Since I was an only child I started writing more at age 8 when my 16 year old cousin died in a Car accident in which he was driving when he broke his neck hitting a house in I believe a 1940s old Dodge with his friends. I was scared because a cousin of mine that I knew died. It was just too close to home. So, I began to write and it helped me cope with this event. I remember sitting on my bed scared with my .22 rifle there on my bedroom wall that I had been given to protect the family in an emergency and thinking that I was scared because this death was just too close for comfort. So, I began writing about what I was feeling and experiencing. I tended to keep my writings in a little way like a diary but mostly just me writing or doodling in a spiral notebook I kept either beside my bed or under my bed. At 8 I often won spelling Bees because for some reason I could memorize things like the spelling of words very easily and memorize and speak well in front of auditoriums of people. (even though I screwed up a few times around age 9 when I forget what I was supposed to say in front of a large auditorium of people. But, then again, this also helped me do better the next time.
So, writing and often reading what I wrote in front of the class from about age 9 on helped me mature into a young man. IN college I got an A in public speaking so I got very good at giving speeches. But, a part of this is writing your own speeches in the first place so you have some input into all this.
I have always been a very logical and reasonable person. I was unlike most kids in this simply because I had almost died of whooping cough at age 2 and then from 10 to 15 I almost died from Blunt Trauma childhood epilepsy (caused by a blow to the head). However, no one outside of my parents knew about the night time seizures because my father forbade me to talk about them. So, even close relatives never knew about this until I told them after my father and mother passed away after about 2008 after my mother passed away. Then my Aunt thought I was lying to her because she thought she knew everything about me when I was young but my father kept it from his sister too.
Healing often is hard to come by from all the traumas we survive growing up. Like surviving twice having a knife to my throat with an older boy both times telling me he was going to cut my head off before I was 10 years old. But, looking back this was one of the best things that ever happened to me in that I never trusted anyone (especially males) ever since. No matter how nice someone appears to be they can turn on you any second. This is what life taught me threw people putting a knife to my throat and telling me that they were going to cut my head off before age 10.
So, growing up in the 1950s was often torture for people because so many people should have been aborted instead of being tortured by their parents until they were insane instead.
Luckily, my mother wanted me and eventually my Dad did too because my mother tricked my father into having me. She told him she was already pregnant and wasn't and that was how she got pregnant with me. Dad thought his life had been too tough for him to be a good Dad to me even though he had been valedictorian of his High School Senior Class in 1934. So, I was probably 8 or 10 years old before I became my father's best friend. He taught me how to be an electrician summers from ages 12 to 17 for me too.
Writing can bring healing in ways that are almost always unexpected like when you pick up something you wrote 1, 5, or 10 or more years ago and then you laugh and then you might cry too and healing happens because you finally understand something that you didn't at the time you wrote whatever you wrote.
So, keep writing and healing yourself and others.
By God's Grace
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