by Amanda E. Savieri
Victoria, Australia
My childhood was a rough one. My mother had me when she was very young. She blamed me for my own existence every day of my life. She screamed at me even when I was very small, saying I had ruined her life and her marriage. She called me names and told me I would never amount to anything. I got used to it and believed the things she told me, not knowing the effect it would have on me later on.
After her second marriage failed, my mother gave up on me completely. She took me down to Social Security and told them if they did not remove me from her care she would kill me. She admitted she had no feelings for me at all and was not capable of being a mother. I was put up for adoption at 8 years old.
I kept seeing my mother as I drifted from foster home to foster home. I was nearly adopted twice, but the adoption fell through both times. Mother moved on and took on new kids belonging to her current boyfriends, but she still didn’t love me. I blamed myself, thinking I was the problem.
At 18, I completed high school and moved out on my own. I met the man of my dreams but couldn’t accept his love. He was the only person who cared about me but I didn’t know how to react because I didn’t know how to be loved.
Many bad decisions and much relationship trouble later, I was discussing work problems with my fiancee’s parents. His dad recommended I see someone for an aptitude test. Though I didn’t know then, he phoned six psychologists, and Noni was the most helpful and genuine.
I was nervous at first because the counselors I’d seen before through Social Security hadn’t been at all helpful, but Noni soon put me at ease.
Noni showed me that work wasn’t the issue, instead it was unpleasant details from my past that I had to deal with in order to move on. She showed me it wasn’t my fault, that my childhood wasn’t normal, that I no longer had to carry this blame. Over time, my low self-esteem faded and my relationships improved — I began to learn how to love and be loved. Noni didn’t judge me, she supported me, and showed me how special I am for coming through it all.
Thanks to Noni, I now have a wonderful relationship, I got the strength to remove my mother from my life for good, and best of all, I start university this year. I will use the horrible things in my background for something good. I will be a psychologist specializing in childhood trauma; I want to help others as I really know what it’s like.
It is amazing what you can do if just one person believes in you. Noni believed in me… and now I believe in me.
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This story touched me, as I too, had a rough beginning. I would really like to know how Amanda is doing. Did she finish university, and is she helping the children now? I pray she is, and that it is helping her, and them, now.
Wow! Fourteen years later, it would be really good to hear how things worked out for Amanda.
The right match with a good therapist can not be over-emphasized! I’m glad Amanda was able to find someone who was able to help her reclaim her self-worth and courage.
Sounds like both Noni and your fiancé’s father believed in you! Glad to hear your life is turning around.
I agree. I think the father comes across as a hero for helping Amanda accept the services of a counselor.
I can so relate! Alcoholic home life with emotional abuse, felt like I was the cause of all the world’s problems, and wished I would just die. I came to realize that I could love and truly forgive my Mom, she did the best she was able with the tools she had, bit could never be in her energy field again.
Thanks to many good people that came into my life, and some deep inner searching that resulted in some amazing awakenings, it’s a whole different world today. I now see all the things I judged as horrible back then as beautiful tools in my “toolbox of life” that I use often to help others. I spent 18 years volunteering with at-risk middle school age kids in Los Angeles on a Tall Ship sailing program. If I had not experienced the things of my early childhood, I could never have understood and empathized with what they were going through. Sometimes life’s greatest blessings come in pretty ugly seeming wrapping paper!