I guess she’ll need to get a lawyer

Calling the police

It was Sunday, April 5th when I began to get concerned about where our mother’s guns were.  I knew that she had two handguns. I asked my sister if she could ask our mother if she knew where they were. She agreed to call.

A few minutes later, she called  me back, very upset, saying that our brother had been really mean and hung up on her.  She was afraid our mom would be harmed.

He sounded mean.  He asked, “Mom is it true that you don’t want ______ here?” in that mean voice. Then she heard nothing.  Then he said, “WE’RE going to have a discussion!” yelling in that drunken sounding tone she had heard so often.  Then he hung up.  I asked her if she wanted me to call the police, and she said she did.  I asked her to try to call back there to see if anyone would answer. In the mean time, I would call the police.

The police agreed to conduct a welfare check.  They were supposed to call me back, but they never did.

She did get right back in touch with our mom, but I had already called the police.

It was killing me

I told our mother that the recent legal troubles in our family were killing me.  I said that I believed it would take at least a year off my already shortened life.  That made no matter to her. She took the stand to discredit me.  She gives shelter and money to one of the criminals in our family. He committed crimes against me. When I confided in her, she took all of the information back to the criminal. She betrayed me.  I know we will never see each other alive again, unless by accident. We will never speak. My sister said, “It’s easier if you pretend they’re dead.”

Chores

Like most kids, we had to do chores. Like most kids, we complained about it and tried to get out of doing them.

One time when it was my turn to wash the dishes after dinner, I just decided I was going to procrastinate and went in to watch TV instead. When I emerged from the family room a couple of hours later, I was delighted to see the kitchen all cleaned up! Someone was an angel and washed dishes for me. Wow, nice things like that don’t happen often in life. I went to my room and got into bed, only to discover that all the dirty pots and pans were in the bed. To be honest, I kind of think I just went to sleep and didn’t even bother moving them. When you’re a kid, you’re little enough to fit in a twin bed with the evening’s pots and pans.

When we were very young, we were required to make our beds in the morning after we got up. That requirement carried on until we were older, too. I don’t ever do it now. I mean, who gives a crap? I remember a time from before I was 5 years old (because of where it happened I can be sure it was before I was 5) when I tried to make my bed and got yelled at for the wrinkles on the covers. As an adult, I look at a 5 year old and know that a kid that age is just not capable of making a bed you can bounce a quarter off of. This was the start (in my memory) of being made aware that nothing I did was ever going to be good enough.

Maybe this is common, but I used to think that my parents had kids just so they could legally have slaves. One time we were made to scrub the kitchen ceiling. We got on chairs and then got up onto the kitchen counter and from there tried to scrub the ceiling. We could only just reach the ceiling from there, so it was difficult to exert enough pressure on the surface to do any good. Needless to say there was lots of yelling done about what a piss-poor job we were doing. Try to do a good job scrubbing something you can only just touch with your fingertips only if you stand on the tips of your toes.

Pornography

Both of my brothers have had stripper girlfriends, whom they met in sleazy stripper bars. My dad and maternal grandfather both had porn collections. When the VCR was new to US consumers my grandfather had one, which he bought for the express purpose of watching porn. He bought a video camera when they were outrageously priced so he could pay prostitutes to let him video tape them. I know my younger brother sees women as objects and uses them as such. Some people don’t believe there’s any harm in pornography. They’re either the people who are addicted to it or have never seen the damage it has done.

My grandfather died in a motel room with a prostitute who abandoned him there after she called his brother to let him know he wasn’t breathing.

Grandpa was a perv for sure

I had a good friend who lived a few houses away from us and we spent a lot of time together. When I was 17 and she was 16, we were at my house watching TV.  I was lying on the floor under a table and she was sitting on the couch. My grandfather came in and sat right next to her on the couch.  I suppose he didn’t see me there. He kept nudging her, and she turned and put her fists up and said, “you wanna fight?”  He said, “no, I want to make love. I think you’re sexy.”  She asked me, “are you going to do anything?”  I’m still ashamed that I didn’t stand up for my friend at that moment.  We just got up and walked out of the room. I hate that I didn’t have the guts to even say anything.

Another friend reminded me today that we were all three together once when he tried to grab that same friend’s butt as we walked by.

