It's really hard to go back into the past and try to recover the truth of what actually happened. Since human memory is constantly shifting, the only thing we can seem to count on is perception. My perception of my childhood was full of hostility and neglect. I really just want to establish an overview.
It was just the four of us; my adopted parents and my adopted brother and I. My mother told me straight away that I was adopted. She said it made me more special because I was chosen. She really wanted a little girl and had to negotiate with Dad to get him to agree to adopt again. The attitude I took from it was he had his son, what did he need me for?
Mom told me that he agreed only if they split their efforts. She would take care of me, and raise me in her religion and her way. He would take my bro and raise him his way. Kinda like a child promising to take care of the puppy if her parent would just let her keep it.
My bro started acting aggressive at a very young age. I know that we might have been okay with each other when I was really young. I've seen cute pictures of us when I was around 4 or 5 where we are hugging and stuff. I have some vague memories of Christmases with the family when Nannie was still alive.
Then I mostly remember him yelling and screaming at Mom. She seemed to be very aggressive in spanking him and me if I got in the way. She really acted like she hated him sometimes. But it may also have been sheer exhaustion. He was so out of control and all Dad would do is tell her to stop, it wasn't going to do any good. He never did a damn thing.
They spent tens of thousands on his hockey and other sports. He got in trouble with the law around age 16. This was around the time I was in junior high. I remember keeping a knife in my room. He would attack me whenever he got into a fight with Mom. He would say I was her favorite and beat me for it. Neither parent ever defended me or even stepped in while it was happening. I pulled the knife on him once, when he tried to suffocate me.
I learned to lock my door after a while but Dad took it off the hinges. I think he resented me by that point. I was succeeding where my bro was failing. My record was clean. I was an honor student while he barely passed his classes. I was an over achiever. And maybe in a way I pushed myself out of a competitive spirit. But it was also to escape.
I understood at a very early age that the way to get a better life was through education and getting the hell out of my home town. The ones who did poorly in school got stuck there. I've seen them on Facebook, stuck there to this day. I got out.
I remember my mother telling me we couldn't afford to send me to Mt Holyoke. I had been accepted and really wanted to go. "Book of Days" was my theme song. Knowing what I know now about their finances, she lied. I now believe it was more a matter of control. I think on some level she knew once I was out of reach I would never come back. I didn't. I did holidays for a while but would get into such horrible fights with Dad that I would cut a four day stay down to two. I'd only stay for two because Mom would beg me to at least spend the night and get a good sleep to drive safe. She needed that control. She didn't want to lose me.
And on some level she was afraid of me too. I was head strong and fearless at 18.
I lacked a relationship with my mother, because of my father driving me out of the house. Mom's alcoholism didn't help much either. It made her more lethargic and dependent upon a man that resented her. At least, that was how he acted. And now looking back I realize those afternoon naps were actually her passing out drunk.
I remember as a teenager trying to defend my mother. I felt it was my job to stick up for women. Even now I get really militant toward men attacking women, especially if they're pregnant or have children. It's instinctive. The Amazon emerged very early watching how she was neglected and bullied in that house.
For some reason this didn't translate into defending myself until much later.
I didn't know she was sick. She was very good at pretending everything was okay. And me being on the other side of the state made it easy. I needed to believe that it all was okay. I had cut myself off and tried to make a life as if that part of my childhood had never happened. I didn't want to have to go up there and kick some ass.
I had done a lot of processing while in college. I did see a therapist, I watched a ton of Oprah and invested in self-help books. I did all the journaling exercises and really thought I had beat those issues to death. I think I really may have. I was able to evolve in my relationships with others until I knew how to keep healthy connections and tastefully sever toxic ones.
I still miss A. That will never go away. We have been soul mates in many lives, loving and killing each other. In this one we just couldn't make it work. We just kept hurting and sabotaging each other. It seemed effortless. But this time around we got to the point where we could say, I love you but I can't be anywhere near you. And we stuck to it.
My mother's entry into the hospital and her following death seemed to reopen these wounds. I'll have to go back through all the garbage I thought I had already sorted and sent to the dump. There are issues that have popped up in particular regarding my brother's special brand of psychological fuckery. I've managed to shake much of it off and started to feel normal again.
I still really feel this is the perfect time to hash through all of it for the last time and lay it finally to rest. Nothing else will pull me back there. This is the final door shutting for the final time.
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