There’s something about Buckingham Street that, to this day, doesn’t sit right in my psyche. Even years later, if I happen to be near the area, I can feel the trauma from living there still alive in my body.
Years ago, I took a walk around where the building used to be as a part of my processing. It has since been torn down and is now a parking lot, which doesn’t surprise me in the least. Even when I lived there, the conditions of the place were shady.
The police and fire department were no strangers to the building, often having to show up to evacuate the building for whatever reason. Our apartment was even flooded, causing us to move into another apartment due to the damage sustained.
The upstairs neighbor had left the water running in the bathtub. Now, I question the legitimacy of this and can’t help but wonder if it was something more disturbing that actually happened. That building was full of weird people, us included.
There were three floors to the building. People often came and went, so when apartments were vacant, we loved to explore them and create stories about the people who had lived there. Sometimes, people would leave things behind that would answer our questions about them.
Once, we found a bird’s nest in the window of one of the third-floor bedrooms. Everyone was in awe over the egg that hadn’t hatched yet. Jealous of the egg’s attention, I accidentally knocked it out of the window. I watched it fall three stories and ran back to tell my mom it had fallen. I can still remember the look on her face; she knew I did it, but she was surprised by my actions.
As a way of letting out my hurt from my absent mother, I would take it out on things and people around me when I could, but I was sneaky about it. At face value, I was sweet and innocent, but people couldn’t see that I was so mean to other kids when no one was looking that I often made them cry and then played dumb when asked if I knew what happened.
As I write this, I’m realizing that this carried over to when I had PTSD in college and lashed out at others. My ability to make people feel horrible was unmatched. I was in so much pain that I wanted everyone to feel pain, too, so I did what I could to inflict that pain on others.
Hurt people, hurt people.
Hurt people, hurt people. My healing journey began with an apology tour. (I tried to get everyone I could, but if you were missed, please know that I am deeply sorry for how I treated you. It was a direct reflection of my own trauma and brokenness.)
It’s surreal to think about how younger me longed so deeply for my mother’s love and attention. It got to the point where she seemed to look completely through me and couldn’t see me at all. She barely existed in the present; her addiction allowed her to escape the hell she was living in, the hell she had brought upon herself because of that addiction. The addiction that I imagine started as a way to cope with, or better yet, completely bury her own, extensive trauma.