It’s no wonder my friend and I wrote and recorded (onto 8-track) a song about him.  I wish I still had that tape.

Yes, this is the same grandfather who was written about by my sister in another post.

Running for my life

My twin brother was the one who was molested as a child by our father. Needless to say, he was (and is) extremely screwed up. Nobody protected him. He used to harm insects and animals and other kids when the mood struck him.

When we were kids he took a knife from the kitchen and chased me through the house and out into the back yard with it, laughing maniacally the whole time. I felt I was running for my life. I was sure that if he caught me I’d be dead. Thankfully, he lost interest before I got too tired to run any more. I don’t think he’d have actually stabbed me though, looking back. There was another time when he swung at me with a baseball bat and stopped just short of the side of my head.

But officer… it was just a misunderstanding!

It’s true. Every now and then some of us have scrapes with the law. Wrong place, wrong time. That kind of thing.

My brother is a different story. He claims these events in his life have all been misunderstandings. If you consider the statistics, the only way this many scrapes could all be misunderstandings is if, a) Law enforcement doesn’t understand that the rules of society weren’t intended for my brother or, b) My brother misunderstands concepts that most 2 year olds seem to be able to grasp.

In the last 20 years, there have been 10 arrests that we KNOW about — and I may have UNDER-counted. That’s one every two years (that we know about). Most of the arrests include more than one charge. For example, one arrest is for possession of marijuana, driving while impaired (marijuana), DUI (alcohol), reckless driving, no proof of insurance and failure to maintain a local address. He also has a probation violation, bail skip and failures to appear, as well as a disorderly conduct. Of the countless charges, there have been guilty pleas on at least 4 charges. Should I say ONLY 4 charges? I know of 4 felony arrests that resulted in no action. The hit & run was dismissed after it took him SEVEN years to return to that jurisdiction to face the charges (after failing to appear 7 years prior). What’s WRONG with this picture?

Pretentious?

My brother, who is thought to be a sociopath, uses the British spellings for words, such as “behaviour.” for some reason, he thinks this impresses people. One time I walked into a room where he was instant messaging a woman and had left the window open. He had told the woman he was from Scotland. Just so you know, there ARE people who lie just for the sake of lying. We have a saying about this brother: “If he’s talking, he’s lying.”

Why can’t I remember much from age 10 and before??

I’m mainly blogging about events after age 10. There is a reason for that – I can’t remember much before that. I have snapshots of scenes in my head that flash for certain events and that is all. It’s like a picture was taken and is hanging in my brain of that one event. What causes this and why cannot I remember? I know that at that time is when the horrible things were going on with my sister when she was sent to the mental hospital, my brother sent to the same mental hospital. Shortly after he was sent to military school. I think my older sister went away to high school too around that time. What is there to remember that I’m not remembering? Should I even try??

I do remember strange behaviors that possibly could mean I was sexually abused or involved in some activity. The way I acted out things with friends and memories I have – are those normal?

I started out majoring in psych in college but after the 2 yrs of intro courses figured out I wasn’t going to figure out my family issues and went to the MIS route as I mentioned before.

Does anyone know about normal sexual acting out in girls of elementary school age – say probably 2nd grade?

Happy New Year!

My sister and I spent the entire first hour of 2008 talking about our family, things that happened, our mom and dad and how to escape from it. She sees a therapist but I don’t yet.

What is wrong with 2 women, 40 and 46 years old who waste so much valuable time on this subject! It’s almost amazing and out of this world when we remember the things that we recall. People ask me how I even ended up normal but I’m really not! I don’t do things to be kind to people as much as I used to. I started out being evil as a child, wanting to hurt others who didn’t know me well, but not wanting my good friends to hate me so I was very good to them. I suppose some of this is normal. I just thought I’d say we wasted our first hour of 2008 on this dysfunctional family and emotional abuse subject!

when our parents divorced, sold house and moved out I was in Florida

Even though I grew up with alcoholism, mental and sexual abuse, my parents decided to wait until my little brother was out of high school to divorce. It was a great favor they did for him.

