Self-Criticism

   

               I'm having one of those moments today where I'm completely criticizing everything I've done in my life to get to the point where I am now. It's distracting me for my work and I need to get it out of my brain so that I can continue and try to do better at this career.

I imagine myself sitting on my grandparents dock after lake. A child. Innocent. Teenager, horny but not knowing what to do with life. Homeschooled, not understanding how the world works after being sheltered for so long. I depended on my adopted parents to help me figure out where I was going to go and what I was going to do with my life. But it's now clear that at 17 years old they had no idea what to do with me. They made a last-minute decision to throw me into the military even though I was sheltered, and had many unresolved emotional issues that they never had time to help me through. In the military I was scared, lost, confused, I didn't even know how to order something at McDonald's. I felt alone. So unbelievably alone and sad. I was thousands and thousands of miles away from my parents that raised me and my sisters, all alone in the military with its brash harsh atmosphere. I didn't want to be there. I see now what their theory was because with the last minute decision that they made that would have been the best chance at a good career for me having no prospects. Those prospects should have been worked on as soon as I hit my teen years at 13 years old. But looking back in retrospect they didn't help any of the sisters figure out any big career choices either. It's like they didn't know what to do, they were very confused as parents.

In the military my issues with my birth mom and having somebody to look to as a mother became very clear now I see in retrospect. I was a virgin in the military but I would cling to females like they were the last ditch hope of life. Most of them disregarded me and just laughed it off but then the mother of my daughter came along and dated me. I specifically remember she went home to visit family from North Dakota at one point and I would just sit on her dorm bed and cry missing her. These behaviors were not normal at all. I had put that woman in the spot of my mother and I was listening to every single word she ever told me whenever she said it. As we got pregnant, I work so hard to make that relationship stay together but she knew and could see that there was something seriously wrong. I saw her as almost a mother figure and it was a very disillusioned relationship that I didn't realize was so broken.

Not to mention she was flawed herself, I would have outranked her in the military and she needed power. Her narcissism caused her to convince me to get out of the military after only three and a half years so that she could get her base preferences instead of mine. And like a puppy following its mother ice happily agreed to do exactly what she wanted completely ruining my career. I would have retired this year from the military at 38 years old, my finances would have been set up beautifully and I would have had a great life. But unfortunately the adults in my life, the parental figures from the time I was born to the time I left for the military didn't do as they were supposed to.

I can only hope and pray that I do better as a parent. And now I'm dealing with a second ex-wife that's also got narcissism. I didn't realize that I'd fallen right back into the trap when I met this woman. the court doesn't even listen when she's taking me for almost every bit of my money and hardly allowing me to survive financially. My finances and career are a disaster. At 38 years old I shouldn't be where I am right now making the money that I'm making. My dreams of being a basketball star, Hollywood star, or something else crazy like that from when I was a kid sitting on that dock and my grandparents lake seem like far memories. I still feel that enthusiasm somewhere down deep but obviously it has died away as I am much older. I wish so bad that I had somebody guiding me through life when I was a kid. Letting me know what was going to happen and how it was going to happen. I wish so bad that I was warned about all the things I would encounter getting shipped off by myself as a virgin in the military. I didn't even know what a condom was. I wish so bad things were different but they can't be. It's in the past now and I have to accept that. I just continue to try and conquer this life before my sons realize I don't have it together. And that's so heartbreaking for me. I must continue, I must push forward I must be better.