We all need a place of refuge…

Growing into an adult human is certainly a complex process. On the surface it can kind of look like you just, you know, input food, keep the ends clean and it all happens. Of course it is nothing like such a simple process as that, though, caring for the physical needs is certainly of paramount importance to the healthy development of a human person throughout the lifecycle.

But, I would say, the most important part of growing is a healthy sense of self, an understanding of one’s internal life, an ability to interface with that and to build resiliance in dealing with difficult times. In order to do this, I believe a really important part of this is a place of refuge, a light on the hill that is a place of safety, sustenance in the physical, emotional, mental and intellectual domains.

Without putting a too finer a point on it, my immediate family or origin was not a place of refuge, it was a place of horror. As a child I had to find other places that could be that for me. It wasn’t easy and it was never perfect but I did manage to find them. I have grown into an adult, and I put that down to the fact that I did find them, I am thoroughly convinced that I would never have managed that, without the places of refuge I found.

My father was and remains a monster, my mother is not a monster, but in order to survive she has taken on many of the behaviours of my father. My childhood was hell. There are lots of reasons for this, being trans and being forced to repress it, being autistic and undiagnosed, having terrible family of origin and moving house many times were all significant contributors to this being the case. Whilst my immediate family of origin was it’s own little fresh example of hell, much of my extended family, in particular on my mother’s side, was far from this, and was time and time again the only place of refuge I could ever find.

As a child, I was constantly told in my family that I was, useless, pathetic, bad, naughty, a failure, would never amount to anything. These messages were driven home with the force of rage filled beatings and sexual abuse by my father. As a neurodivergent trans child playing the role of a boy, attending multiple schools in multiple places across my schooling did little to assist. I was bullied relentlessly, I guess, for being different.

I did have a few teachers, who I think made attempts to push positive messages my way. They did so with a bit of ineptitude, for example, they would suggest on regular occassions that I was failing to perform to my potential or to expectation. They were, I believe without doubt, attempting to present to me that I wasn’t a useless failure that would amount to anything, but, that I was in fact an intelligent young person with potential to achieve my dreams.

Unfortunately I never heard or read it as that. I read it and heard it always as a confirmation of the messages I recieved from my family of origin. And if I for a moment tried to think of them in any other way, that family of origin was quick to dispell that and ensure I did receive it negatively.

Such was my family life. I don’t mean this to be a poor me post. My life was what it was. I survived it. I’ve moved through various phases with various levels of success and gradually, slowly but surely been dismantling and erasing the negative messaging I recieved.

I don’t know for sure, and this is not a piece based on research it is personal reflection and thought, but I believe the reason I have been able to do so is that the places of refuge I found, as a young child, were able to write some form of positive messaging into my subconscience. I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but I think this is true.

My grandparents were that place of refuge. They expressed love and acceptance of me, a light on the hill as it were, amongst endless flatlands of negativity and non acceptance. My grandma particularly always made me feel safe. She made it clear to me that, I was loved, important, valuable and all those good messages children should receive.

My Grandfather, was a strong, solid, and very safe man. He stood in contrast to the rageful monster that was my father. Interaction with my grandfather was not massive, but his presence, his being the safe man that he was, somehow encoded similar messages of being loved, important valuable and so forth.

My grandmother, never made it obvious, and yet, somehow I knew there was a special bond between us. That little bit extra she would give for me, that having me to stay nearly every term holidays, that always finding the money to take me out to a movie and a meal even when things were tight.

As I grew older, progressed through childhood and adolescence, it was my Grandma who was able to subtly and surely let me know she saw the horror, she saw how poorly my family treated me and proclaimed it to be not how it should be. Those little moments of exchange, somehow, whilst not a rescue were an incredibly important refuge. They provided an impetus to go on, an understanding that the internal messaging within me that always maintained the unfairness, the injustice of how I was being treated by my family was not just all in my head.

We all need a place of refuge, no matter how fleeting or pure, we all need it and I believe, it can be, the difference between life and death. I am pretty sure it was that difference for me.

Of course it wasn’t perfect, the cognitive dissonance I felt at knowing that they knew, and yet didn’t act to protect me was at times extremely difficult to bear. It seemed so inconceivable that they could understand, see the things that occurred and yet not act to remove or take steps for child services to intervene.

Extended families are complex things, relationships, history, disagreements and all of those things intermix with each other and have implications for the way actions or inactions occur I think. I think in the case of my grandparents, the fear of losing forever a relationship with their eldest daughter, compounded with nearly losing her through illness as a baby and an earlier extended period of non contact weighed heavily on their decisions in acting or not acting in terms of the situation they saw occurring with their grandchild in front of their eyes.

I think the take away for me, is that yes, we do all need a place of refuge. We really do, it may or may not be perfect, indeed, more than likely it will be flawed, as the reality is that we are all flawed as people. But a place of refuge, as perfect or imperfect as it may be, could just be the difference, between life and death.

My grandparents, they saw that in some sense, they provided an imperfect place of refuge, they very much played a role that is likely the reason I survived childhood and got to adulthood as the flawed human person I am. Perhaps you are or could be that imperfect but much needed place of refuge for someone else.

We all need a place of refuge, may we all be that place of refuge, as imperfect and flawed as we are, for another human person and in some way contribute to them making sense of all the shit that their life is.