The pain of growing up in a non-affectionate household

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“I think if my mother hugged me tight, I would turn into an infant and cry like a child.”

This house has heard nothing but screams ricocheting from the walls. The walls have become nothing but an outlet for frustration and anger. The bathroom was turned into a rage room where I wailed and broke down the quietest. Not having my own room was the worst — I was propelled to hold my grief in until I couldn’t breathe (I hoped my eyes wouldn’t be puffy in the morning). I’ve been forced to cry myself to sleep without my family noticing. We quarreled and had fights that made the dinner table awkward. When one person is mad, all of the people in the household would have to walk on eggshells.

I remember when it was Mother’s Day and I couldn’t greet my mother and aunt because it made me uncomfortable (it took me a whole day before I could croak it out). I remember how I pretended I forgot it was my mother’s birthday because I didn’t know how to greet her without sounding awkward. I still can’t say “thank you” or “please” or “I’m sorry” without feeling like I’m choking out knives or without it coming out as a whisper or as a sneaky remark.

As I grew up, I tended to crave serious conversations and interactions with people. However, once it gets uncomfortably serious and too affectionate I push the potential away. I laugh it off. Make it awkward. Avoid it.

I pitifully witnessed myself coveting the nurture other children had received from their parents.

I have never asked how my sister’s day went, and I have never been asked how I’m doing by my sister.

I have never heard my family say “I love you.” (I know they love me, but I just need to hear it sometimes.)

The pain of growing up in a non-affectionate household is to build an uncomfortable response to affection — to have a fear of vulnerability. To find difficulty in understanding and piecing emotions together.

The pain of growing up in a non-affectionate household is to have your heart broken over the words your mother says when she’s angry — it is to find your family’s fingers pointing at you when something is wrong. You will grow accustomed to your house being on fire and thank the flames for keeping you warm. You will feel embarrassed about feeling sensitive and vulnerable. You will stop yourself from seeking your mother’s comfort because she questions you when you’re crying. The pain of growing up in a non-affectionate household is to receive no spoken apologies after hurting each other… because one moment you were fighting, and then the next moment — you’re talking again as if you didn’t have your soul cut into two.

And even though you won’t understand why, you will find yourself shying away from the affection other people outside your house give you.

The pain of growing up in a non-affectionate household is to learn things the hard way — to learn how to comfort yourself, to learn how to give yourself a pat on the shoulder. To learn how to be brave (or did you learn how to be broken instead?).

The pain of growing up in a non-affectionate household is to experience a damage so fatal you can’t cry it out anymore (no one told me the worst type of pain was the kind that doesn’t allow you to cry).

And you’d feel like the world loathes you so much because it has given you no other choice but to watch other families have all the treasures you’ve been looking for all these years — in your closet, in your mom’s side of the bed, in the kitchen that used to cook all your favorite meals, in the living room where you used to watch your grandmother sleep (you promise to build a home that embraces fragility and encourages gentleness).

The pain of growing up in a non-affectionate household is to feel like you grew up with strangers all your life.

No one would ever understand how excruciating it was to break apart in your own house and have none of the people living in it notice. That’s what being in a non-affectionate household feels like: your pain goes unnoticed. Unacknowledged. Devalued. Unspoken.

The pain of growing up in a non-affectionate household is to yearn every single day for the love and care and gentleness you were deprived of because you desperately need to know what they feel like.

You are tormented by the absence of love. You are tormented by the overbearing presence of impassivity.

And you have to wear this ache like a necklace wherever you go (you might never even know if love’s growing where you go because do you even have any of it to sow?).

That is the pain of growing up in a non-affectionate household: you only learn what affection is when you’re out of the house.

How can love exist everywhere else but not in one’s home?