Growing Up In A Single-Parent Household Left A Scar In Me

Things in life happen and there is a point where we accept it, but will truly never get over it. I've had already accepted it a long time ago but it's still left a scar in me that only people who have gone through it will understand. In this article, I will be briefly be sharing my story and how it has had an impact on my life.

Growing up in a single parent household felt normal growing up. My parents split up when I was around 5 or 6 years old. I remember being a kid and noticing how things were changing. Luckily I was not around the actual problems that caused my parents to split up. I was too young to wrap my head around exactly what was going on. I remember the memories of my parents split up and spending time with each other at different times apart.

Things got harder on me on the inside when my dad moved out of state. He wasn't far away but as a kid, it was far enough to still feel distance between us. Of course, we always kept in contact and he would come down to visit and I would go visit him. As time went on it got easier and more normal feeling. As I get older, I question a lot about how life would have been if things were completely different.

Of course, I am happy now but I'll never get over the fact that I was not able that structure as a kid and through my teen years. Having additional close family took a lot of that pain away and made it a lot easier, but there is something about having both parents together makes it a different type of bond.

My mom and I lived together and she worked a lot so I was mainly at my grandparent's house a lot as a child, which was really fun. I spent most of my time being more independent and more time alone the older I got. It probably wasn't the healthiest thing to do but I wanted to be home not just at my grandparents all the time. There is something about being in your own home where your parent lives compared to anywhere else.

I would wait for my mom to come home all the time. As time went on, internally, I started to isolate myself. In the moment it felt normal, but as I adventured off to other things and experienced new things, it created a lot of anxiety, especially social anxiety. It's slowly starting to catch up to me now especially as I meet new people and get into relationships. I always have my guard up, which is good but also I'm seeing the flaws in why it is bad all the time.

Because of how I grew up, I naturally had to have my guard because I was taught to be like that and always being independent. At the same time, I feel like I do unhealthy things like trying to make everyone my best friend if I feel like I can connect with them on something. It's weird, I move too fast on things and I can see it may be because of my lifestyle growing up. I realize for my life there is a lot of things that will be done differently for my future family and I. There are things in particular that I want to break the cycle quick on, which would be having my kids in a 2 parent equal home, happily.