Disclosing Abuse Slipping through the cracks: A biography of neglect and abuse - 1) Family.
kamyk
Registrant
This is a description of my family background and how it affected my life and core beliefs. I don't want to talk about my family like this, but I have to start somewhere. I still don't have my first sexual abuse entirely sorted out to my satisfaction, so I'm giving my family background first. There is no remembered sexual abuse here, just lots of other abuse and neglect. It set the stage for everything that followed anyway. My next post will be about my kidnapping. There are some descriptions of physical abuse here. But how many times can you describe being spanked too hard, hit by a belt or switch, or a cooking spoon? A few notable, specific acts of violence have been written here.
I want to preface this by saying that I love my mother. Over the years she has changed so much, my father not as much. I'll give him credit that he does try to show affection through occasional monetary gifts, and he did minimally try when we were young to connect with us – usually by taking us to movies. I wish he'd also show it by learning how to not be verbally abusive and manipulative.
Also to be "fair" (although I have no idea why I am being “fair”), with the damage caused by everything I experienced, combined with the issues I was born with, it couldn't have been easy to know what to do with me.
At the very bottom of this post is a list of my upbringing's effects on me. I have been told it is both valuable, but immersion-breaking. I will add it under a spoiler blur-out and suggest that after you read this account that you pause to reflect before clicking the spoiler.
**** POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNINGS **** Neglect, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, some physical abuse, narcissism.. - My family life centered around my mother and father's ministry. To the point where we were frequently neglected, as well as them attempting abusive indoctrination. That neglect enabled and facilitated my sexual abuses. If you find a distaste of religion (almost entirely related to my parents) offensive, or triggering don't read this, because while I am not going to be offensive, I am not going to hold back my feelings.
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Prologue:
I was the first child of 4. My parents, as so many other bad parents have done, saw us as an extension of their interests rather than as individuals with their own needs and interests.
They were evangelical ministers, and their entire life revolved around their "mission" to "save the souls of the wretched" in their "war on satan". It felt like the only reason they had us kids was to "fulfill their destiny" of creating the next wave of evangelical ministers. Anything that did not fit that agenda was discouraged, demeaned, ignored, or punished. More than anything though it was the massive neglect that facilitated other people abusing me while my parents’ eyes were firmly fixed on "god."
It's a hard thing to talk about, because "Oh, neglect? Is that all?" (not hardly, but it was the biggest aspect of our dysfunctional upbringing followed closely by verbal, emotional, and physical abuse). Did I have food to eat? Clothes to wear? A roof over my head? Yep. Did I live in suburbia growing up? Yep. Was there a neighborhood pool at one point? Yep. And I had a tv and cable. That was my nanny. And the cartoons were my friends. And a microwave. That was who cooked when I was left on my own. And while I may have had the class benefits of a suburban upbringing, I had absolutely none of the social ones. In fact, in that environment, I was severely socially disadvantaged. Suburbanites are notorious for conformity, and I've never even been close to fitting in. (In looking this over, I realized that my wording of this paragraph directly comes from core beliefs that my feelings, needs, and experiences are less valid or important than anyone else’s; this is one of the deepest core beliefs that I have).
What I did not have was caring attentive parents who helped me grow as a person. What I did have were parents so wrapped up in themselves and their own interests that I was merely an extension of them. My dad still more or less treats us all that way to this day. My mother did show affection when we she wasn't angry, annoyed, disappointed, or distracted pursuing her interests.
In retrospect, I now know that my parents were self-absorbed, and that my father is a full-blown narcissist who also engages in passive-aggressive behavior. He is 100% about having a perfect reputation and public image, and anything that threatens that is buried or erased. My mother is a people pleaser (except for us kids growing up, where the role was mostly reversed and imposed on us) and has zero ability to cope with difficult, awkward, or stressful situations or topics that relate to family, so she denies/dismisses/minimizes anything uncomfortable to her. In both their cases they will minimize, deny, or try to retroactively rewrite memories of anything neglectful or abusive they did (Yay gaslighting!). To this day my dad will say "I never said that", or "I never did that". At this point, both of them will minimize or outright deny a lot of things that happened. I don't know if that is because they are old now and their memories are going, or if they are trying to make themselves feel better by pretending things didn't happen or weren't so bad.
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My parents should never have had children, purely from a genetic perspective, much less their apparent motivations for having us. Here's what the genetic lottery picked for me, along with the added non-sexual issues my upbringing and experiences gave me (narrative time continues after this brief clinical intermission; this is the perfect place to go get some popcorn and a drink).
I was born two months premature because my mother in her fire and zeal was stomping around on stages preaching to the masses about their "righteous mission" to the point where she pushed herself and her pregnancy with me too far, so I ended up in an incubator. Some of my systems hadn't finished developing and never did properly.
I have had serious functional issues with my digestive system my entire life, that were probably exacerbated by my first sexual abuse situation. These issues sometimes cause me extreme pain. The kind that sets you screaming involuntarily. I also have chemical imbalances, both from genetics, and from my upbringing.
Relating to that, and to my lifetime of abuses, I have (c)ptsd, major depressive disorder, constant low-grade depression (dysthymia), anxiety disorder, panic attacks, and I have identity issues. I dissociate, and I also do the opposite of dissociate, whatever that is, where your consciousness condenses down into a single point in your body: usually down to whichever part of my body is being stimulated most.
I get lost in my head pretty regularly to the point where I lose touch with the here and now, going down rabbit holes or memories related to my life of abuses. Some people have called it spacing out, some have told me it is a form of dissociation, I call it lost in my head. I do it a lot.
Of the 4 common trauma responses, my main one is fawn, followed by fight, followed by flight. If I can't please my way out of a situation I try to fight it. If I can't fight it, I try to escape it. Since I can't really fawn myself, and taking my anger out on myself isn't something you can do for the entire day, a very large part of my life has involved escaping into books, tv, movies, video games, drugs, and sex. In rare circumstances, I do also exhibit freeze. Somewhere along the way I developed a great deal of anger, resentment, and bitterness, so my fight response happens a lot more than it used to when I am triggered. I think it ties directly into my ex, but that goes into its own story.
