Maturing

This blog has become pretty therapeutic for me. It was really hard for me to write my last couple of entries. It was a lot of shit that I kept buried deep inside and over the years I kept piling shit on top of it. After writing it I realized how much of it I haven't thought of in years. Now that I've started peeling of layers of things and dealing with them I am getting down to the issues that have been hard wired in my psyche. It was so tucked away in me that my conscience forgot about it but it was still present in my subconsciousness, so it was still affecting me today. I've really started to deeply analyze my thoughts and emotions lately. I started to think why I hated dealing with the uglier emotions (anger, sadness, resentment etc....) It's because I've seen it growing up and could never understand why my mother was so unhappy and depressed. I defiantly believe now that some things aren't all necessarily genetic but also the environment that you grew up in, the time when your mind is at its peak capacity for learning, and where you develop your psychological "wiring". I think its what, between the ages of 2-8 or something around there. That's why I think its important if you are raising kids to nurture them in a calm and stable environment during these years because of how impressionable their young minds are. Their brains are basically an empty mold and they gain their information through their subconscious. Kids take a lot more in then you would think. I mean I can remember being depressed when I was a younger kid. I'm talking about when I was like 8 years old. I also remember having pretty big temper tantrums when my mom would flip out on me and over discipline me. What does an 8 year old kid have to be depressed about? Plus having your mother being angry and disappointed at you a lot, well you can imagine what it did to my self esteem. I am not blaming my mother for this. I know she didn't do it on purpose. She did the best she could with what she had. I've only heard snippets about her childhood and know it wasn't great either. I think she realizes this now, and this is why I am not really bitter at her anymore. Before I understood it, I hated my mom and put a lot of blame on her. When I was a kid I would step on every crack and hope it would break my mothers back. (geese evil wasn't I?) I was so bitter over my childhood for so long. But that was the anger I had developed from early on. That was the environment I was in and didn't know any better. But now that I've taken an in-depth look at it I realize I wasted a lot of time being bitter and resentful. I was only blocking myself from progressing and becoming a better person. That's where I fucked up. It took me this long to figure that out. I've ruined relationships as well as friendships, the whole time blaming everyone else. I now see where I've fucked up and finally realize that I haven't dealt with things the right way. I guess that means I am maturing? I'm finally seeing the light. I never would have thought that my childhood effected me that much. Like I said, I buried it down deep instead of facing it. I'm glad I've talked it out with my mom. She has and still does continue to apologize. I haven't gone in to detail about the things that have effected me and am kind of conflicted if I should. I don't want to make her feel any worse, but I do want to make sure I deal with it completely. I still have my bad days where I get angry and wish I would've had a "normal" family. But if that would have been the case I probably would have other issues to deal with. Gotta stay away from the would've, could've, should've. That's why they say 1 day at a time. And today I was sober (again)

Josh