Our Dysfunctional Family

I guess she’ll need to get a lawyer

dysfunctionalfamily — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:54:34 +0000

Calling the police

dysfunctionalfamily — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 03:50:28 +0000

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

dysfunctionalfamily — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 12:21:21 +0000

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

dysfunctionalfamily — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 05:47:08 +0000

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

dysfunctionalfamily — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 05:19:26 +0000

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

dysfunctionalfamily — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 05:07:44 +0000

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

dysfunctionalfamily — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 23:51:32 +0000

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!

dysfunctionalfamily — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 04:20:42 +0000

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?

dysfunctionalfamily — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 06:15:27 +0000

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??

dysfunctionalfamily — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 06:13:50 +0000

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?