On the combined physical and psychological fronts I have body and gender dysmorphia, a sleep disorder called delayed sleep phase disorder, recurring nightmares, and sometimes sleep paralysis and night terrors.
I have some cognitive issues. I am neurodivergent, and when I was younger, I showed signs of autism spectrum disorder. Hopefully, I can finally get a clinical diagnosis soon. I also have/had some developmental/learning disabilities that I have mostly overcome after decades of working on them. Social ones, mathematic-related ones, difficulties in describing what I thought or how I felt, and a mild form of dyslexia. Yeah, a neurodivergent kid with some physical, social, and learning disabilities who was regularly being neglected, and was then sexually abused by people taking advantage of that neglect.
Anyway...
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Main feature:
My very first memory is of nursery school. I couldn't even tie my own shoes, but I already knew what satan and hell were. My nursery school was a classroom in a church. On the way to the classroom, I had to pass by some stairs going down a floor that was bathed in a glowing red light that I now figure was probably an exit sign, but in my child's mind it was the stairs to hell where all "bad kids" went. Every single day I was terrified of passing those stairs.
One of my family's favorite "funny" stories to tell is something that happened when i was 3. I have no memory of it. They bought me a kiddie pool. They apparently used to leave me playing in it - outdoors, by myself, at age 3. At the apartment we lived in one of the tenants owned a very, very large dog. Not large to a 3-year-old, but large to an adult. One day my mother came outside looking for me and I was nowhere to be found. I wasn't in the pool. The huge dog was outside. My mother started calling my name, and eventually she heard muffled cries. Looking around she saw my arm sticking out from under the dog, who had apparently decided I was a good sleeping mat. This story is a family "good times" story. It wasn't a "good time" for me. I was terrified of dogs of any size for half my life.
My next concrete memory is of kindergarten, where there was a boy I desperately wanted to be around for reasons I did not understand until later. I am gay, and I am absolutely certain that is what the genetic lottery picked for me, as opposed to being a result of my abuses. I was so nervous being around this boy that I threw up once. Great way to make an impression, huh? I still remember his face more than 40 years later. He had dark hair, and blue eyes. He looked a lot like someone else I know now, but they aren't the same person.
I have a very few other memories before my abuses at age 7 began, but they are not really relevant here. I am not ready to post about my first sexual abuse yet. This would be the chronological place for it, but to be honest, I'm starting to think maybe I shouldn't force my brain to give me complete disclosure, and/or I need to take it slower. My recurring nightmares have gotten worse, and I've been having panic attacks from what I have remembered up to this point. Maybe I'll just post the disjointed mess I do remember sometimes instead of trying to force it into a cohesive narrative (I have managed to pull it together a lot more recently, in spite of dissociating frequently while doing so; actually in some cases I think the dissociation helped).
I was kidnapped at age 7. During my abduction, I "learned" a lot of things. One of which was a foul mouth. After I was home again that foul mouth lasted all of one month. During that month I must have eaten 20 bars of soap. My sisters were told to tease me and call me "potty mouth". That’s how my parents tried to deal with my trauma and brainwashing: things like that, and baptisms, and prayer sessions were my "therapy" until I was 11. Then they told me to just let go and let god. Plus, my dad made sure to silence me from being able to talk about what happened; he didn't want me talking to anyone about any family dirt. What will they think of us? Who knows who they might tell? We have to protect our reputation.
Back as far as I can remember (and really my continuous functional memory starts at age 8), my parents manipulated and groomed us kids to serve their purposes, interests, and needs. Sometimes gently, sometimes not so gently. For example, showing affection. If I did what they wanted, such as holding the offering plate, or memorizing a bible verse - I got hugs and kisses, and told I was loved. Not doing either got me spanked and sent to my room - no hugs, no kisses, no I love you. Just stories of hell and damnation for willful kids.
A minor example of favoritism and bias: I was encouraged to memorize the names of all 66 books in the bible, in order. I was 8. If I did, I would be rewarded with ice cream from the ice cream truck. Only those of us who memorized the names of 66 titles, in order, at the ripe old age of 8 and younger, got ice cream. Any of us who failed got to watch the "good" kids eat ice cream. Memorizing half of them did not get us half an ice cream. We'd be told we were not dedicated enough.
Grades were similar. D was Damnation, C was a Complete loss, B was Barely tolerable. If we got an A or A+ it was Awesome, and we were love bombed. If we did not make the grade, we were told to try harder or we would never amount to anything.
Paradoxically, while my parents were extremely neglectful with their attention and affection, they also were extremely controlling and stifling. My general routine for much of my younger life was:
Around the same time in my life, they would have church meetings where I was not to participate. By this time, I had experienced my kidnapping and everything that entailed. They didn't have the time to waste dealing with their damaged son - the congregation awaited, so I would regularly be left alone to wander the empty areas of the church. I'd go to classrooms and eat glue or eat those little plastic eyes you see in art class. I thought they were candy, and no one was there to tell me otherwise.
The only "friends" I was allowed to make for the younger part of my life were other church kids. Not that I made any actual friends unless you count bible study partners. What I was allowed to read, watch or listen to was a censored list when they were paying any attention to what I was doing. I guess it was sometimes fortunate they were so distracted with their lives. It's like they were overprotective when it didn't matter, and neglectful when it would have. There are other examples scattered through this.
We moved a lot. From before nursery school up until high school, we moved once every 1 to 3 years. This had nothing to do with anything but their job as ministers. It certainly had nothing to do with my well-being or getting me away from bullies and abusers. They were so focused on their mission that they never even noticed me being bullied or abused.