So the time had come – it was the summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college. OK so lots of parents get divorced. I hope most do it with better communication. I remember things/crap just strewn everywhere. Basement full of crap – garage full of it. I had plans to drive to Florida with my fiance. We took our trip and when I got back, the house was not vacated anymore and I really had no place to live. My mom moved to a condo in that same town and my dad moved to a nearby town. I do not recollect them sitting down to tell me I was welcome to live with either one. Communicate never existed. I felt homeless but my fiance’s parents said to stay with them so I did for the summer.

grandfather attempts to molest me and my parents don’t care?

When I was in high school, I worked at a fast food restaurant in the nights and weekends. I was told a lot to bring home food for my live-in grandfather so he’d have dinner. He was an alcoholic. I don’t know where my parents were – they did go to a nearby city to fancy parties it seemed a lot. This particular night, he was bleeding as if he’d have fallen. I was home alone. I went back to give him his food when I noticed his injury. I approached him and he pulled me down on the coach and started grabbing at me. He said things like ‘you know you do things with your boyfriend so do them with me’. Oh my god I never wrote that out before or said it out loud. I’m ready to vomit right now.

So I called my sister right away, who lived across the country at the time. Why did I have to do that? I also called my boss at the fast food restaurant and I started driving away. I came back since he was injured. My sister called the neighbors. This was about 11:30pm by now. The ambulance came and took him to ER. Someone called my mom and dad and they drove a couple hours to come home. When the parents came home, they didn’t even ask how I was. It was never mentioned again.

How do you define narcisism?

“I’m the most famous person I know.” This is something my mom said to me once about herself. She paid for those “Who’s Who” books which are published by scammers who sell them to people who like to pay a couple hundred bucks to see their names in books.  He-he.   I think I’m going to go online and nominate her for another one!

When we were kids, we thought our mom was the smartest person in the whole wide world. We thought she was a genius! Recently a friend asked me, “why did you think that?” I reached way back into the recesses of my mind for the answer. SHE told us she was!

Psychology book on my bed

In high school, nobody ever talked to me (like parents). They left me notes by the toothpaste to put the cap on or whatever. Just notes. One day I went to my room and there was a book open up to the chapter about Passive Aggressiveness. My mom was trying to get her degree in Psychology (another story). She left that book there with a note written by her in it. It said that was me and I had that problem and I should read that chapter to learn how to improve. I will never forget that. How horrible.

“Dry up and Blow Away!”

Our mom used to tell us that. If we needed her or were looking for her that is what she would scream across the house. I am a mom now. Yes it’s frustrating when my kids constantly yell for me. I try so hard not to be mean. I could never imagine telling them to do go dry up and blow away.

M

Dad is from Mars?

My dad took me out to eat at a fancy restaurant once. I invited a friend along. I don’t remember how old I was. I remember that he confessed to the 2 of us that he is actually not born on earth. He was from a distant planet – probably Mars! Who would tell their kids and a friend something like that! He said he floats around at night, outside around the earth. Someone or something told him he is an alien. How did I even grow up to be half normal??

brother in jail

At the time, it had been probably 8 years since I last talked to my brother. Out of the blue my phone rings. It’s him. Where is he? JAIL! Oh pity stories galore. He needs money. I have lots of money. I say I don’t. Wouldn’t that be enabling if I did???

Brothers = criminals

While I was slaving away in college in a small town in the middle of cornfields, studying and being bored, I was getting phone calls from my brother. He was on a boat in the atlantic, heading towards an island! Did I want a new purse? – there was some designer kind he was getting me and wanted to know what type. Hmmm… I felt so bad. Here I was being bored and he was out having a good time! OK, well… I’m the one with a job, family, business now and guess what – he is homeless!

When we both went to same school a couple years later, he had cable tv, he had all the fun going out. I went to all my classes, had no cable, worked a part time job and had a boyfriend I commuted to! I was envious then but now I find out – guess what – I’m the one having a good life now!

Mom, I got an A in my college course!!!

