Nihilist Cowboy

A Sick Man, A Spiteful Man, An Unattractive Man
2021-01-24 16:05:00 (UTC)

Reflection Exercise Addendum 1 Alienation: Childhood and Family

Addendum 1 Alienation: Childhood and Family

Over the last few reflection exercises that I have been doing on my Udemy course I have noticed that a theme that keeps popping up in almost every single entry is alienation. This prevailing notion of being different, of being isolated from others is a thought that has stuck with me for as far as I can remember but why? What has created this all encompassing feeling of “difference” from others? The thought is most certainly irrational. An example would be during Christmas I worked and then went to my aunt and uncle’s house. I felt out of place like I did not belong, the thought running through my head was that I was a trespasser in their home. I got there after leaving work, so I just sat to myself while my mom had tons of conversations about relatives having kids, church, and Dallas Cowboys. While I do have a hard time relating to others, relating to conversations about kids, Jesus, and football, but why on Earth would I feel like a trespasser in my relative’s home?
Alienation is not an abstract concept that I discovered after reading Nietzshe and Camus like an edgy teenager at the age of 25. This feeling has enveloped me for as long as I can remember. This memory of my first week in kindergarten has popped up in my mind after being long repressed. During elementary school, we spent 30 minutes a day in the music and art room. I can remember our music teacher Mrs. Beasley making some game something like musical chairs, something where we had to run across the room and change seats, I cannot remember. What I can remember is that I decided to be creepo at the age of 6 and I wanted to be friends with a girl in my class named Cristyn. So I kept running around the room trying to sit by her during this game. After a few times she yelled “stop trying to sit by me you wierdo!” That was a pattern that lasted the next 15 years or so. I cannot for the life of me remember why I wanted to be friends with Cristyn so badly. I thought girls were gross and had cooties until the 7th grade? I have no idea why this event from Kindergarten decided to pop up in my head today.
The sense of not belonging was also prevalent at home just as much as in school. My parents were two people that should have never been married, and I do not see how they could stand each other to even be married for the few years that they were married. Due to my parents fighting and differences in thoughts of life I never felt like I truly belonged. My mom is still your typical Southern Baptist, grew up dirt poor and from the working class, while my dad is Roman Catholic and came from a middle class background. I constantly heard from one parent how the other parent was awful, wrong, and going to hell. My dad said my mom and family were white trash, while my mom called my dad a judgmental snob.
Even in adulthood, when I am around my dad’s family I do not relate when they discuss vacations, buying second homes, toys, motorcycles, hunting leases etc. I am just the poor kid from the oldest son’s first ex wife. As mentioned above, when around mom’s family I am college educated, don’t love church, and not a big fan of the Southern Baptist God. With all of this, I am not convinced that correlation equals causation in my case. Many people have families of differing values, many people have a crap childhood but have a grip on reality and feel like they are included. I totally clicked with Meursault in Camus’ the stranger.
I do love my folks regardless of feeing different and out of place. I was able to let go of the hate that I had for my dad at the age of 23 and we have an extremely good relationship these days. Regardless, this alienation has plagued me for years and I don’t anticipate in going away anytime soon.
Let’s return the discussion back to school, as I progressed through elementary school I did manage to find a few friends and I certainly had some good memories, had a few sleepovers, got to do some fun stuff in Cub Scouts, my mom was the den leader, cubmaster etc. Even with some good memories of childhood, the bad memories persisted and I just always felt like I did not belong anywhere. I was emotionally and physically abused by both my dad and stepmother but that is a completely different discussion that will be delved into at another time. Ending elementary and going into middle school, I felt different and out of place. Once I hit middle school things took a dart turn where out of place turned into alienation, feeling broken, and even feeling subhuman.




Ad: