Middle Child

I had learned to live with it. Being a middle child, that is. I had to or else I'll be sick in the head. You'd think it was only the child's unhappy memories of childhood, but that is the main reason why I decided to become a teacher and why I'm so afraid sometimes that I'll scar a child forever.

Because I was.

The problem with being a middle child is that no one really notices you, unless you've done something really really wrong, and then they'll chalk it all up to you starving for attention. And they'll leave it at that. They never ask why you are starving for attention. I can hole myself up the whole day in my room and no one will bother to look for me. Oh, they are used to it by now, and they know better than to go knocking on my door when it is locked, but when you are child, and you locked yourself up in your room, day in and day out and no one even calls you for dinner time, it sends a message to your brain, and to your heart.

And the thing is, no matter how much you understand, it never really eases the pain.

I love psychology, and my interest started when I was asking myself why. I was starting my teenage years and I was already studying psychology without knowing it. I looked up everything I can find, why people do what they do. And I know it's not my parents' fault, and it's not mine, but deep-rooted insecurities has to come from somewhere and me, I know it came from feeling unwanted, and unloved my whole childhood years.

Oh, I know some people are worse off than what I've lived through. Some people get beaten, and told in the face that they are unwanted. I wasn't one of those. But I'm also not exaggerating. I can count in the fingers of my one hand the moments I feel loved during those times. Whenever I'm in a dark place, I keep replaying one of those moments in my head, like a broken record, wishing fervently I had more to choose from.

It wasn't until I graduated from college that I started to heal. And not because they changed their ways, or they finally noticed that I'm here, but because I've already accepted my place in my family.

Don't get me wrong. I love my parents. My brother. But when you grow up hungry for love, and attention, you cherish those people who give it to you. That's why I love my sister more than my parents. There, I've said it. Such a taboo thing to say, not to love your parents above everybody else, but that is the truth.

I'm not an easy person to love. My parents didn't have it easy when I was growing up. I was always the bad daughter, the black sheep of the family. And I almost lived up to their expectations of being a black sheep. Until I learned that when you tell someone that they are like this, for example a bad daughter, then, they will believe it themselves and will fulfill that prophecy. It took me years to understand, years to have some semblance of confidence in myself, and years to not hide behind my air of independence anymore.

I don't know what I'll be like if my childhood was happy. If I was indulged my whims, given special attention to, and always hugged. Maybe I won't have so many issues. Maybe I'll be married, or have many achievements. Or maybe I'll be a brat, spoiled rotten, and not know independence if it dance in front of me.

I wouldn't be me if my past wasn't like that. I wouldn't be the person I am now. And there's no use blaming my parents for my unhappy childhood. That much I learned from all those psychology texts I've read in the past.

We all go through this phase once in a while. This feeling of being unloved by the world. I get it almost everyday when I was a child, more when I was a teenager, and less when I became an adult. Today, it was only triggered by a small incident. Mad Max was badly scratched when my dad borrowed him. I was thrown into a panic. Although it was only a scratch, I feel bad that my car got scratched even when I was sitting home alone. And I was asking them if they know someone who can fix him. They looked at me for a second, and then returned to watching TV as if I'm some sort of bother asking for a loose change or something.

I know, I know. It's such a little thing. But it's little things like that that filled my childhood with misery and it was just such a glaring reminder of how it was back then that I locked myself now in this room and write. And I know they don't realized how much Mad Max means to me. I didn't get to save anything because for 2 years I was paying for Mad Max. They were not even planning to let me drive, so I took it upon myself to look for a job that will get me a car, so I can be independent. And I didn't get one ounce of support from them. Later, when I quit my job, yes. And that means a lot, and I really appreciate their support, but in the beginning, it was just Mad Max and me.

Funny, how even after so many years, even when I'm already nearing 30, with just one tiny incident of being ignored, it can bring me back to those dark times and place that I thought I already locked up and had thrown away the key.

I didn't know my parents have always had the key.