Failed Foundations

Okay, last time I wrote I think I was telling you guys about needing to come up with the next thing to do in therapy, regarding Exposure Therapy stuff.  I’ve been thinking and all I’m coming up with is stuff I don’t want to talk about.

Naturally, this means it’s stuff that I need to talk about.

I kind of feel like I really need to lay out for Charon the foundation of my childhood before we can move into anything else.  Like, I feel like I should give her a timeline and general description of what my life has been like.  I was born.  My parents were constantly begging their parents for food stuff and taking advantage of the church’s food thing.  (The Mormons, much as I have issue with them, have this amazing program where they’ll give you food for your family for up to 2 weeks I think.  I give them props for this.  My parents abused it.  I feel bad for that.)  My parents had apparently separated for a bit when my brother and I were still living with our half brother who is about 10 years older than me.  My dad got my brother and I taken away from our mum for a bit because we lived in a fucking dump.  We were too young to remember.

My parents left to our current state when I was around 2.  They were gone for over 6 months, leaving my brother and 1/2 brother and I with my aunt and uncle and their daughter.  I had started calling my aunt mum and when my real mum came back I laughed when she said she was my mum.  My mum took me and my brother and left my 1/2 brother behind because he refused to go back to living with my dad because he’s a crazy abusive piece of shit.

My dad has had a lot of neo-nazi, KKK, and biker friends throughout the years.  One of them had touched me inappropriately when I was a kid.  I don’t talk about it.  I probably should.  He’d tickle me a lot and sometimes watch me and my brother and stuff and things.  When I told my parents I don’t like him touching me, I’m pretty sure they thought I was talking about the tickling and they told me he was just playing.  Body autonomy was not a thing growing up.  Or at all until I finally stood my ground as an adult and told everyone no touching.

We moved around a lot.  One time, when we were living in apartments, I got slapped by another girl and her brothers when I was sitting on swings.  I don’t remember why.  I remember going home and crying.  Hispanic kids, if I remember correctly.  That’s important and I don’t remember why.  Apparently, my dad had an affair with the babysitter.  That’s a recurring theme.

We got a house when I was around 5 or 6.  Technically, it was our grandparents’ house and they were letting us live their.  My dad’s adoptive parents.  Grandpa died when I was 6 from cancer and Grandma is friggin old.  She’s nice though.  I got beat from my dad and then my mum for drawing on the walls.  I thought that was just something I was supposed to do because the kids in the shows were always doing it.  Child logic.

My brother and I had our own rooms for a bit and at one point a lady came to live with us.  I would sleep in her bed a lot when I had nightmares because she slept in my room.  I had nightmares a lot.  I still have nightmares a lot.  She was nice.  Apparently my dad was also sleeping with her.  Just not like I was.  My mum drove her to her parents house one night and was gone for several hours and I cried a lot.  My dad got pissed at me and spanked me for crying for her and the lady.  I think her name was Crystal.  I don’t remember.

My mum had put a karate outfit in my closet.  She said it belonged to my half brother, who I couldn’t remember.  She always spoke about him and just really put him on a pedestal.  Whenever I got in trouble, she would tell me that he would never do things like that and why can’t I behave like my brothers?  I wasn’t allowed to put on the karate outfit or join karate.  She got mad whenever I tried.

Yes, the house was absolutely filthy.  CPS was called a lot to check the ‘living conditions’ of the house and my mum always had the mormons come help.  My brother and I were doing a majority of the cooking and laundry and no one ever did dishes or swept or picked up trash or put away toys.  A majority of our toys were the cheap ones from fast food places.  We each got pikachu dolls that talked when my brother was 10.  I named mine Sparky.

I started growing boobs when I was 9.  That’s when a lot of the molesting started.  At one point, I was told that if I wanted to play with some kids, I would have to let them touch my boobs.  I wanted to play with them so I did.  I did not want to let them touch me but I wanted to play.  Child logic.  This is also when I started having that one babysitter who molested me a lot.    Because boobs.

And from then until I started my period, my dad would too.  Because I wasn’t a little girl anymore.  And when I started my period, I was a full grown woman and he wanted nothing more to do with me.  Probably because I could get pregnant at that point, I don’t know.  I still got beatings a lot by my parents.  All the time.  I misbehaved a lot.  And then I was sent to a special school for kids who misbehaved.

Of course my acting out was entirely because I was diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder and my parents weren’t to blame and my home life was perfect, how could anyone think it was anything but me being a little shit.  (Heavy sarcasm there).  My brother and I, by this point, were almost entirely on our own when it came to cleaning and laundry and food.  Our hot water heater broke sometime during this period and so we had no hot water.  I took a bath rarely because I couldn’t stand the cold, especially in winter.  Yes, I smelled terribly, I was aware.  No one would listen when I told them I couldn’t shower because there was no hot water.  My mum used to have my brother and me boil water and put it in the bathtub for her, but that took forever and my arms were always tired after.  I couldn’t imagine doing that for me.

Then my dad overdosed in front of me and CPS was called again and I was beat for telling the police that I was home alone with my dad and he reached up my shirt to grab the meds.  There was a pill box (really a fabric makeup bag) that my mum used to carry around with her because my dad was always overdosing.  Mostly around the times we had no food in the house.  One time we visited him in the hospital after getting bison burgers and bison jerky and we shared some with him.

Anyway, my mum had left the house with my brother to go to the store and accidentally left the pill box with me and my dad and I thought it was a test because I was always being tested and gaslit for shit and so I stuck it up my shirt.  My dad soon realized I had it and got it and I remember the shit eating grin he had when he swallowed.  Fuck you, dickwad.

I got in a lot of trouble from my parents after that.  I mean, people came to school to talk to me.  I was always told not to tell anyone about what went on at home because my brother and I would be taken away and I would never see him or my parents or my dogs again and I would be raped by the foster parents and murdered and shit like that.  Only my parents and the doctors and the church people were allowed to touch me.  That was what I was raised to believe.

No one is allowed to touch me without my permission now.  Behold My Sacred No.

Also, no one believed me anyway.  “I don’t like when my dad touches me.”  “Does he spank you?”  “Yes.”  “Well, stop misbehaving then.”  I don’t understand that logic now-a-days, but whatever.  I tried to tell people.  No one listened.  They told my parents what I was saying.  I got in more trouble. Vicious cycle.

I’m now going to stop writing because this has been very emotional for me and so I’m going to sign off for now.  I’ll try and finish later.

-The Sarcastic Autist