Every child experiences different aspects of growing up. I grew up in a abusive home where drugs and alcohol were used out in the open and others grew up in homes where that wouldn't even be imaginable.

As a child our most critical years are from newborn to three years old. It is at that age things we see, hear, and experience get lost in our subconscious. Growing up in my home I experienced enormous amounts of anger and from watching how my parents dealt with it, is how I dealt with it and that pretty much consisted of screaming, hitting, swearing, running away, or the very common; go do drugs. As children grow up the attitudes and behaviors witnessed at that age get more programmed into the brain and the longer one waits to fix those behaviors the more difficult it will be to actually do so.

After a tiny child kids start elementary school and start meeting friends and learning about who they are. This can be a very good experience or a bad one. I always felt different especially when I would go to a friends house and see how their family treated one another and I started to feel ashamed about my family and blamed myself. From kindergarten to sixth grade especially girls, went through SO many changes that were weird, uncomfortable, and scary. I remember those years as being awkward and not fun. Being girls develop at all different ages it made things a lot more difficult cause things would being happening to one and not the other creating self-consciousness.

Junior high and high school for me, were based on popularity; the clothes you wore, the shoes you had, who your friends were, etc. is all I worried about. For me I was instantly in the "popular crowd" and never really realized the struggles of those who didn't have it that easy. The challenging part of junior high and high school was what was OK to do and when. Drinking began instantly in my school and then certain drugs would start the next year and it almost became with my group of friends, if you wanted to continue having "status" then you didn't question and you would drink or smoke whether you wanted to or not. That is what got me into trouble with drugs because once my curiosity was sparked well.... we all know the saying "curiosity killed the cat" and that was close to true.

Really my childhood was HORRIBLE and I got through it by pretending I belonged to this great family that I had created in my head and I would make up stories about me and my mom hanging out or things I wished my parents would have done. I am the second oldest of seven kids and so far every one of us struggled the most through elementary school. By the time I was about to go to high school I had stopped creating a family but started on myself and I found that to be easier emotionally than creating a family that I knew I would never have.

Growing up is so hard and situations experienced can tear one to shreds or put them on a pedestal. I am thankful for my childhood because I learned how to be independent, take care of things, work with others, and how to raise my kids, my goal is for my kids to never have to feel like they aren't loved; not even for one second, cause that is the most painful second of any life.

Learn more about this author, BreAnne Kautzky.
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