Unbelievably, considering I'd been kidnapped less than a year before, I walked home alone every day from 3rd grade. Granted we had moved to a different state, but really? Anyway, in 3rd grade, two major things happened, but one of them goes in a different part of my story.
We lived in a town in New England, and I was walking to and from school every day. It was beautiful there. The houses and buildings along the road were all well-kept historic landmarks. White columns, aged wood or marble facades. I will never forget the colorful sight of all the trees and piles of leaves in fall there. It was every postcard-perfect picture you have ever seen of fall in a smaller town in New England, complete with covered bridges over babbling streams and frothy rivers. And the seasons were seasons. April showers brought may flowers, fall leaf turning began in September, winter and snow started in December, Christmas was knee-deep in snow and hanging with sparkling icicles, and in March the steely blue skies were filled with kites of all colors, shapes and sizes. There were cultured woods full of flowers that surrounded a blue lake on the path I took home... Sorry, almost got lost in my head there.
Anyway, there was this boy I met. The only one I'd ever had an opportunity to get to know outside of church up to that point (at least outside of my kidnapping which I didn't remember then). He was definitely what I would now call one of my two main "types" (not that I'd have understood at the time). Not meaning due to his age, but due to his features, and personality. And he seemed interested in getting to know me too. We hung out for a few weeks, wandering the woods, just hanging out doing boy stuff: skipping stones on the lake, looking for walking sticks, playing with frogs.
This one day we had gone down to the lake. The place we went to was at the bottom of a large sandy hill. We were skipping stones, and I don't know why, but I leaned over and kissed his cheek. He smiled and hugged me (we were too young to even know what homophobia was, much less have an internalized version). Then we heard a girl's voice cry out and turned around just in time to see one of my sisters, age 3, tumbling down the sand hill. There was no one with her; she had toddled out of the house, down the street and into the woods alone and no one even noticed. Beyond how it impacted me, really that's my point in including this experience: no one was with her, and no one even noticed.
We walked over to her to help her up and she started shrieking about being covered in sand. I was 8 and already damaged, I wasn't equipped to take care of a toddler. I told her to go wash off in the lake and then my friend and I started to walk away. She toddled to the shallow beach, tripped and fell in, soaking herself. Then she tried to come after us and clambered her soaking wet self back up the sand hill. He and I went to his house. She toddled home. I didn't know any better than to let her go alone. Why would I?
My parents showed up screaming and throwing all kinds of fits about my sister coming home covered in sandy mud. I have no idea if she lied and told them I had taken her with us, and that therefore the neglect was my fault or if they just plain freaked out. I also have no idea if she'd seen me kiss the other boy and told on me, but either way I was told I would never be seeing the other boy again and was severely punished, probably belted but I don't remember now. That wasn't uncommon, me being severely punished for something that was the responsibility of my parents or the fault of one of my sisters. That particular sister made a game of it when she was older. Getting me in trouble for something she did was her main form of attention and defense. So yeah, that was how neglect lost me the only boy friend I ever made on my own in my childhood (they just denied this yesterday; they don't even remember the other boy, much less forbidding me from seeing him).
Some other stuff that happened there. My parents were out somewhere. Just 8-year-old me and my 5 and 3-year-old sisters at home. They decided to play dress up, and got me to join in. I thought I looked quite nice in makeup. When they got home, my parents definitely did not agree!
Another thing that started around then was "correction" for gestures or postures or habits I had. "Boys don't walk like that", "boys don't talk like that", "boys don't sit like that". Their methods for "correction" for any of this were very firm. So were their hands, and their tongues were very sharp. This also ties into other of my experiences that I will post later.
A lot of what happened in my life was completely normalized for me. I had no friends, no acquaintances really, just my “godly” family and the strangers in church that I would eagerly embrace in my starvation for affection. There was no one to tell me what "normal" looked like. I had no idea that love-bombing and love-withdrawal were abuse, no idea that hitting a child with a belt was abuse. No clue that my father screaming at me any time I did not meet his expectations, then hitting me in rage if I yelled back or got angry, wasn't normal.
Attention, affection, encouragement, and consideration were only for those of us who lived up to their expectations and met their interests. If we did not, we would be abused, with neglect, deprivation, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, screaming, and belts across our backsides. To use a metaphor, those of us who pleased our gods were rewarded with manna from heaven, those of us who did not were whipped and given moldy bread crusts thrown into a dirty corner.
My father was a trumpet player for the church as well as being the minister. When I was 9, my father bought me a trumpet, and put me to daily classes on playing it. I was not asked if I would like to play a trumpet. I was not given pep talks to excite me at the idea. I was instructed I would be learning to play the trumpet. That was my dad. An "If I say jump, you say how high" person. I can't count the times he screamed that at us in rage. He had dreams of having a family brass band, and we were going to fulfill it, willingly or not. My inability and reluctance to become proficient at it was met with emotional abuse. And I hate brass bands now.
If it weren't clear yet, my parents were extremely self-absorbed. During the summer, we were sent away to church summer camps. Out of their way, but still being indoctrinated. Win-win. When my youngest sister was 6(?) she was away at one of the church summer camps, and somehow had gotten an eye injury. My parents were called to come get her. My baby sister had all of her things gathered, her clothing, her stuffed animals, and it was all placed at the entrance to the camp where she waited for my parents to come get her. The staff then all went to have a church activity with the other kids, leaving my sister alone. On the way to get her, my parents stopped and had lunch while my sister stood there injured, and by herself with her toys. It started to rain. My parents continued to have lunch. The camp staff assumed she had already been picked up. My sister stood there in the rain, watching with her uninjured eye as her stuffed animals got soaked, while my parents continued to enjoy a leisurely lunch. They did not think to order anything to go for my sister, btw. When they finished and finally went to get her, they did not understand why she was upset.
This has been a common lifelong theme. When my dad is hungry and wants to eat, the rest of the world better take a back seat. I can't count how many times on road trips I was having intestinal cramps from my digestive system issues where I was expected to hold my bowels until it was convenient for my father, usually when he stopped for lunch.
