Confidence Killing – Written September 2006 (Aged 31)

Confidence Killing

if i was ever abused as a child
it was not the life destroying kind
not sexual or physical abuse
it was, you know, the emotional kind
the kind that destroys your confidence
the kind, where for family failure
you are told, you are to blame
the kind of confidence killing
that can leave you fragile and weak
approval led, and all too willing
it certainly left me, socially inept
it left me as a nervous wreck
it left me without self respect
the hate and the spite dished out to me
by family members was unacceptable
as an adult, i see that abuse
in the awkward, heavy based situations
the ones where i avert my eyes
i see it in my personally slow progress
and strained family ties
that was the kind of abuse i experienced
nothing more and nothing less
it’s not a disease, it is not genetics
it comes from swimming in a sea of hate
that was my abuse as a child
that is why i sometime struggle
they fucked it up and left my confidence wild




James Garratt – September 2006


More poems at
https://theboybehindtheglasses.com/


More about this blog, The boy Behind the Glasses, here
https://theboybehindtheglasses.com/2020/01/08/the-boy-behind-the-glasses-an-introduction/


More poems from 2006 here
https://theboybehindtheglasses.com/category/poems-and-writing-2006/