Memories From My Shattered Childhood: Sometimes Looking Back Isn't For The Best

November 17, 2025

Michael Cline, Author and Freelance Writer

Tom O'Connor, Publisher

Looking back at memories from your childhood highlights both the positive and negative experiences from your early years. Traumatic childhood memories are often repressed as a defense mechanism against overwhelming emotions. They can resurface due to a variety of factors, including new stress, a familiar smell, or changes in your life, even if you're not consciously aware of the connection. It is a common sign of trauma that can manifest as flashbacks or other symptoms and is often a sign of the mind's resilience. 

Barcelona, Spain

I'm looking out my apartment window, seeing a small sliver of the Mediterranean Sea just a mile away. Living on the eighth floor of a nine-story building that's only a few decades old has its perks. Most apartments in Barcelona are much older, darker, and smaller. The buildings in Barrio Poblenou aren't very tall, so from the eighth floor, I get a great view and sunlight all day. 

Friends back in the United States call me an expat, but I prefer to say I'm an immigrant. Expats usually have a lot of money, but I've never had the luxury of such wealth. I wound up in Barcelona after decades of living in the States, mainly around the NYC metropolitan area. 

I spent 20 years of my adult life moving from apartment to apartment. These moves were either to find better jobs or to move in with my latest lover. I've lived everywhere from New York City to Philadelphia and many small towns in between.

My Crazy Story

What brought me to Spain is a somewhat unusual story. During my third trip to the Republic of Tuva, a little-known and forgotten piece of southern Siberia, I met a striking Spaniard. Something clicked inside me, and during the height of the pandemic, with its closed borders, masks, and madness, I quietly meandered through Europe unnoticed, took a back door, and found my way to Barcelona.

The tram that runs parallel to my busy street loudly honks at yet another pedestrian who has strayed too close to the tracks, idly staring down at their phone. It startles me from staring at the buildings and the bright sunlight shining on that little piece of the Mediterranean that's all mine. 

My introspective nature is disturbed, bringing me back to reality. When out walking the streets, avenues, and alleyways of Barcelona, I don't believe what I see is real. "The simulation is perfect today," I'll joke to myself, still in disbelief that this is my home. I don't come from the best of backgrounds, but despite years of heroin and alcohol abuse—both used to forget my childhood—I've somehow survived and left my homeland and all that's familiar to create a new reality. Real or imagined, here I am, far away from the place that haunts me, but the memories remain.

The street noise below me gradually fades into the background, and I find myself once again alone with my thoughts. You might think that the time I spent in the Peruvian jungle just before the world shut down would have eased these uncomfortable memories, but, once again, they have slithered into my mind. While the strange brew I drank there did clear out most of them, some remain. There's still work to do. 

My Mother

My early childhood memories mostly involve moving from place to place, usually late at night to avoid detection by rent-seeking landlords. Mom had me young, and being a rebellious teenager, I refused her parents' assistance. I believe this is where my deep-rooted security and abandonment issues stem from.

Hurricane Agnes rocked our dilapidated trailer as it crashed into the North Carolina coast. Fifty-some years later, I can still hear its hurricane winds howl as they did their best to destroy our tiny tin box home. Mom had relocated us from the ghettos of Trenton, New Jersey, while chasing her next conquest. Once the love interest had waned, we scurried back to more familiar territory.

Our home wasn't located in a traditional trailer park, one that was established and legal. Ours was housed behind a lower-middle-class home, surrounded by rusty, beaten chain-link fences that protected three or four other rundown trailers, a few dogs, and piles of discarded household items left to rot in the summer sun. 

My mother's best friend was a scraggly-looking, skinny, and bearded guy named "Coke." His name was related to his illegal hobby and possibly even how he earned money, though my mother insisted it was because of his favorite drink. 