So this is a good point to expand on the “importance” of my father's convenience. Any time in my life there was or is a need for my father to do anything involving other people where they are reliant on him, it is always at his convenience. “Have to go to the bathroom? Well, can't it wait until I'm ready to stop?” If I visit them and I get cramps and need to go home, my father would and will still sit at the kitchen table piss-farting around until he's good and ready to leave. “Need to go grocery shopping? You’re out of food? You don't you have anything? Not even Ramen? I can take you next week or the week after.” The reason for me needing to wait so long? He always has other "interests" he wants to pursue until he's good and ready. It's always about "when he's good and ready.” Like he believes he has to assert his dominance in every given circumstance. It even applies/applies to health concerns. Doctor visits were/are always at his convenience.
When I was somewhere around 10, my mother developed a heart condition and began taking digitalis(?). And one time after this my middle and youngest sisters were fighting. My mother wanted them to stop. Instead of trying to reason with them or break it up – you know, normal parenting – she rushed out into the hall and faked a heart attack. That stopped my sisters cold, and me as well, who had come out of my room to see what the fuss was just in time for the showstopper.
Another incident occurred related to my mother's heart condition. One time I was having trouble with my homework and didn't want to do it. I don't even recall what it was, something related to one of my developmental difficulties. Probably math. My mother got sick of trying to help me, and just insisted that I do it until it was finished, and then to wash the dishes afterward. I tried and tried and just couldn't get it, and my mom got madder and madder. Eventually, I had run out of fawn, and felt trapped in a corner and switched to fight. We argued. She slapped me, commanded me to finish no matter how long it took, and then she went to bed.
I did the best I could on my homework, and sometime very late started doing the dishes. My mother came down the stairs, peered around the corner into the kitchen with her hand to her chest and informed me:
"Kamyk, just so you know, if I die tonight, it's your fault.” Then she went back to bed. Nothing more was needed. I knew exactly what she meant.
A year later she had to have a hysterectomy which caused premature menopause. She was given estrogen pills, but they didn't work as well as they should have, I guess (I also used to swipe some of them and take them, but that's another story arc). Her temper got much, much worse at this time. One time we were in the front room, and I don't at all recall what prompted this (maybe I failed at some church-related thing again?) she was so angry at me that her face turned red, she was blowing air out her nose like some bull, and her arm shot out, her hand smashing into my throat, knocking me back and up against the wall, my feet pattering against the plaster as she proceeded to slap my face repeatedly with the hand that wasn't engaged in a chokehold. I fell unconscious.
I think it may have scared her or something because after that my mother's abuse became mostly verbal. Finally, someone to fight with instead of fawn on. So that was lots of "fun.” We argued intensely for most of my teen years. Usually over stupid shit like me being late to school again because my intestines were acting up. That period was when I started resorting to fight more than fawn, at least with family (yay! teen angst!). With anyone else was I pretty much still responded by fawning.
We'd also fight about the music I liked, shows I watched, things I read. If it wasn't of god, it was of satan. An oddball exception to this was sci-fi and fantasy. My mom loves fantasy novels, and my dad loves sci-fi shows. Just another example of hypocrisy, or rules for thee but not for me, I guess. At least I got to read fantasy novels and watch star trek.
During this time I also developed problems with overexplaining and oversharing because explaining wasn’t ever enough. Any number of times I would try to explain my side of things, but no matter what I said, it didn't seem like they understood or could even see my perspective so I would keep explaining, hoping something I said would get the disapproving look off of their faces. I could not understand how they couldn't see something so easy to see. Or when I was in trouble for something, and no matter how much I explained my side of things, it never mattered. I was still in trouble. I would still try though. Kind of like a mix between fawn and fight, trying to appease them by being defensive. It didn't always work though, sometimes it just made them angrier. Why did I keep trying? Why do I still keep trying? No one listens.
In relation to this, I also overthink constantly. My father was very volatile, and my mother was unpredictable. I spent my entire childhood walking on eggshells. I had to constantly have my brain running, trying to read their mood, trying to guess how they would behave or react. Relating to both things here is an example from as recently as yesterday. I was out with my family paying my bills. I smoke. I am conscientious about it. I do not just flick my butts on the ground. When I finish a cigarette I squeeze the cherry off of it, and then pocket the butt to throw away when possible. Sometimes they drop out of my pockets. Apparently, my father found one on the floor of his van. Despite the many, many, many years I have been doing this with butts, my father’s automatic assumption was that I smoke in their car when they leave me alone in it. I explained to him that no, I do not, have not, would not. His reaction was to get angry and aggressive with me for contradicting him. I can't even defend myself against the man’s incorrect accusations without him getting triggered. Between my family and my peers, my entire childhood was spent in a constant state of low to high-grade anxiety.
Also sometimes in my teens, my parents would become enraged and would punish us by sending us outside if we were living somewhere with large bushes and telling us to choose a switch and bring it back. Oh, the anticipation of considering, “Which one will be too thick and hurt more? Which one will be too slender, break, and make them even angrier? Which one will be too supple and leave welts?” Thankfully that wasn't often.
Here is a paradox to throw in here about one of my very few happy places. During summers my parents would take us on big vacations. Cross country, Disney, every year to the boardwalks in New Jersey where my grandfather and uncle lived. When I was younger my siblings and I "jokingly" referred to the vacations as their way to make up for the rest of the year. As an adult I now realize that it was just more pursuit of their own interests, and we happened to be along for the ride. I do appreciate the experiences I suppose, even if my involvement in them was a side effect rather than the focus. And ride we did. In a big maxi van, large enough that I had my own seat all to myself.