In college, I started out as a psychology major at a small liberal arts college. Because I felt out of place there and ended up being too far from my boyfriend, I transferred to another college closer to home. It ends up it was the same one my mom attended when she was an adult and I was in about 7th grade. Well that was my first mistake. She likes to compete with me and always has. Instead of being nurturing, it’s always whatever she can do to outdo you. Anyway, I started out in the mid 80’s when computers were getting hot. She majored in MIS, management information systems. When I mentioned wanting to do that too, she told me right to my face (well on the phone), that I wasn’t smart enough to handle all the math courses for computers and was I sure I didn’t want to try something else. Well, that made my decision. Since she said I couldn’t do it – I was going to do it! Prove her wrong! Make her proud! Whatever the reason! ALso I thought I could make a lot of money after college Anyway, I was so happy the first semester that I got a 105 in an Economics course. I loved economics too so that helped. I remember exactly where I was standing in the kitchen of my one bedroom apt. I called. I told her. I was so excited. The response: She got a better grade than that, PLUS she got better grades than I did in the other course. Wow – smack in the face. Bam!!! I’ll learn not to look for nurturing there – or would I? It seems in a dysfunctional family you never do learn!

My first date with my now current husband included porn!

OK here’s a good one. My first date with a man who is now my husband… I was in my room getting ready – again I was in high school. I had no idea the doorbell had even rung. I was just hanging out brushing my hair, etc. I finally decided to walk to the front of the house to see what time it was and see if he was coming soon. There he sat in the family room with my dad, brother and grandfather. They were watching PORN on TV!!! oh my god. I could not believe it. I can not believe he even continued with the date. How embarassing! I don’t remember what the rest of the date was like or even what we talked about regarding that. Now we both still bring it up once in awhile and how awkward it was for him. How dysfunctional is that!!!

Throwing pop bottles all over the garage!

When I was in high school (again), my dad was really drunk. Something ticked him off. It was probably that someone left a pop bottle sitting on a cocktail table empty. He went out into the garage and just started throwing bottles everywhere, breaking them! We had an exchange student staying at our house (that’s a whole other story) and she looked at me like “what in the world is going on here!”. I told her, gosh that’s just normal, isn’t it? She said she wanted to get out of that place. At the time I just put up with it not knowing other dads didn’t do that same thing!

High School Homecoming Court

In high school 11th grade, I was nominated to be on the homecoming court – not the queen – she’s the 12th grade senior. But I was so excited.. you know how high school is!

I remember standing in the kitchen that evening before, where my parents were standing telling me they had no idea they should come and watch. I begged them to come and watch me. I think they did but now I can’t remember! I just know I could NOT believe it meant nothing to them!

It’s just routine

When I was in my 30s, I had to have my gallbladder removed under rather short notice. It was kind of crazy. I had been experiencing severe abdominal pain and nausea for some time. I went to see the doctor, who told me there was nothing wrong with me. He finally sent me for an upper GI endoscopy. The GI doctor also ordered some blood tests. When the results came in he knew what was wrong. He admitted me to the hospital and told me he was going to try to get a surgeon to come in that night.

My mom was there at the time. She had to go on vacation with my brother, so she said she was leaving. She said, “they said it’s just routine,” and off she went. I had to call my sister from another state to come and help me. I don’t believe I ever even got a call from my mother to check up on me. I would see this same behavior later in life when I was undergoing a very serious procedure.

Reverse Oedipus complex?

My mom seems to be madly in love with her youngest son, who is a criminal, drug & alcohol abuser and user of women. When he’s around, she shuns everyone else. It’s not that big of a deal, since there’s no joy in being around her. It’s just sickening to me how she bubbles over with ecstasy when he’s around. No matter how much he hurts others, she always welcomes him into her home. He only returns there when he’s homeless. At 39 years of age, he has no property that wasn’t given to him by someone else. He has a criminal record going back to the late 80s. He has active warrants in another state. In short, he is a loser. Yet our mother abandons all else to run to his aid.

Playing bridge

I can’t remember exactly how old I was when this happened. I think I was in the 5th grade. I was sleeping, and my dad came in my room and woke me up. He told me he was going to go kill himself and then he just left the house. My mom was playing bridge at a friend’s house and I called her there to tell her what happened. She didn’t come home right away. I went back to bed. I don’t know what time it was, but my dad was waking me again. My mom made him wake me to tell me he was sorry.

A few months ago I asked my mom why she didn’t come home from playing bridge when I called. She said, “I must have been in the middle of a hand.”

Something’s going on

I think I was about 13 or so when I had a feeling there was something going on in the house that wasn’t right. I went to my mom. I told her that my brother needed to have a lock on his door. I didn’t know why, because what was happening to him was something not yet in my vocabulary. I knew it had to do with my dad. My mom’s reply was, “You can’t live with someone for 20 years and not know if something’s going on.” Guess what? you CAN. She did it.

