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jesskistlerMy mom tells me I had a decently affectionate childhood. Not too lovey-dovey, not emotionally cold. I don't really remember much of it in general. Here's a list of memories I swear I have that my mom cannot verify:
1. My dad came home from the bar drunk one night and took me, my brother, and my mom to Millard Days, a local carnival in town. We all had a great time, wearing our pajamas, playing games, going on rides, staying up too late and being exhausted the next morning.
2. My dad was drunk and fighting with my grandma on the front porch at our house in Summerwood. I heard him yell her name and something glass (likely a beer bottle) breaking. My mom tells me this is unlikely to be true because my grandma adored my dad. I wonder how this effected my mom's relationship with her after my parents got divorced.
3. I really wanted a denim shirt. My dad wouldn't give me one of his, but he told me if I saved up my babysitting money, he'd take me to the store to buy one. So I saved up my babysitting money. He never took me. I remember him berating me in the front seat of the truck to the point that I curled up on the floor of the truck to be as far from him as possible and cried.
Some memories I'm certain of, that nobody will convince me don't exist:
1. Going to the park with a bunch of (too many other) kids from the babysitter's house. It was about two blocks from where she lived. I really, really had to pee (I was about five years old), and nobody would accommodate me, so while I was swinging I let it rip and peed while I swung back and forth, back and forth, pretending the world wasn't really there. I distinctly remember I was wearing my blue Cabbage Patch Kids skirt. Everyone including the babysitter laughed at me and proceeded to make fun of me for it.
2. My little brother's face getting ground into the wall so hard while he stood in the corner at said babysitter's house that it left blood from his mouth on the wall.
3. At the babysitter's again, being physically accosted at the ripe age of five by three older boys and being molested by them on top of that.
4. Hanging out with my cousins, patrolling the sewers in my neighborhood. Hours of underground adventure.
My family likes to pretend these unpleasant things are untrue. They enjoy living in a perpetual state of denial. I don't see how this benefits anyone. My brother remembers very little of our childhood as well. I find it interesting that I remember very little of my mother, but horrible details about my father. Not that he was physically abusive; he was physical with me one time, when I was sixteen, and it needed to happen. It was not abuse. Emotionally and intellectually, though, he was a sadist. Constant torment with withholding affection and attention. Constant negative judgment and no encouragement. My mom actually apologized to me this year for having stayed with him so long. She said, "I'm sorry," and I told her she couldn't apologize for him. She then said, "I'm sorry I chose him." It was a bittersweet validation.
My brother and I were discussing a pleasant memory from childhood, getting pried out of our warm beds every fall to go to River City Roundup, a local festival. Pancake feed, hot air balloons, arts and crafts, horses, goats, rabbits, swarms of people everywhere. We hated getting up early, we hated being cold, we hated following our mom around while she looked at EV-ER-Y-THING, but looking back we are fond of and miss those days. The pleasant days, when it was just the three of us. I can imagine my mom staring at the hot air balloons wistfully and wishing they'd take her away, take her anywhere, to somewhere other than her life with my father.
Well. I suppose this wasn't really therapy. But it was therapeutic, cathartic, and necessary. Now it's out there. Everything I remember before the age of approximately twelve.
1. My dad came home from the bar drunk one night and took me, my brother, and my mom to Millard Days, a local carnival in town. We all had a great time, wearing our pajamas, playing games, going on rides, staying up too late and being exhausted the next morning.
2. My dad was drunk and fighting with my grandma on the front porch at our house in Summerwood. I heard him yell her name and something glass (likely a beer bottle) breaking. My mom tells me this is unlikely to be true because my grandma adored my dad. I wonder how this effected my mom's relationship with her after my parents got divorced.
3. I really wanted a denim shirt. My dad wouldn't give me one of his, but he told me if I saved up my babysitting money, he'd take me to the store to buy one. So I saved up my babysitting money. He never took me. I remember him berating me in the front seat of the truck to the point that I curled up on the floor of the truck to be as far from him as possible and cried.
Some memories I'm certain of, that nobody will convince me don't exist:
1. Going to the park with a bunch of (too many other) kids from the babysitter's house. It was about two blocks from where she lived. I really, really had to pee (I was about five years old), and nobody would accommodate me, so while I was swinging I let it rip and peed while I swung back and forth, back and forth, pretending the world wasn't really there. I distinctly remember I was wearing my blue Cabbage Patch Kids skirt. Everyone including the babysitter laughed at me and proceeded to make fun of me for it.
2. My little brother's face getting ground into the wall so hard while he stood in the corner at said babysitter's house that it left blood from his mouth on the wall.
3. At the babysitter's again, being physically accosted at the ripe age of five by three older boys and being molested by them on top of that.
4. Hanging out with my cousins, patrolling the sewers in my neighborhood. Hours of underground adventure.
My family likes to pretend these unpleasant things are untrue. They enjoy living in a perpetual state of denial. I don't see how this benefits anyone. My brother remembers very little of our childhood as well. I find it interesting that I remember very little of my mother, but horrible details about my father. Not that he was physically abusive; he was physical with me one time, when I was sixteen, and it needed to happen. It was not abuse. Emotionally and intellectually, though, he was a sadist. Constant torment with withholding affection and attention. Constant negative judgment and no encouragement. My mom actually apologized to me this year for having stayed with him so long. She said, "I'm sorry," and I told her she couldn't apologize for him. She then said, "I'm sorry I chose him." It was a bittersweet validation.
My brother and I were discussing a pleasant memory from childhood, getting pried out of our warm beds every fall to go to River City Roundup, a local festival. Pancake feed, hot air balloons, arts and crafts, horses, goats, rabbits, swarms of people everywhere. We hated getting up early, we hated being cold, we hated following our mom around while she looked at EV-ER-Y-THING, but looking back we are fond of and miss those days. The pleasant days, when it was just the three of us. I can imagine my mom staring at the hot air balloons wistfully and wishing they'd take her away, take her anywhere, to somewhere other than her life with my father.
Well. I suppose this wasn't really therapy. But it was therapeutic, cathartic, and necessary. Now it's out there. Everything I remember before the age of approximately twelve.
