I was watching a TV show and was struck when a character said a person should not be shackled by their family. This sounds wonderful but I believe it is not true. My biological father left when I was a baby and I know nothing about him. To me my mothers family was chaotic and broken.

From my biological father I am shackled with a desire to run when things get tough. Please know I do not judge him as I do not know him or the circumstances when he left. There is an emptiness and shame coming from him leaving that has grown as I grow older. Some have suggested I should try to contact him but to me since he left he should return.

From my mother I am shackled with a fear of intimacy and closeness. Pain and rejection make it difficult for me to share even when I care for and love someone. I remember a desire to lift themselves up by putting others down. This is not a judgment of them but how I experienced my early years.

These shackles extended into other parts of my life and I believed I was left with no choice but to locked away the painful parts of my life. The young man I had to remove from a jet engine, the man cut in half by a jets wing during a storm, the police officer who was shot when I was on shore patrol and I had to perform CPR, seeing a pedophile raping a child and realizing I had been raped and nearly beating him to death and so many others.

I believe you can loosen the shackles but they are part of you even if you do not know them. Another character in the show said they had to guess at a birthday for him because they did not know. He felt he had no true beginning even after he was adopted by a loving family. Only when we accept our shackles can we hope to live a free life.