Abandoned Again, Essay Example

“A mother has tremendous psychological power. The emotional bond a man has with his mother is likely to be the most deeply rooted connection in his life. For many boys she is the only person they can trust. If a boy doesn’t have that kind of relationship with her, he can suffer a devastating loss.” (Kindon & Thompson, 2000)

I lost my father to suicide when I was very young. The loss cuts deeper than is possible for an adult –let alone a young child- to describe; it is the ultimate abandonment. Divorce, as devastating as it can be, at least allows for, in the best circumstances, the possibility of a maintained and ongoing relationship between the “missing” parent and the “abandoned” children. Suicide, on the other hand, carries a permanence that is simply unmatched by any other situation. There will never again be any contact between the “missing” parent and the “abandoned” child, and it must, in nearly all cases, be incredibly devastating to the children left behind.

I naturally carried the emotional weight of this loss with me every moment of every day; as I entered adolescence, this weight was suddenly compounded by the fact that my mother entered a new relationship. As adolescents often do, we quickly adapted to this new routine, and to some degree I think we even enjoyed this new-found sense of freedom, despite the fact that it also carried a sense of foreboding, a feeling that things would be changing in ways that we might find unpleasant.

My suspicions were borne out when, without warning, my mother and her new companion invited us out to diner. Considering that they had rarely, if ever, included us in any of their new activities, I was instantly filled with a sense of dread, with a feeling that this we were about to issued a bulletin of unpleasant news, news of which we would have little to say about and would simply be expected to follow accordingly. My suspicions proved to be entirely correct, and as we ate what felt like a last meal for a death-row prisoner, my mother announced that she would be putting our home up for rent, and that she, my sister, and I would be moving in with this man, this completely un-father-like father figure that we hardly knew, let alone cared about.

I felt scared at hearing that news, but what made everything worse was when my mother went to the restroom. I was left alone with this man I hardly knew. Then my world fell apart. He told me that we could live with them only because my mother was there, but that he personally did not want me or my sister with them. At that moment I felt abandoned again, like when my father died, angry, scared, depressed, confused, and I was also worried for my sister. The rest of the night I just sat there in shock and speechless.

Reflecting on the situation, I can intellectualize and in some ways understand what I was going through then –and what I still carry with me from those earlier, formative moments. I was still developing biologically, cognitively, and emotionally, and the trauma of these events certainly affected –and marred- my development in these areas. As a young adolescent, I was still developing my own identity, I was still in the process of becoming the adult I would eventually grow to be; it is impossible to truly understand who I am now without examining those events that helped shape my very growth and development.

In many ways, the adolescent human brain is still in its infancy, as it is constantly receiving and processing new information, information that will continue to shape and develop it for many years beyond the physical intimacy of human childhood (Santrock, 2006). Santrock posits that the emotional part of the brain develops more quickly than the rational part of the brain; this imbalance can easily be seen as a problematic situation in terms of developing humans coming to terms with the world around them as they grow and develop (Santrock, 2006). According to cognitive theorist Jean Paget, I was at an age where I was beginning to develop a range of intellectual responses to emotionally and intellectually challenging stimuli; still, I was quite overwhelmed by this sudden news, and the emotional “side” of my development simply overloaded the circuitry of my cognitive development, leaving me a virtual zombie, utterly devoid of any response, either positive or negative, to the situation. Again, according to Paget, I was at the earliest stages of developing broader cognitive responses to unusual and challenging situations, quite literally developing my capacity to respond to “what if?” scenarios (exactly like the one I was faced with at that moment). Nonetheless, they were signs of development both at a cognitive and an emotional level.

The thing I have learned as a student (not just a student in school, but a student of life), is that I was not alone in what I was suffering. Nothing I discover s an adult will lessen the pain I felt as that young, scared child who felt utterly abandoned by those he loved, but I have learned enough to know that many have suffered along with me, and that many have survived, and even thrived, after suffering through such fears. And for this, I am now less afraid, and I am, most importantly, grateful.

References

Dan Kindlon, M. T. (2000). Raising Cain:Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys. New York: Ballantine Books.

Santrock, J. W. (2006). Life-Span Development. New York: McGraw-Hill.