A year or so later, while I was at the grocery store with my dad, he confessed to me that he had been sexually abusing my brother. While we were walking one of the isles, he asked me, “Have you ever loved someone so much that you hated them?” Holy crap! What a way to start a confession!

I couldn’t wait to get home. I would have walked out and walked home, had I had any guts. I would have run away.

I told my mom. What happened? Not much. She continued to live with him, sharing the same bedroom, for another 15 years.

When my brother was about 10 years old, he said to me, “I know something that would make mom and dad have to get a divorce.” I begged to know what it was, but he wouldn’t tell me. Now I know what it was. Can you imagine being a child who thought he would be rescued if anyone ever found out about this horrible thing that had been happening to him ever since he could remember? When someone finally told, NOTHING happened? Nothing.

Out of the closet

Again with the closet! Yes, I was a snooper as a child. I found some gay porn in my dad’s closet when I was a kid. For some reason I thought I needed to show my brother, who naturally told on me. Never mind that my dad had gay porn! I got in trouble for showing it to my brother.

When my dad gave my other brother some Playboys, of course I told my mom. All she had to say was, “He probably thought he’d get a kick out of it.”

This is what my brother left behind

Aside from stealing from me while I was in the hospital, my brother dumped a huge amount of wine, liquor and beer bottles into my neighbor’s property. I call that being a pig. It shows he has no respect for people (me or my neighbors) or the earth. Why am I surprised? I’m not. Just sickened by it. This picture doesn’t do it justice.  They were spread over a wide area.  They had been tossed over the fence. Would it have been so hard to just put them in the garbage can?

Totally irresponsible

My dad had guns and bullets in his closet. I found them when I was a kid. I’m not sure how I knew how to do this, but I loaded one of the revolvers and took it into the basement and fired it a few times. I must have been left home alone in the house.

At some point my parents chastised me for having done this. They said I couldn’t be trusted and they were going to have to send me away if I ever did anything like this again.

As an adult, I have questions. Why was I alone? Why was there a gun and bullets anywhere a child could find them? Why weren’t they locked up? Why did the neighbors (who told my parents they heard someone firing a gun in the house) not call the sheriff?

Laundry

If my clothes were inside out when they went into the laundry, it was a cardinal sin.  At one point, I got a whack for every item of clothing that was inside out when it was laundry time. As an adult, I see how really insane that was. Imagine the extra time it took to sort out all of the inside out clothes and count them, delivering the smack with the wooden paddle for each item.  Wouldn’t it have been a time saver to just wash them that way and let me have to turn them right side out when I wanted to wear them?

Never good enough

My mom called me a number of names.  She called me lazy, messy, a slob and more. It’s no wonder I never thought much of myself.  I grew up feeling unwanted and hated.

Don’t use my stuff!

Once when my mom found out that I had used her scissors and not put them back where they belonged, she forced me to sit down at the kitchen table while she attempted to burn my fingers with her lighter. I kept blowing the flame out. I remember being terrified, and was crying. I just kept blowing that flame out, so I wouldn’t get burned. This was supposed to teach me not to touch things that weren’t mine.

Being dragged outside

I was about 11 years old. My parents were trying to get me into the car to take me someplace (more about that someplace later on). Not wanting to go, I became dead weight, which made it harder to move me. I had read someplace that the civil rights protesters were told to do that when being arrested so that’s why I did that. I was dragged outside onto the sidewalk in front of the house. The knees of my pants were torn from the friction between my knees and the cement and my knees were bloody. When my dad could drag me no farther, he began to kick me. This went on for a short time until he broke down crying, asking out loud what he had done to deserve this. My mom went to comfort him, so I got up and went back in the house.

Later on, I showed my mom all of the bruises on my back and ribs. She pushed me into her bedroom, and made me show my dad. They laughed and someone said, “You’ll never do that again, will you!”

The Tab bottle

When I was a teen and was sitting in our family’s den watching television, my dad came in the room. Seeing that I had an empty Tab bottle on the table beside me, he became furious. He picked up the bottle and whacked me on the head with it. Then he threw it at the fireplace, smashing it.