The first haircut I remember was at the small house on the property. Our landlady was its only resident, a middle-aged woman with a bouffant hairstyle and a cigarette constantly hanging from her painted pink lips. Besides providing illegal shelter, she also ran a secret hair salon in her cramped, messy kitchen, which served as the central hub for gossip among local single women. Unlike other barbers and stylists, she didn't use scissors. Her preferred tool was a sharp-edged shaving razor, typically used to shave a man's beard in the 1920s. I have no idea why she used this method of hair cutting. It was a nightmare; I screamed and squirmed every time she grabbed a lock of hair, pulled it tightly, and hacked at it with the blade with quick flicks of her wrist.

We left our home in North Carolina after less than a year, shortly after her primary love interest slapped me across the face for laughing at a joke he told at the dinner table while my mouth was half full of food. Some of it innocently shot out onto the table, and he quickly punished me, leaving my cheek stinging. I was sent to my room, and for the next hour, I heard screaming and objects being thrown against the thin, fragile walls of the small metal box we called home. 

Substitute Fathers

Once back in our home state, we lived with my grandparents or in different apartments. We never stayed long anywhere, and I've continued this pattern into adulthood, which I hope to maintain to this day. My biological father is a man I've never met. He left before my first birthday. 

That's not to say he's missed, as there was always another man to stand in his place, even if they didn't stay long. 

The Husband Trail

My mother found her second husband, a man I hardly remember. I do, however, remember the endless arguments and fights, both verbal and physical. Hiding under my bedsheets, I'd pretend I didn't hear anything. He didn't last long. Mom and I were on the run again—different apartments, different men.

Enter husband number three. He had strong interests in both Hitler and hockey, but little in being a father or anything resembling a father figure. He was just a kid himself at 22, and my mom was not much older. At first, I thought this one would last longer than the others. They seemed to get along well, but the occasional screaming match still happened, much like I'd heard before. Although I had years of experience with these uncomfortable moments, I hadn't developed healthy ways to cope with them. Withdrawing from reality was my only hope of escape.

Bullied In Middle School

Awkward, shy, and bullied accurately describe my middle school experience. I lacked self-confidence and wanted to stay invisible. Without any true friends, I spent most of my time in class and the school hallways quietly, doing my best not to draw attention. Shorter and thinner than most boys my age, the schoolyard bullies focused on my weaknesses, knowing I was an easy target. Having never had a birth father figure around to teach me how to fight, play sports, or do what young boys learn from older males, I was different from the other boys in my school.

While I was never physically bullied, aside from the occasional shove in the school's crowded corridors, their attacks on me were just as brutal. Physical injuries heal much faster than emotional wounds, and they relentlessly gnaw at my self-worth like a hungry pack of wolves tearing apart and feasting on a lonely, lost rabbit.

Their favorite way to attack was during lunch in the school cafeteria. I never had a regular spot to sit, unlike most kids. With a stomach full of butterflies, I'd scan the room for an empty table or at least one with the fewest people. I always went to school with a brown paper bag filled with the usual: a sandwich, a piece of fruit, and maybe, if I was lucky, a Tastykake. It didn't matter what was inside because I rarely had the chance to eat its contents. It all started one afternoon when I found a spot I thought was safe — a table all to myself. With shoulders hunched and head hung. 

Low, I placed my brown paper bag on the table. Before I could open it, a kid I didn't know walked over, stood beside me, and slammed his fist on the bag, smashing my lunch. Frozen with fear, I did nothing. My tormentor and his small group of friends giggled like idiots and walked away. No words were exchanged. 

Not knowing what to do, I sat there stunned, the proverbial deer-in-the-headlights. Nervously glancing around the loud cafeteria, I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized that no one, or at least I thought no one, had witnessed the event. I was far too embarrassed to check whether anything in my brown paper bag was edible. Getting up from the table, I slumped over to the large garbage can near the doorway and dropped it in.

I went to the boys' restroom; fortunately, it was unoccupied. I hid in the last stall, waiting for the bell that signaled the end of lunchtime. My lunch got destroyed a few times a week, and I reacted the same way each time. Sometimes the lunchroom bullies would smash it, while at other times, they'd toss the bag to the floor, stomp on it with their feet, and walk away with pride, feeling superior for having done something good.

Interested in reading another recovery story? Read The Power of Recovery.

