Pippa World: Being Open

If I say "that poem by Larkin" you know the one I mean right? It's called This Be The Verse, and I think most people know the first couple of lines.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.

Well, my parents truly did a number on me.

I had a brilliant childhood, I really did. I was loved, I was cared for, I was hugged and fed and watered and all the millions of little things that we all want for our children.

I was also taught, that what happened in the family, stayed in the family. We didn't air our dirty laundry in public. We didn't dignify some things with a response. We didn't talk about Bruno...

When I was talking with my counsellor, not long after I first started seeing her I had mentioned something about my childhood that she started to pick at. Slowly she let me unpick the situation I had mentioned and as I looked at it with the eyes of an adult I suddenly realised a little bit of why I am so fucked up.

My parents didn't mean to but they filled me up with all their faults and added some extra too.

It's one of these faults that mean I find it incredibly hard to be open with people.

In my head, anything that is going wrong, anything that is bad or negative or something that isn't socially accepted is kept quiet.

It's why I don't think I understood I was depressed until I wasn't. It's why I didn't talk about my mental health and it's 100% why I didn't tell my Mum I was seeing a counsellor and even now feel bad mentioning her in public.

Only these last couple of weeks, I've had to be open. Situations have forced my hand, where the only thing I could do was face my issues head on and I needed those whom I care about to be with me.