Rude Awakenings

I was very lucky to have good parents that neither smoked or drank so I wasn't beat up all the time by parents who were smoking cigarettes and drinking beer all the time like many of my friends. I was treated mostly kindly and not beaten regularly like many I knew in the 1950s so I was traumatized at least in this way like many were that I knew in the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s.

However, I had many rude awakenings in life despite having good parents who always fed and clothed me and drove me to school or bought me bicycles so I could ride myself to school on a bicycle when I wanted to by age 8.

But, the most traumatic rude awakenings in my life started around age 18 when I graduated High School at a private school in Santa Fe, New Mexico while my parents stayed in Glendale, California my senior year of High School.

I think the first traumatic experience around graduation was having to sign up for the draft at the post office. My father told me to write on there that I had a physical ailment that I might be deferred for and when I returned to Los Angeles County and Glendale he took me to my doctors to finalize that for me. I was given a 4 F because I had had blunt trauma childhood epilepsy. However, back then my son hadn't been born and gone to college and gotten a Bachelor's of Science with Honors in Nursing so I didn't know my kind was the ONLY kind one grows out of caused by a blow to the head then. People didn't understand this sort of thing then much I guess including doctors at least family practitioners in the 1950s and early 1960s. So, I was grateful to have a 4 F because I wouldn't have to go to Viet Nam and die but it made me feel sort of guilty too because I knew so many others who suffered or died in various ways because of the draft including going to jail because they deserted the
Viet Nam War. And then there was my best friend from church who was a conscientious objector which is hard to go through too but maybe better than being blown up or shot to death in Viet Nam or getting permanent PTSD so you are dysfunctional and talking to yourself the rest of our natural life.

So, looking back at all this I can now say I was traumatized by all of this but then I think I would have told you it was just what was happening to everyone I knew then. So then, I would have just called this "Life".

But, like I said looking back I was traumatized a lot by everything that happened from about 1965 to around 1975 or 1980 in my life.

It wasn't until I married for the 2nd time in 1980 that I felt I was really beginning to get the hang of being an adult really and learning how to maximize everything in my life so it actually worked for me and for the people around me.

So, basically I was completely traumatized by dealing with adulthood after having really good parents so 18 to 30 I had a hard time even wanting to stay alive during this time.

This is why I always say: "It's a miracle anyone lives to be 30!"

By God's Grace