Even then I had sleep issues, and some of the time during those trips I would put my pillow and blanket on the floor between the seats, lay down, cover up with my other blanket, and sleep a while. My father would listen to old radio shows, or my mother would be reading a fiction novel aloud to my dad. I'd lay there on the floor, the soft sound of the freeway rushing under the vehicle, the vibrations of the van traveling over the road, the safe feeling of being wrapped up in a space where I didn't have to be on guard from anyone, the rush of wind past the windows and the fresh air they brought in. Being surrounded by the only people I knew who provided the only level of love I'd ever known. The soft drone of the radio shows, or my mother reading also provided comfort. To this day I sleep better in a moving vehicle than any other place. Some people pay for vibrating beds, or white noise to relax them. I sleep with a fan running all year (for several reasons), and I place it in such a way as to make my bed vibrate.
Of course, my perspective means nothing to my father, who insists that I wasted all of those vacations because I wasn't looking out the windows at all the trees and cows we passed I guess. It was always about getting there and following his itinerary anyway, so I don't know why he even cares. I can't count the interesting things that we just plain passed because they weren't on his agenda. This kind of thinking was so prevalent in him that I actually adopted a life perspective quote in retaliation that I either made up myself or read somewhere: “Life is not about the destination, it's about the journey. It doesn't matter where you are going, what matters is who you are going there with, and what you share along the way.”
Back to the religion. So, for years and years, I went to the altar every single day. Begging god to make everything ok, to make my family ok, to make me ok. I had been thoroughly indoctrinated to believe that if god loved you, and you accepted him as your blah blah blah, that you would feel his touch, feel his love, feel something, anything... Nothing. Nothing my entire childhood. No touch, no presence, no spiritual hug. Ie. No dopamine, adrenaline, serotonin, or endorphins. All the chemicals that come from closeness and affection. The ones religious people hype themselves up on in services, and then call it touched by god. Their god did not want me, did not care about me. Did not stop what happened to me, either at home, or when I was abused by other people. Especially not when I was kidnapped. I was filth, tainted, unworthy. The very first complete rejection of me in a lifetime of rejection.
Every sermon my dad preached was usually the same song and dance about being weak and utterly worthless without god, and fire and damnation and sin, and indoctrination about promiscuity and sexuality, yadda yadda. Sometimes there would be a change-up and we'd hear about agape love (self-sacrificing love) and being our brother's keeper. Or about how Jesus healed the sick and fed the hungry. More often though that was my mother's Sunday school domain. I learned that giving everything you had to someone else even at your own cost was an ideal state of existence (do whatever it takes to meet the needs of others). That if someone strikes your face, to turn the other cheek (if someone hits you, let them, and even submit to it, but never fight back). The golden rule of do unto others as you would have them do unto you (which no one ever seemed to actually act on).
These things were hammered into my head to the point where another one of my core beliefs is that I MUST give everything I have physically, emotionally, whatever, in service to helping others no matter what it costs me. This has severely negatively impacted my life in countless ways, but to sum it up: it basically turned me into a walking doormat.
My dad, after a day of preaching all about how you should treat other people how you would want to be treated, would do anything but behave that way. And after a day of fiery sermons about self-sacrificing love, and doing unto others, they would go home and hit us, or scream at us, or pretend to die and blame us. But it was all good. On Sunday Jesus would forgive them their failings, so there was no need to work on themselves. God would do it for them.
And yes, they would run dinners for the poor, and grant money to those in need, and run "educational" programs for kids. All for the low, low price of joining the congregation where they preached about the love of god and how Jesus fed the poor, healed the sick, and accepted everyone, even prostitutes. Then they would vote for people who would cut funding for schools, or who were anti-gay, or who voted on legislation that jacked up the prices of health care to raise stock prices, or the lovely couple who started the war on drugs that incarcerated thousands and thousands of "lower class" people in prison, sometimes for nothing more than possession of marijuana.
I began to see that their words and actions did not match. At all. I began to develop what would be a lifelong hatred of hypocrisy. All of this also began to add up into a hatred of religion.
My family also completely disregards boundaries. When we were younger, we had no privacy or autonomy at all. They would open our mail, read our diaries, listen to phone calls, search our rooms for "contraband" media. If they found anything they disapproved of, they would make us destroy it. They also did a non-existent job of teaching us about boundaries. Something that has caused huge issues among us kids. When I try to set boundaries to this day, most of my family still reacts like I am being unreasonable and selfish. Go figure that is the case with people who saw us as extensions of themselves. This continues to this day. I live in the ghetto, have almost my entire adult life. I occasionally ask if I can get amazon orders delivered to their address. Sometimes my father will decide to see what is in those packages without asking. His excuses are that "well he didn't see my name on it (my birth name is his, and I HATE it), or "well it's my house, so it's my business".
I mentioned the perfectionism already, yes? Related to that was some fun during my teen years where I started to wonder what to do with my life. It was pretty clear to me at that point I wanted nothing to do with my parents’ plans for my life. Not that they gave up.
I developed an interest in writing, and poetry, and singing, and playing piano, and sketching. I joined the choir in school, and amazingly my parents hired a piano teacher.
I would sit for hours drawing people. Other people. People I wished I was or knew. I got fairly good at some of it.
I wrote a poem about a crystal angel that had been damaged and discarded. (I didn't realize it at the time, but it was about me. I was the flawed angel. I posted it in the poetry sub-forum, btw). "How beautiful, and how sad" says my mother, followed by a talk about how poets die poor, alone, and hungry.
Or the first piece of music I ever made on a relatively inexpensive keyboard. Nice, but do you know how hard it is to get into the music industry?
And "Why do you devote so much time to your hobbies when it will never get you anywhere?" and "You aren't bad, but you aren't going to be able to make a living doing that".
Or the first truly representative piece I drew of a guy I had secretly a crush on. "Wow, you drew that? That's really good, but it's nearly impossible to make it as an artist. Oh, and don't show that to your father. He's thinking about taking up sketching again and seeing yours might discourage him from trying".
That was my mom and dad's priorities. Dad #1, mom #2, god #3, interests #4. Us kids were in there somewhere from #5 down.
