If I was to die what if I just started reliving my same life over again? Maybe some of my memories from past lives could change the course of my life.

A few times in my life I felt like this was true. A voice, mine, but older and more wizened, spoke out through the depths of my mind and I followed its advice without doubt or fear. The voice never led me wrong. Was it just my good sense?

If I started over there are 2 events in my life I would do everything to prevent. The two things, that, if they never happened, I would be normal.

I couldn’t have been more than 4 or 5 years old the day a neighbor girl, Candy, brought her brand new white bunny over to play. My memory is fuzzy but I remember us throwing the bunny over the fence. Brandy, my cousins dog, immediately was on the bunny and tore it to pieces.

We never saw the dead bunny, or the dog doing its work, but we saw the bushes shake and the dog snarling as it attacked the bunny. We were both terrified and screaming we ran away.

The next thing I remember is being in the living room and having all my family there and my mom screaming at me. She wasn’t just mad, she was raging, almost to the point where I didn’t know if she would strike me. She was screaming accusations at me, that I deliberately murdered an animal for my own enjoyment. Her look was pure fear and hate.

I can’t explain why I did what we did. I was too young to know that animals kill each other. I was too young to know what kill meant.

All I know was that was when my mom stopped loving me. I know because my heart broke. At 4-5 year’s old I felt like my heart was ripped out of my chest. I felt completely abandoned by the parent who chose to raise me. I felt like I was so bad that no one could love me.

The second instance is difficult to pinpoint how old I was. I want to say this was after the bunny but not long after.

I was taking a gymnastic high-bar class at the YMCA for young children. We were learning how to hang upside down, lemon drop, and cherry drop. I remember having so much fun. My teachers were so nice to me. All us kids got along really well and I felt proud of everything I was learning.

Next thing I remember is being in the car and asking Mom, “Hey, why aren’t I going to my classes anymore?”

She smirked and told me, “You weren’t doing very well. All the other kids were so far ahead of you I didn’t want you humiliating yourself.”

Can a child be devastated? If not I was as close as could be. ‘Not doing well? So far ahead of me? Humiliating myself?’ I just thought I was supposed to have fun but not only was I not doing well I was being laughed at.

If I relive my life I would put my arms around my little shoulders and whisper for her to tell mom, “I DON’T CARE HOW YOU THINK I LOOK! I AM GOOD AT IT! If you don’t have the money to pay just tell me but don’t you make me feel like a loser for your own enjoyment, you sick bitch!”

I would try to stop myself from hurting the bunny, but kids do scary, strange stuff and I probably would’ve done something equally horrifying eventually. But I’d hug my little self tight and I’d stop crying, look her dead in the eyes and ask her, “Where were you, mommy? Why weren’t you with me? Why aren’t you ever with me?”

But I wasn’t there for me back then.

Mom would always avoid me. Occasionally I rode with her on errands. She would talk and I would be quiet. I’d rush to do whatever she asked, being helpful, quiet. But she would often become enraged by my, nearly catatonic, attitude.

As I got older she couldn’t yell at me as much, so she started crying. “How can you do this to me?” She would wail, “Why can’t you be happy?!!? Why can’t you just be happy? Why aren’t you like kids your age? What do I have to do to make you happy?”

She just couldn’t understand. I was doing it all for her. See, if I was happy she would get angry at my happiness, so she would have to hurt me. But then she’d resent the fact that I got so hurt by her hurting me that she would become enraged. If I stayed quiet and didn’t stand out at all she was free to live her life, her dreams, and she could always look at me as that wretched thing she is so saintly raising. Oh, a shame I am indeed, but how wonderful she looks.

You see those two events as what threw your life off its course, if I understand correctly. First your mother broke your heart when she rejected you, and then she hurt you again by insulting you and implying you're not good enough. You were shocked, devastated, lost, and you were too young to be able to defend yourself. You still loved her, and you did all you could to earn her love back, or at least get a little attention and affection, but she was still not seeing you, and she kept on blaming you, regardless of all your efforts.

And now you look back, and you see what she did to you, and you're angry, and you want your life back, that she took from you, but it seems out of reach, and you're terribly frustrated. And on top of that you have this reaction that makes you hide from people, which I guess you started to do in order to protect yourself from her attacks, because anything you showed you liked she would take away from you.

Is it anything like this?

I'm sad and frustrated when I see people held back by wounds like these, inflicted early on, that make it so difficult for us all to be happy together on this planet. I'm particularly interested in what you write because it helps me understand what might be going on with the woman I love, who's been avoiding me for almost 2 years now.

My own wounds are somewhat different, though they follow the same general pattern as everyone else's. They're mostly healed now, as far as I can see, and I spend part of my time trying to bring relief to others. So I hope this could bring you some relief from any self-blame you might have about what happened to the rabbit: the pattern I notice, from having listened to thousands of Loveline calls (archived on YouTube and lovelinetapes.com), is that children who hurt animals only do so because they have been hurt in a similar way before. Either by an adult or by an older child. So I suspect someone physically abused you, sometime before the rabbit came along. In other words, you are innocent, because the responsibility stands with the person who was cruel to you beforehand.

Thank you JumpingHoops. Yes you understand correctly. And thank you for your kind words of support. Often it is very difficult to be so honest because there's always someone out there ready to lay the blame back on me. I feel shame that I can't just forget these things and move on. I'd love to do just that. Sometimes writing it down gets it out of my head. I'm glad that my blogs might be able to help other people. When I get really down reading comments like yours makes me feel a lot better. Not so alone.