When I was a teenager, I was terrified by babies, but not in the sense that some consider them creepy, little people with small (but strong) hands and unending portions of drool (no, seriously: I'm fine with them). As with most people in their preteen and teen years, I had a lot of angst. I grew up in a middle-class family and had very supportive parents, so I had everything to be upset about. I had friends, I had stuff: my life was so terrible! But then, at the beginning of the time of that developmental right of passage, some serious family issues went down involving my older brothers. To be fair, they were going through their own rights of passage into adulthood, but, as I looked up to them, their experiences and the fall-out around substance exploration shook me up a bunch.
With my brothers' misadventures and my parents trying so hard to understand and deal with their older sons, I was beginning my angst period already on shaky ground. I also would see my family members fight amongst each other, but I would never see them find solutions or work through their issues. I learned well from what I did not observe: I would get angry with people and situations, and I had no idea how to resolve those conflicts. My anger and frustration would build and build and I didn't have resolution. I would become a powder keg and eventually just explode. First, I started taking it out on other people, but eventually I targeted myself. I hit things. I hit myself. I was also a cutter. I eventually took to doing other risk-taking activity - not drugs or alcohol, mind you, thanks to watching my brothers - but silly physical stunt work. I put my body and life at risk a couple of times.
Because I didn't consciously "see" my family conflicts with no resolution and because I was teenaged angst me, I eventually saw myself as evil. I was doing crazy things and acting in crazy and hurting myself for no apparent reason! It is laughable now (what's up drama-filled boy?), but I did not see good in me then. Because of this, I feared small children, babies in particular, because I thought I would damage them purely by touching them. I would taint them...poison them into something broken. I saw myself as the living embodiment of Nine Inch Nails' song "Ruiner." So I avoided kids like the plague for their own protection.
Despite dating two women who would try to convince me that I was not evil, I held onto this perspective through most of my college career. It wasn't until I was in counseling toward the end of my undergraduate experience that I reflected and eventually recalled witnessing my Dad's damaged calm erupt into rage shortly after my grandmother died. He was on the phone with a crazy uncle (grandma's brother) and just lost it, punching the wall until the phone receiver in his hand crumbled.I wasn't evil...I was acting out behavior that I had learned! I didn't know how to resolve anger without lashing out. It also explained why I had managed to destroy 3 or 4 phones through these turbulent years.
After the revelation, I not only moved past the "I'm evil" portion of my life, but I also learned to manage my emotions. I also felt incredibly stupid for waving off family and friends wanting me to meet their kids/ babies. I regret those missed opportunities, especially since I'm purposely replicating that behavior now because a part of me secretly hates anyone who is pregnant or has a newborn baby. Externally, you might think I'm at peace, but a bit distant. Internally, I mourn for the child that could have been that my wife and I created naturally almost 2 years ago. That little bundle of precious cells was so eager to start life that it implanted on my wife's Fallopian tube. That little bundle of cells was surgically removed as no good was going to come of it or my wife as it was ectopic.
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