Speaking of which, back to dad. When I was in my early 20s, my family moved again. I was done. I wasn't going this time. I made arrangements to split an apartment with a friend. It turned out to be a bad situation, but hardly worth mentioning except as a placeholder. When I left home, I was told that I would need to make it on my own, and that I better make it work because I would never be welcome to move back in again.
More things happened, but this is the point where most of it isn't family-related anymore. Except for the following gems.
One, when things went south, my dad made good on me never coming home again. First, I ended up homeless, then I ended up in the sex trade being pimped, then I ended up at the local rehab center that my mom and dad administrated here before moving, then I ended up in a group home where I met my longest relationship partner. True to form, my dad did throw money at my circumstances occasionally. I was not invited to come back home. Honestly, I wouldn't have gone if I had been.
When I was still recovering from my ex leaving me and everything that involved, I had started writing music and lyrics again as a way of expressing my pain and grief. I wanted to share my creative efforts with my parents. I shared my expressions of pain and grief with them. I suppose I was at least expecting a "that's really touching, but it isn't professional", maybe a tiny touch of empathy. What I got from my dad was "That's nice, can we eat now?"
When they were close to retirement my dad became very ill and almost died. The hospital put him in a drug-induced coma. He had extreme nightmares that traumatized him - based on his obsession with religion naturally. I don't know the specific details, but it involved a well-known celebrity actually being the devil, who was attempting to take all of us kids to hell. He was relating this to my one sister who is the golden child and said that what got him past his nightmares was when he realized that "the wrong child was going to hell." I asked him if there was a right child to go to hell, and his reply was "well you don't go to church do you?" He now denies saying this.
When called out on anything like this his passive-aggressive response is "Well, I guess I just won't say anything at all then," or "I guess I'm not allowed to speak my mind in my own house."
A very recent incident of emotional abuse was based on the fact that he is old and doesn't have many years left. He is desperate to make sure all his kids are "going to heaven" and brings it up constantly, even if we tell him we don't want to discuss it. You'd think it was a concern for us, but no. He openly and blatantly said to one of my sisters and myself that if we don't go to heaven that he hopes he forgets us, so he won't spend eternity sad. It has nothing to do with our well-being, and everything to do with him.
All my life that I can remember I have always felt that my parents don't actually love me. Me, the person. They tell me they love me. Yeah, they love "their son". The idea of "their son", not the person. I actually brought this up to my mom recently, and she said she did love me as a person. But that I'm still going to hell for being gay, and that I'm gay because of "satan" and my abuse. So, she loves me as a person, just not all of me.
I've left many things out, but I am so done oversharing trying to please the inner perfectionist. So that's my family upbringing. My sisters are all dysfunctional too, and there is so much abuse between some of us, but this was just about my upbringing.
Aftermath:
These are inner monologues only. I was able to reject these as core beliefs (much to my parent's dismay)
I want to preface this by saying that I love my mother. Over the years she has changed so much, my father not as much. I'll give him credit that he does try to show affection through occasional monetary gifts, and he did minimally try when we were young to connect with us – usually by taking us to movies. I wish he'd also show it by learning how to not be verbally abusive and manipulative.
Also to be "fair" (although I have no idea why I am being “fair”), with the damage caused by everything I experienced, combined with the issues I was born with, it couldn't have been easy to know what to do with me.
At the very bottom of this post is a list of my upbringing's effects on me. I have been told it is both valuable, but immersion-breaking. I will add it under a spoiler blur-out and suggest that after you read this account that you pause to reflect before clicking the spoiler.
**** POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNINGS **** Neglect, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, some physical abuse, narcissism.. - My family life centered around my mother and father's ministry. To the point where we were frequently neglected, as well as them attempting abusive indoctrination. That neglect enabled and facilitated my sexual abuses. If you find a distaste of religion (almost entirely related to my parents) offensive, or triggering don't read this, because while I am not going to be offensive, I am not going to hold back my feelings.
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Prologue:
I was the first child of 4. My parents, as so many other bad parents have done, saw us as an extension of their interests rather than as individuals with their own needs and interests.
They were evangelical ministers, and their entire life revolved around their "mission" to "save the souls of the wretched" in their "war on satan". It felt like the only reason they had us kids was to "fulfill their destiny" of creating the next wave of evangelical ministers. Anything that did not fit that agenda was discouraged, demeaned, ignored, or punished. More than anything though it was the massive neglect that facilitated other people abusing me while my parents’ eyes were firmly fixed on "god."
It's a hard thing to talk about, because "Oh, neglect? Is that all?" (not hardly, but it was the biggest aspect of our dysfunctional upbringing followed closely by verbal, emotional, and physical abuse). Did I have food to eat? Clothes to wear? A roof over my head? Yep. Did I live in suburbia growing up? Yep. Was there a neighborhood pool at one point? Yep. And I had a tv and cable. That was my nanny. And the cartoons were my friends. And a microwave. That was who cooked when I was left on my own. And while I may have had the class benefits of a suburban upbringing, I had absolutely none of the social ones. In fact, in that environment, I was severely socially disadvantaged. Suburbanites are notorious for conformity, and I've never even been close to fitting in. (In looking this over, I realized that my wording of this paragraph directly comes from core beliefs that my feelings, needs, and experiences are less valid or important than anyone else’s; this is one of the deepest core beliefs that I have).
What I did not have was caring attentive parents who helped me grow as a person. What I did have were parents so wrapped up in themselves and their own interests that I was merely an extension of them. My dad still more or less treats us all that way to this day. My mother did show affection when we she wasn't angry, annoyed, disappointed, or distracted pursuing her interests.
