Monday, March 28, 2011
The Family Dysfunction
The history: I was born to a 17 male and an 18 year old female in 1963. They married because of me, I do not believe it was out of love. My father was an only child to 2 alcoholics, my mother was one of thirteen children in a very poor and dysfunctional family. So really my own dysfunction starts from here. They had another child together, the male he had always wanted.
The childhood memories I have with them are not so good. My father was a womanizer, out all the time and was out of control with drag racing and drinking. As a small child I had actually witnessed, many times, him beat up his own mother and father as well as my mother. I remember my mother being an angry person and probably rightfully so. She had been molested by her father and now was in a crappy loveless marriage with 2 children. I never remember feeling loved except by my father's mother, Francis...and she meant the world to me.
They divorced after 10 years. He had met an older woman, 13 years his senior, in a bar through his carousing and drinking. My mother met someone in the army. Both were already a mess on their own and marrying bigger messes.
After the divorce I had lived with my mother and I was now replaced with my new stepmother's kids and being molested by my own stepfather. The molestation began because I had come home one night from being at my father's for the weekend and asked what sex was. My mother proceeded to have 2 additional children with my stepfather. I do believe he probably did love her but he was also a sick, demented person. The physical abuse and molestation physically lasted 3 years, but the emotional scars, a lifetime. I was not his only victim, but as a result of my own molestation I would later become a victim again. My mother should have known because of her own molestation but ignored it because she was being taken care of and did not have to work, I was the price. We were hauled off to live in Maine with her and my stepfather. I can remember he would grab my boobs and butt in front of my mother in the kitchen and I would get mad. In turn, she would get mad at me for having an attitude. She only believed me about the molestation after a psychic had told her it was true ... years later he later admitted to her it was true ... mind you this was several years later. Can you imagine how it felt all that time knowing I was never believed until "the psychic"? He had told me many times that I would one day love him ... all the while I was thinking one day I may have to kill you.
My mother, with her own scars, really should never have become a mother because she was never able to love any of us children like a mother should. Never a "good job" or "I'm so proud of you" even as I became an adult. Few times in my 47 years, has my mother or father hugged or kissed me, never mind told me they loved me. Because each never received it from their own family, they were not capable of giving it either. Ironically, my mother had wanted to become a nun. To me the core principle and basis of religion is love, and she could not show it to our own children.
After I had exposed the molestation my brother and I went to live with my father who was only 30 years old at the time and my grandmother (his mother Francis) and my grandfather. I was 13 and my brother was 9. My father had his own problems in his marriage to the older woman with 5 kids. They supposedly loved each other but could not live together but she was at our house constantly and when she wasn't they were arguing on the phone, him locked in his bedroom screaming at her and hanging up only for her to call back and it start all over. This was typically succeeded by him having a "few" beers, more like drunk and passing out.
Most holidays, because of the involvement of "spirits" and drugs, were horrible. Typically our Christmas tree was horizontal and stuff was broken even before Christmas got there. I can remember one Thanksgiving evening when a huge fight erupted and my stepmother attempted to kill him by running him over in the Monte Carlo. One Christmas eve, while my brother and I were visiting someone (can't remember who), apparently my dad had been doing cocaine and drinking was calling people all over the country saying his goodbyes and he was having my stepmother write her will, along with him. When we got back he said he was going to his truck to get a present he had for us, well the present was a gun in which he intended on that night to kill us all and himself. Some really great memories, huh? This was my childhood....
I had figured out as a teenager my mother would never be the mother any person imagines a caring mother to be and my father always had his own issues with my "evil" stepmother and his doing for "her" kids.
Don't get me wrong, there were good times, they were just very few.
I lost my virginity at the age of 16, it was taken (rape) .... by a 30+ year old "so-called" family member. There was no school that day and I was home alone so this person, a man whore, decided to ambush me. How does this happen? I was 16, I was not a pt (prick tease) as they would refer back then or loose ... I had barely even dated. I did not ask for this, I was 16 for chrissakes!! I had enough on my plate dealing with all the other drama with my parents. Besides I thought myself ugly and knew I was insecure. Nonetheless, this would come back for me to face later yet again, in a mean and callous way. To be honest, I do not even know if I have ever told my husband this so he may be reading this for the first time.
I moved out the weekend of my 18th birthday to move in with the stepmother. Now what I forgot to mention is starting at 16 she had begun taking me out to country western bars. I loved to dance, she also liked to drink. By the time I turned 18, we were no longer going out together anymore. I was working 2 jobs, going out dancing after the 2nd job until 2 am or so and living on speed.
Well my living with her did not last long when I came home one night and she was in bed with this black guy she had met in a bar somewhere. Anyone who knew my father, also knew he WAS Archie Bunker. She was cheating on my father AND with a black dude, which if my dad had EVER known, he would have killed her ... at point blank range. I never revealed this to my father but as far as she and I were concerned, it was over. In fact, when my father passed away 7 years ago I would not allow her, her children, or her grandchildren to attend his viewing. Was it right? No ... I should have been the bigger person but I had to grow into being the bigger person., this is still a work in progress to this day.
