for horses I never knew had been living deep inside me.

Earnest Hemingway said, “Life breaks everyone. Some get strong in the broken places.” Two of my strengths began to develop early in childhood in order to protect myself. First I became hypervigilant. This enabled me to read my parent’s - and eventually anyone’s – facial expressions and body language to quickly intervene and prevent a possible fight. Second I became exceptionally proficient at getting along with people and having them get along with each other. Although these were both skills I needed to survive the traumatic fights of my parents, they ironically turned out to be identical to the two primary survival skills of horses. And just like my students in the years that followed, I saw myself in horses and horses saw themselves in me.