In retrospect, I now know that my parents were self-absorbed, and that my father is a full-blown narcissist who also engages in passive-aggressive behavior. He is 100% about having a perfect reputation and public image, and anything that threatens that is buried or erased. My mother is a people pleaser (except for us kids growing up, where the role was mostly reversed and imposed on us) and has zero ability to cope with difficult, awkward, or stressful situations or topics that relate to family, so she denies/dismisses/minimizes anything uncomfortable to her. In both their cases they will minimize, deny, or try to retroactively rewrite memories of anything neglectful or abusive they did (Yay gaslighting!). To this day my dad will say "I never said that", or "I never did that". At this point, both of them will minimize or outright deny a lot of things that happened. I don't know if that is because they are old now and their memories are going, or if they are trying to make themselves feel better by pretending things didn't happen or weren't so bad.
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My parents should never have had children, purely from a genetic perspective, much less their apparent motivations for having us. Here's what the genetic lottery picked for me, along with the added non-sexual issues my upbringing and experiences gave me (narrative time continues after this brief clinical intermission; this is the perfect place to go get some popcorn and a drink).
I was born two months premature because my mother in her fire and zeal was stomping around on stages preaching to the masses about their "righteous mission" to the point where she pushed herself and her pregnancy with me too far, so I ended up in an incubator. Some of my systems hadn't finished developing and never did properly.
I have had serious functional issues with my digestive system my entire life, that were probably exacerbated by my first sexual abuse situation. These issues sometimes cause me extreme pain. The kind that sets you screaming involuntarily. I also have chemical imbalances, both from genetics, and from my upbringing.
Relating to that, and to my lifetime of abuses, I have (c)ptsd, major depressive disorder, constant low-grade depression (dysthymia), anxiety disorder, panic attacks, and I have identity issues. I dissociate, and I also do the opposite of dissociate, whatever that is, where your consciousness condenses down into a single point in your body: usually down to whichever part of my body is being stimulated most.
I get lost in my head pretty regularly to the point where I lose touch with the here and now, going down rabbit holes or memories related to my life of abuses. Some people have called it spacing out, some have told me it is a form of dissociation, I call it lost in my head. I do it a lot.
Of the 4 common trauma responses, my main one is fawn, followed by fight, followed by flight. If I can't please my way out of a situation I try to fight it. If I can't fight it, I try to escape it. Since I can't really fawn myself, and taking my anger out on myself isn't something you can do for the entire day, a very large part of my life has involved escaping into books, tv, movies, video games, drugs, and sex. In rare circumstances, I do also exhibit freeze. Somewhere along the way I developed a great deal of anger, resentment, and bitterness, so my fight response happens a lot more than it used to when I am triggered. I think it ties directly into my ex, but that goes into its own story.
On the combined physical and psychological fronts I have body and gender dysmorphia, a sleep disorder called delayed sleep phase disorder, recurring nightmares, and sometimes sleep paralysis and night terrors.
I have some cognitive issues. I am neurodivergent, and when I was younger, I showed signs of autism spectrum disorder. Hopefully, I can finally get a clinical diagnosis soon. I also have/had some developmental/learning disabilities that I have mostly overcome after decades of working on them. Social ones, mathematic-related ones, difficulties in describing what I thought or how I felt, and a mild form of dyslexia. Yeah, a neurodivergent kid with some physical, social, and learning disabilities who was regularly being neglected, and was then sexually abused by people taking advantage of that neglect.
Anyway...
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Main feature:
My very first memory is of nursery school. I couldn't even tie my own shoes, but I already knew what satan and hell were. My nursery school was a classroom in a church. On the way to the classroom, I had to pass by some stairs going down a floor that was bathed in a glowing red light that I now figure was probably an exit sign, but in my child's mind it was the stairs to hell where all "bad kids" went. Every single day I was terrified of passing those stairs.
One of my family's favorite "funny" stories to tell is something that happened when i was 3. I have no memory of it. They bought me a kiddie pool. They apparently used to leave me playing in it - outdoors, by myself, at age 3. At the apartment we lived in one of the tenants owned a very, very large dog. Not large to a 3-year-old, but large to an adult. One day my mother came outside looking for me and I was nowhere to be found. I wasn't in the pool. The huge dog was outside. My mother started calling my name, and eventually she heard muffled cries. Looking around she saw my arm sticking out from under the dog, who had apparently decided I was a good sleeping mat. This story is a family "good times" story. It wasn't a "good time" for me. I was terrified of dogs of any size for half my life.
My next concrete memory is of kindergarten, where there was a boy I desperately wanted to be around for reasons I did not understand until later. I am gay, and I am absolutely certain that is what the genetic lottery picked for me, as opposed to being a result of my abuses. I was so nervous being around this boy that I threw up once. Great way to make an impression, huh? I still remember his face more than 40 years later. He had dark hair, and blue eyes. He looked a lot like someone else I know now, but they aren't the same person.
I have a very few other memories before my abuses at age 7 began, but they are not really relevant here. I am not ready to post about my first sexual abuse yet. This would be the chronological place for it, but to be honest, I'm starting to think maybe I shouldn't force my brain to give me complete disclosure, and/or I need to take it slower. My recurring nightmares have gotten worse, and I've been having panic attacks from what I have remembered up to this point. Maybe I'll just post the disjointed mess I do remember sometimes instead of trying to force it into a cohesive narrative (I have managed to pull it together a lot more recently, in spite of dissociating frequently while doing so; actually in some cases I think the dissociation helped).
I was kidnapped at age 7. During my abduction, I "learned" a lot of things. One of which was a foul mouth. After I was home again that foul mouth lasted all of one month. During that month I must have eaten 20 bars of soap. My sisters were told to tease me and call me "potty mouth". That’s how my parents tried to deal with my trauma and brainwashing: things like that, and baptisms, and prayer sessions were my "therapy" until I was 11. Then they told me to just let go and let god. Plus, my dad made sure to silence me from being able to talk about what happened; he didn't want me talking to anyone about any family dirt. What will they think of us? Who knows who they might tell? We have to protect our reputation.