The childhood memories I have with them are not so good. My father was a womanizer, out all the time and was out of control with drag racing and drinking. As a small child I had actually witnessed, many times, him beat up his own mother and father as well as my mother. I remember my mother being an angry person and probably rightfully so. She had been molested by her father and now was in a crappy loveless marriage with 2 children. I never remember feeling loved except by my father's mother, Francis...and she meant the world to me.
They divorced after 10 years. He had met an older woman, 13 years his senior, in a bar through his carousing and drinking. My mother met someone in the army. Both were already a mess on their own and marrying bigger messes.
After the divorce I had lived with my mother and I was now replaced with my new stepmother's kids and being molested by my own stepfather. The molestation began because I had come home one night from being at my father's for the weekend and asked what sex was. My mother proceeded to have 2 additional children with my stepfather. I do believe he probably did love her but he was also a sick, demented person. The physical abuse and molestation physically lasted 3 years, but the emotional scars, a lifetime. I was not his only victim, but as a result of my own molestation I would later become a victim again. My mother should have known because of her own molestation but ignored it because she was being taken care of and did not have to work, I was the price. We were hauled off to live in Maine with her and my stepfather. I can remember he would grab my boobs and butt in front of my mother in the kitchen and I would get mad. In turn, she would get mad at me for having an attitude. She only believed me about the molestation after a psychic had told her it was true ... years later he later admitted to her it was true ... mind you this was several years later. Can you imagine how it felt all that time knowing I was never believed until "the psychic"? He had told me many times that I would one day love him ... all the while I was thinking one day I may have to kill you.
My mother, with her own scars, really should never have become a mother because she was never able to love any of us children like a mother should. Never a "good job" or "I'm so proud of you" even as I became an adult. Few times in my 47 years, has my mother or father hugged or kissed me, never mind told me they loved me. Because each never received it from their own family, they were not capable of giving it either. Ironically, my mother had wanted to become a nun. To me the core principle and basis of religion is love, and she could not show it to our own children.
After I had exposed the molestation my brother and I went to live with my father who was only 30 years old at the time and my grandmother (his mother Francis) and my grandfather. I was 13 and my brother was 9. My father had his own problems in his marriage to the older woman with 5 kids. They supposedly loved each other but could not live together but she was at our house constantly and when she wasn't they were arguing on the phone, him locked in his bedroom screaming at her and hanging up only for her to call back and it start all over. This was typically succeeded by him having a "few" beers, more like drunk and passing out.
Most holidays, because of the involvement of "spirits" and drugs, were horrible. Typically our Christmas tree was horizontal and stuff was broken even before Christmas got there. I can remember one Thanksgiving evening when a huge fight erupted and my stepmother attempted to kill him by running him over in the Monte Carlo. One Christmas eve, while my brother and I were visiting someone (can't remember who), apparently my dad had been doing cocaine and drinking was calling people all over the country saying his goodbyes and he was having my stepmother write her will, along with him. When we got back he said he was going to his truck to get a present he had for us, well the present was a gun in which he intended on that night to kill us all and himself. Some really great memories, huh? This was my childhood....
I had figured out as a teenager my mother would never be the mother any person imagines a caring mother to be and my father always had his own issues with my "evil" stepmother and his doing for "her" kids.
Don't get me wrong, there were good times, they were just very few.
I lost my virginity at the age of 16, it was taken (rape) .... by a 30+ year old "so-called" family member. There was no school that day and I was home alone so this person, a man whore, decided to ambush me. How does this happen? I was 16, I was not a pt (prick tease) as they would refer back then or loose ... I had barely even dated. I did not ask for this, I was 16 for chrissakes!! I had enough on my plate dealing with all the other drama with my parents. Besides I thought myself ugly and knew I was insecure. Nonetheless, this would come back for me to face later yet again, in a mean and callous way. To be honest, I do not even know if I have ever told my husband this so he may be reading this for the first time.
I moved out the weekend of my 18th birthday to move in with the stepmother. Now what I forgot to mention is starting at 16 she had begun taking me out to country western bars. I loved to dance, she also liked to drink. By the time I turned 18, we were no longer going out together anymore. I was working 2 jobs, going out dancing after the 2nd job until 2 am or so and living on speed.
Well my living with her did not last long when I came home one night and she was in bed with this black guy she had met in a bar somewhere. Anyone who knew my father, also knew he WAS Archie Bunker. She was cheating on my father AND with a black dude, which if my dad had EVER known, he would have killed her ... at point blank range. I never revealed this to my father but as far as she and I were concerned, it was over. In fact, when my father passed away 7 years ago I would not allow her, her children, or her grandchildren to attend his viewing. Was it right? No ... I should have been the bigger person but I had to grow into being the bigger person., this is still a work in progress to this day.
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