Pot To Pot Moving

Like a young sapling moved prematurely and relocated from pot to pot, I was never allowed to build roots and grow. My only coping skill was to withdraw within. I became an avid reader, consuming books that were far above my reading level, and they became a form of escape.

My homelife with Daddy Number Three wasn't any better than my school days. While alone, he'd tell me that my mother would be happier if I weren't around, that I was the cause of her troubles. Truth be told, he was the one who didn't want me around, just like the other men who had been in my mother's life.

I recall a Christmas morning as we sat around the tree exchanging gifts. My mother, I had purchased a thin gold chain for my stepfather. Feeling excited that he'd love such a costly gift, I anxiously waited for his reaction as he tore off the wrapping paper. 

"What the f*** is this?" he exclaimed. "Chains are for girls."

He tossed my gift haphazardly onto the table as my heart sank, and an argument between the two adults in the room broke out. I was sent to my room to listen to the Christmas Day argument.

The Hockey Game

He wasn't always so obvious about his distaste for my presence, but he had an evil way of tormenting me, always outside of earshot of my mother. One day after school, when my mother wasn't around, he approached me with what sounded like heaven. He had tickets to see the Philadelphia Flyers, his favorite hockey team, for the following Friday night. He proposed that we go together. I was thrilled as he'd never once asked to share his time with me. I had no interest in sports, but to be invited to join him at an event like this was a big deal.

On the day of the game, I rushed home from school, excited to participate in something that countless fathers and sons had done routinely. "Where's Ernie?" I asked my mom. (I never referred to him as Dad.) "He went to a hockey game with his friends; he'll be back later tonight." He hadn't told her that he was supposed to take me with him, and I hadn't informed her about our plans. 

I was disappointed and felt like I wasn't worth much. To make things even more painful, the next morning at breakfast, he eagerly told my mother how much fun the game was. With an evil grin, he turned to me and said, "You would have loved it if you had been there." 

A year later, my mother was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. I was told she'd be fine and would undergo treatment, but that was a lie. My stepfather lost interest in her and started working a lot of overtime, or so he claimed. 

The Ghost Appears

I was like a ghost in my middle school hallways, an empty shell that moved on autopilot. My tormentors kept doing what they did best. The few people I spoke to in class never knew of my home life or my mother's illness. I kept those things to myself. I was a solitary being who appeared to be living, but my insides had shut down and refused to grow, advance, or do anything other than function at a bare minimum. All energy, either physical or mental, was used to survive and make it appear that all was well in the world.

My mother was frequently in and out of the hospital, her health declining quickly. Monday through Thursday, my grandparents would pick me up after school and drive me an hour south to Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia to visit my mother. 

Her husband only visited on Sundays, where I'm told he spent the entire time. Watching whatever sports game was on TV while ignoring his dying wife. Fridays after school until Sunday, 

Cancer Hospital Visits

I spent time with my stepfather's parents. My grandparents visited their daughter every day. I saw horrible things at the cancer hospital—things no child should have to witness. I rarely spoke when in my mother's hospital room and mainly focused on homework, trying to ignore the reality of what was happening. 

Sometimes I'd explore the hallways, denying that my mother was withering away and slowly slipping from my life. I saw other patients at various stages of their illness: young women like my mother with no hair or eyebrows, the elderly who were shriveled and hunched over, walking the halls with tubes dangling from their arms. Once, I saw a young guy swollen up like an overstuffed sausage, with nearly purple skin and yellow eyes. The hospital had a hard-to-describe smell. Slightly putrid and almost unnoticeable, it was the smell of death.

I rarely reacted to these sights —these still living beings who no longer looked human —but their appearances, forty-plus years later, still haunt me. There are some things that no child should see, and I saw many of them. Once, while my grandparents were taking me to the hospital's cafeteria for a bite to eat, they openly discussed my mother's deterioration, how she was losing control of her bowels, and how sad the entire situation was, knowing the end was near. 

