Twisted Family Antics

 

The above photo, left to right: brother Jim, step-father Donnie, step-brother Scott, me, step-sister Jodi, step-sister Shannon, and my Grandma.

I feel like I have very few memories, compared with my siblings.  They think I’m nuts for being incapable of leaving it all behind.  However, I don’t think any of us remember things the same or even know a lot about what happened to each other.  I seem to remember more as I write.

Many of my memories relate to sexually inappropriate behavior around children.  I have been told that the results of such on a child are similar to molestation victims.  Every therapist I’ve ever had has asked me very early on if I was an incest survivor.  I am not.

Just to get started, here are a few specific memories that stand-out for me: 

(1) my mother jumping on my brother with both feet when he spilled milk down the heat register (he was about 3 and it was heartbreaking even to a 7-year old);

(2) my mother sitting naked in a living room chair, watching Jeopardy, eating chocolate ice cream, with black mascara run down her cheeks, as we prepared to leave for school in the morning (I think she had panties on, but her breast were like enormous hanging udders); 

(3) my mother throwing a knife at my step-father one Easter, denting the refrigerator, and being whisked away to a mental institution by the police after putting her head threw a glass window pane (she received shock treatments rather than admit to her diet pill addiction); 

(4) my mother throwing my sister to the ground and wrestling in glass over a bad grade on a report card (I love that my sister fought back);

(5) my mother throwing an 8-pack of soda bottles onto the carport cement because we did not run outside quickly enough to carry in groceries (her rage was often initiated by the most minor of occurrences, keeping you constantly on edge);

(6) my mother crying & screaming every single Christmas because she did not get what she wanted for gifts, or they did not fit (I still hate holidays);

(7) my step-father getting our dog a secret abortion rather than dealing with my mother’s wrath if she found out he had accidentally let the dog out (dog poop was regularly left on the carpet, waiting for children to clean it up);

(8.) being taken on rides in fast cars with my mother, while she left notes in her boyfriend’s car, and being driven across state lines at 100+ miles per hour when she thought her truck-driving husband might be cheating;

(9) being left alone at age 10 in a dark car with a strange man while Mom took a ride with another unfamiliar guy, told not to run home because my step-father would know she was up to something (the guy wanted to know if I’d had my ”cherry popped” yet and told me how he’d never been attracted to someone so young - I thought he was going to rape me and I needed to pee, my biggest concern being that I would pee on him); 

(10) my father’s death when I was 10, rarely ever to be spoken of again;

(11) a family trip to the Indy Time Trials whereupon mom got drunk, puked on my brother’s new Indy flag and begged for her husband’s forgiveness after bringing a black man into the van during a rain storm (she unzipped his pants under a blanket with kids nearby);

(12) my mother and her husband going to an x-rated movie theatre on Easter night, me walking to church alone that morning;

(13) naked pictures of my step-father with an erection in the drawer underneath our lunch money (but it was possibly worse being chased around the house by our brothers as they revved up my mother’s well-used vibrators and dildoes, attempting to touch us with them);

(14) hiding underneath the piano after innocently sneaking downstairs when I heard a party going on, only to find my mother and four men watching porn (my brother’s first business enterprise was charging entry to movie nights in our basement);

(15) being told not to go down to the basement any longer in the evening (where the washer and dryer were) because it was “ruining my sex life” — yes, she actually said that to her pre-teen daughters;

(16) living in a house where the parental bedroom was attached to the living room and was always open (there was a recessed full-length door that they never took the time to pull out of the wall) - my sister walked in to find them having oral sex and threw the cat onto the piano so they would know someone was home;

(17) drunken tirades and fights, wondering why my step-father never just kicked my mother’s ass, wishing he would, and my mother begging for our help during one of those fights when I was about 9, not knowing what to do;

(18.) being called a whore and a prostitute by my mother (I looked up the definitions in the dictionary), never being told I was pretty or told I was loved;

(19) standing at the bathroom window upstairs during a party, needing something from my mother but she was unavailable, and deciding that I did not love her and never would again (I was about 10);

(20) sneaking my boyfriend into the house to spend the night when I was 14, looking for love in all the wrong places, and having my mother come stomping upstairs to clean while Doug hid naked in my closet (at one point they were nose to nose but she did not notice him).

A few thoughts . . . .

For children, childhood lasts a really long time.  In the brain of a dysfunctional adult, childhood lasts forever.

One of the main lessons I pulled from this mess is the knowledge that divorce really sucks for kids and women should not automatically be given custody. 

Before my father died he let me know that he would be going to court and trying to get the judge to allow me to come and live with him; he acknowledged that my mother was crazy and he was going to help save me.  Of course, it didn’t happen.

Dad was a friendly guy.  He had no problem with my step-father.  My favorite memorable quote: “Good luck to ya’!”

The court system in this country is so completely unfair toward men and their children that it is criminal.  I hear people screaming about child support, but what about the tragedy of being forced to live apart from your own children? 

I would pay — to live with my children — not to have them torn from me.  Children need their fathers; fathers need their children.  It’s not just all about the mommy, though many believe that’s the case.

Sally Jessy Raphael used to say quite often, “You only have one mother!”  And I would often say, “Fuck you, Sally Jessy Raphael!  You don’t know my mother!”  Yes, I was talking to the television.

Another thing I wish people realized is that it only takes one solid loving person in a child’s life to let them know that crazy isn’t normal, that living with crazy people doesn’t mean they are bad. 

Speak up and say it out loud, if you know that a situation is out of control.  Don’t bow down to bullies, especially the ones in your own family.