Although I have a few serious issues that I am working on, there is one particular issue that I would like to work towards resolving.
When I was almost sixteen(in the early 1970's), I was a dedicated track athlete competing in provincial and some national competitions. This involved some traveling and overnight stays at other cities etc. At one competition in another city, I was the only athlete attending from our club. My father and I shared a room at the hotel for one night. That night we each went to bed. As I was laying in my bed, my father said he really missed my mom (they had a terrible relationship and were actually almost separated), and he asked me if I wanted to lay down beside him. I just layed in my own bed in shock, petrified and pretended to be asleep and not hear what he had just said. My mind was racing about what I would or could do if he came over to my bed.
Could I run out to the hotel lobby (in my pajamas) and tell the night clerk what was happening??? I layed there and nothing else happened and my father never said anything more. I eventually went to sleep of some kind. When I woke up in the morning, I had a competition to do, so we both just got up and went to the competition as if nothing ever happened. I was never the same after that incident. My life went in a downward spiral throughout the rest of high school and I was not able to get the counselling help I needed. Everyone had thought I was a multi successful young student anyways. I ended up quiting track, losing my social group, and dropping from an honours student to not having enough credits to graduate from high school. I suffered from uncontrollable crying, breaking down during class time at school, and become eating disordered. I tried to make myself physically sick with pills, but no one noticed as I was usually alone. Then I left home at the end of grade 12 and moved to another city (I attended university on the basis of the course work I had completed even though I had not officially graduated from high school).
Now it is thirty years later and I still have this issue. I feel guilty for allowing myself to be so affected by this incident. It's like the incident has had this huge affect on me, out of proportion to what it should have.
I hope that I will gain some insight from others about what happened to me and what is continuing to cause me distress over the experience that I described as well as ideas for helping to resolve this.
When I was almost sixteen(in the early 1970's), I was a dedicated track athlete competing in provincial and some national competitions. This involved some traveling and overnight stays at other cities etc. At one competition in another city, I was the only athlete attending from our club. My father and I shared a room at the hotel for one night. That night we each went to bed. As I was laying in my bed, my father said he really missed my mom (they had a terrible relationship and were actually almost separated), and he asked me if I wanted to lay down beside him. I just layed in my own bed in shock, petrified and pretended to be asleep and not hear what he had just said. My mind was racing about what I would or could do if he came over to my bed.
Could I run out to the hotel lobby (in my pajamas) and tell the night clerk what was happening??? I layed there and nothing else happened and my father never said anything more. I eventually went to sleep of some kind. When I woke up in the morning, I had a competition to do, so we both just got up and went to the competition as if nothing ever happened. I was never the same after that incident. My life went in a downward spiral throughout the rest of high school and I was not able to get the counselling help I needed. Everyone had thought I was a multi successful young student anyways. I ended up quiting track, losing my social group, and dropping from an honours student to not having enough credits to graduate from high school. I suffered from uncontrollable crying, breaking down during class time at school, and become eating disordered. I tried to make myself physically sick with pills, but no one noticed as I was usually alone. Then I left home at the end of grade 12 and moved to another city (I attended university on the basis of the course work I had completed even though I had not officially graduated from high school).
Now it is thirty years later and I still have this issue. I feel guilty for allowing myself to be so affected by this incident. It's like the incident has had this huge affect on me, out of proportion to what it should have.
I hope that I will gain some insight from others about what happened to me and what is continuing to cause me distress over the experience that I described as well as ideas for helping to resolve this.
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