The door to my tightly closed mind and emotions was ripped open. I ran from the two of them down the hall and collapsed on the floor. Wild-eyed, I stayed silent while searching for something in that dull hospital corridor to focus on to forget my reality. My grandparents and a passing nurse hovered over me, asking if I was okay. Once all eyes were on me, I quickly got to my feet, said I was fine, and stayed quiet for the rest of the evening.

At age 12, I didn't know how to express my grief, my anger, or my feelings of being cheated out of a childhood. I had kept the years of being bullied at school a secret. Felt like a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. I learned that if I reacted to something that upset me, I was expected to express my emotions. I didn't have the energy or the skills to do that. 

The Last Christmas

I recall the last Christmas I spent with her. We were at my grandparents' home; their parents, who would soon take over the task of raising me, were present. She was very ill, but thankfully, she was not in the hospital and could spend the holidays with family rather than in a hospital bed. We sat around the dinner table eating, my mother propped up in a chair, but half hunched over. She was weak but did her best to appear happy and festive.

My uncle put on his jacket and went outside to his car to get a special gift he had bought for his sister. I've no idea why he left it in his car, but I'm sure there was a reason. We heard his car door slam shut and the sound of his footsteps approaching the front door. Suddenly, there was a loud crash, the sound of shattering glass.

A few moments later, he appeared at the door. His head down, quiet tears streaming down his face. He was holding a somewhat still wrapped gift, but we could hear the jingling of the broken glass inside. Depositing it into the trash can in the kitchen's corner, he walked into the dark living room alone. No one said a word as we heard his painful sobs, crying like a baby. I learned later that the gift he had dropped for his dying sister was a beautiful crystal angel. Its broken shards sadly expressed the fragility of life.

A Primal Scream

Once the Christmas break had ended, I returned to school. My tormentor had upped his game, and during gym class, he ran up behind me, pulling my gym shorts down to my knees. The entire class erupted in laughter, pointing at my skinny legs and ill-fitting underwear. I was numb and stood, coma-like, against the gym's cinderblock wall, proud of his latest ego-boosting prank. Rage overtook my normally quiet and shy demeanor. I was no longer in control of my body or emotions as I grabbed him with both hands, a stranglehold of hair in my fists on both sides of his head.

Belting out a primal scream, I slammed his head into the cinderblock wall four or five times before our gym teacher ran over and pulled me off of him. Years of rage were released on this boy, the leader of the pack of schoolyard bullies. We were both sent to the principal's office. After he asked what had happened, I was sent back to the moment or two before I pulled up my shorts and ran over to face my bully, who was casually leaning against the class. He was suspended from school for a week.

New York City

Two weeks later, my mother succumbed to the disease at age 29. She was always thin but had withered away to a mere 47 pounds. Shortly after being told that she was gone, my step-father informed me that I had a week to find a place to live since, in his words, "I wasn't his kid." His father tried to console me by saying, "At least you knew this was coming." I found his words to be cruel. I never expected her to die; my 13-year-old mind thought she'd remain sick forever.

By my mid-twenties, I was living in New York City, hopelessly addicted to heroin. The needle and its painkilling contents were my salvation for five years, the one thing that could numb my painful past. Heroin can erase everything, even if only to push the memories into a darker corner of the mind. However, it takes more than it gives.

Back on the Tram

The tram, once again, honks its horn at yet another pedestrian who had strayed too close to its tracks. Its sudden sound releases me from my painful journey down Memory Lane. I'm thankful for its abruptness, which brings me back to my life in Barcelona, gazing at my slice of the Mediterranean. 

I've conquered many demons and overcome both heroin and alcohol addiction, but I'm still occasionally haunted by memories I wish I could leave buried in my past. Although I've been working on showing the scared kid of my youth that he is loved, some hurdles still need to be cleared. Do we ever truly survive our childhood? The optimist in me believes it's possible, but another part thinks the scars serve a purpose. What that purpose is, I haven't a clue.

Michael Cline can be reached at

NEW YORK CITY JUNKY DAYS NEW YORK RECOVERY DAYS: From Addiction to Ayahuasca: Finding Freedom and My Higher Self (Coming soon) MY ADVENTURES IN TUVA

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