How Growing Up in a Broken Home Shaped Me
Disclaimer: This isn’t about blame
This piece is not to put any blame on anyone, it’s just to share my experience. My mother and father both love me dearly, and they were doing the best they could at the time. The ending of their relationship and the way they chose to process it is between them. My mom was grieving the loss of her partner and the family she imagined, while picking up the pieces on her own to now be a single mom of 3 kids. My dad had his own challenges as well.
It wasn’t an easy time for anyone. This is meant to honor and share my own experience and for others to know they’re not alone and that there’s hope for healing from this type of loss and pain.
I have a distinct, ironic memory of myself at 5 years old, a year before my world would be turned upside down when my parents would get divorced.
One evening, my mom, my dad, my two brothers, and I were in the Dodge minivan pulling back into our driveway from a family outing. Just then, I had an awe-inspiring realization that I just needed to share with everyone that exact moment, before we got out of the car and went back inside.
“Look!” I exclaimed, outstretching my hand, counting my fingers. “I have 5 letters in my name, J–O–L–I—E, I have 5 people in my family, and that’s how old I am, 5!”
I felt the same elation and pride in finding that simple pattern that I imagine an explorer must feel upon discovering a new continent.
I had no idea that just in a matter of months, counting to 5 would never be that easy again. None of that logic would add up anymore: I wouldn’t be 5 years old. I wouldn’t have 5 people in my family, it’d just be 4 of us.
And you might be thinking, “Well, at least your name didn’t change,” but that did too: during the course of the divorce, my mom changed our last names from Rodriguez, a proud homage to my Hispanic and Puerto Rican descent on my father’s side, back to her maiden name—Higazi.
All of a sudden, I didn’t even know who I was anymore. My family had a new headcount, I had a new address, a new name, and I was definitely not that same 5-year-old.
The first day when it really hit me
One day in first grade, we were learning how to write a letter and address an envelope. We practiced by addressing it to ourselves. We learned how to fill out the first line with our name, the second line with our street address, and finally, our city, state, and zip code.
Only, I couldn’t get past the first line. I was having trouble remembering how to spell my last name. I barely knew how to say it, nevermind spell it.
The rest of the kids were already finished with their envelopes before I could even get my name written down, and they started making fun of me. After all, what first grader doesn’t know how to spell their own name?
I remember holding back tears and trying to hide my embarrassment by lowering my head and staring down at my paper. Hoping no one would see how much I was struggling, I tried to defend myself, saying, “I just got it.”
I’m not sure if anyone could hear me, and even if they did, no one could understand what that meant. After all, you get your name when you’re born, if you don’t know it by now, you must be dumb, or there must be something wrong with you.
No one understood. I felt so alone, it was like that explorer who found a new continent only to realize, they’re stranded and now it feels like they’re the only person on the planet, and they’re on their own.
That’s probably one of the first moments when I started believing that I had a pain that other people would never understand. All of a sudden, the simplest things that were taken for granted became an existentially painful reminder that I had no idea who I was anymore.
Nothing felt the same. Home wasn’t the same. My name wasn’t the same. At school no one understood what I was going through. I pushed all the pain down so far, because I had no one I felt safe to share it with, and I just put on a happy face.
I became emotionally stunted and detached from myself. I couldn't tell you what I was feeling at any given time because I’d hidden it even from myself.
How I coped: By being the smartest
From then on, I’d go on to become one of the smartest students in class so no one could make fun of me that way again. I’d be in Gifted and Talented programs, I’d be in Science and Math Olympiads, I’d go to an academically elite private school where I’d take Honors and AP classes.
But somewhere deep inside, no matter how many accolades I got, I remembered that back in first grade, I was the kid who couldn’t even spell my name.
Acknowledging the pain and trauma
It wasn’t until the last few years that I’ve grown to realize the amount of trauma that divorce and that feeling of abandonment affected me in my childhood and even into my adulthood.
I always downplayed and minimized the impact it had on me. After all, 50% of marriages end in divorce anyway, so I’m not that special, right?
But that percentage didn’t take away from the pain and loss that I felt as that lost and confused 6-year-old girl.
All of a sudden, my dad – and boy was I a daddy’s girl – wasn’t around except for every other weekend. And the energy between my mom and dad felt so cryptic: they wouldn’t be in the same room together, even for a moment. It wasn’t until my college graduation that I remember them ever being within a 10-foot radius of each other after the divorce.
The process of healing
In the last several years, I’ve done a lot of work to heal from my trauma and abandonment issues. I realized that what happened between my parents had nothing to do with me.
Today, I can grieve for that young girl. She was so lost. She missed her dad so much, and her mom was so committed to taking care of her three kids that she was working so much just to keep things afloat and as normal as they could be.
It’s not that they didn’t love me. They just didn’t work out with each other. I don’t wish they’d stayed together, because even before then, I remember lots of yelling at home between them. Everyone did the best they could with what they knew at the time.
My parents couldn’t model what a happy, healthy relationship together could look like. I’m sure if they were able to, they would have. And that was very painful for everyone.
So I have compassion for both of them today. Because relationships are hard enough. Nevermind add the pressure of bills and a house and three kids on top of it, especially if you have had your own history of trauma and don’t have all the emotional intelligence or communication skills to process it.
But most importantly, I have compassion for that 6-year-old version of me. Because she was so strong, and she was so hurt, but she made it.
Look how far we’ve made it, kiddo. I love you so much.
—Jols