Back as far as I can remember (and really my continuous functional memory starts at age 8), my parents manipulated and groomed us kids to serve their purposes, interests, and needs. Sometimes gently, sometimes not so gently. For example, showing affection. If I did what they wanted, such as holding the offering plate, or memorizing a bible verse - I got hugs and kisses, and told I was loved. Not doing either got me spanked and sent to my room - no hugs, no kisses, no I love you. Just stories of hell and damnation for willful kids.
A minor example of favoritism and bias: I was encouraged to memorize the names of all 66 books in the bible, in order. I was 8. If I did, I would be rewarded with ice cream from the ice cream truck. Only those of us who memorized the names of 66 titles, in order, at the ripe old age of 8 and younger, got ice cream. Any of us who failed got to watch the "good" kids eat ice cream. Memorizing half of them did not get us half an ice cream. We'd be told we were not dedicated enough.
Grades were similar. D was Damnation, C was a Complete loss, B was Barely tolerable. If we got an A or A+ it was Awesome, and we were love bombed. If we did not make the grade, we were told to try harder or we would never amount to anything.
Paradoxically, while my parents were extremely neglectful with their attention and affection, they also were extremely controlling and stifling. My general routine for much of my younger life was:
- Get up, go to school
- Walk home, eat, go to church for half the night
- Come home, do homework, say prayers, go to bed (my mom often did read to me before bed; I'll give her that)
Around the same time in my life, they would have church meetings where I was not to participate. By this time, I had experienced my kidnapping and everything that entailed. They didn't have the time to waste dealing with their damaged son - the congregation awaited, so I would regularly be left alone to wander the empty areas of the church. I'd go to classrooms and eat glue or eat those little plastic eyes you see in art class. I thought they were candy, and no one was there to tell me otherwise.
The only "friends" I was allowed to make for the younger part of my life were other church kids. Not that I made any actual friends unless you count bible study partners. What I was allowed to read, watch or listen to was a censored list when they were paying any attention to what I was doing. I guess it was sometimes fortunate they were so distracted with their lives. It's like they were overprotective when it didn't matter, and neglectful when it would have. There are other examples scattered through this.
We moved a lot. From before nursery school up until high school, we moved once every 1 to 3 years. This had nothing to do with anything but their job as ministers. It certainly had nothing to do with my well-being or getting me away from bullies and abusers. They were so focused on their mission that they never even noticed me being bullied or abused.
Unbelievably, considering I'd been kidnapped less than a year before, I walked home alone every day from 3rd grade. Granted we had moved to a different state, but really? Anyway, in 3rd grade, two major things happened, but one of them goes in a different part of my story.
We lived in a town in New England, and I was walking to and from school every day. It was beautiful there. The houses and buildings along the road were all well-kept historic landmarks. White columns, aged wood or marble facades. I will never forget the colorful sight of all the trees and piles of leaves in fall there. It was every postcard-perfect picture you have ever seen of fall in a smaller town in New England, complete with covered bridges over babbling streams and frothy rivers. And the seasons were seasons. April showers brought may flowers, fall leaf turning began in September, winter and snow started in December, Christmas was knee-deep in snow and hanging with sparkling icicles, and in March the steely blue skies were filled with kites of all colors, shapes and sizes. There were cultured woods full of flowers that surrounded a blue lake on the path I took home... Sorry, almost got lost in my head there.
Anyway, there was this boy I met. The only one I'd ever had an opportunity to get to know outside of church up to that point (at least outside of my kidnapping which I didn't remember then). He was definitely what I would now call one of my two main "types" (not that I'd have understood at the time). Not meaning due to his age, but due to his features, and personality. And he seemed interested in getting to know me too. We hung out for a few weeks, wandering the woods, just hanging out doing boy stuff: skipping stones on the lake, looking for walking sticks, playing with frogs.
This one day we had gone down to the lake. The place we went to was at the bottom of a large sandy hill. We were skipping stones, and I don't know why, but I leaned over and kissed his cheek. He smiled and hugged me (we were too young to even know what homophobia was, much less have an internalized version). Then we heard a girl's voice cry out and turned around just in time to see one of my sisters, age 3, tumbling down the sand hill. There was no one with her; she had toddled out of the house, down the street and into the woods alone and no one even noticed. Beyond how it impacted me, really that's my point in including this experience: no one was with her, and no one even noticed.
We walked over to her to help her up and she started shrieking about being covered in sand. I was 8 and already damaged, I wasn't equipped to take care of a toddler. I told her to go wash off in the lake and then my friend and I started to walk away. She toddled to the shallow beach, tripped and fell in, soaking herself. Then she tried to come after us and clambered her soaking wet self back up the sand hill. He and I went to his house. She toddled home. I didn't know any better than to let her go alone. Why would I?
My parents showed up screaming and throwing all kinds of fits about my sister coming home covered in sandy mud. I have no idea if she lied and told them I had taken her with us, and that therefore the neglect was my fault or if they just plain freaked out. I also have no idea if she'd seen me kiss the other boy and told on me, but either way I was told I would never be seeing the other boy again and was severely punished, probably belted but I don't remember now. That wasn't uncommon, me being severely punished for something that was the responsibility of my parents or the fault of one of my sisters. That particular sister made a game of it when she was older. Getting me in trouble for something she did was her main form of attention and defense. So yeah, that was how neglect lost me the only boy friend I ever made on my own in my childhood (they just denied this yesterday; they don't even remember the other boy, much less forbidding me from seeing him).
Some other stuff that happened there. My parents were out somewhere. Just 8-year-old me and my 5 and 3-year-old sisters at home. They decided to play dress up, and got me to join in. I thought I looked quite nice in makeup. When they got home, my parents definitely did not agree!
Another thing that started around then was "correction" for gestures or postures or habits I had. "Boys don't walk like that", "boys don't talk like that", "boys don't sit like that". Their methods for "correction" for any of this were very firm. So were their hands, and their tongues were very sharp. This also ties into other of my experiences that I will post later.
A lot of what happened in my life was completely normalized for me. I had no friends, no acquaintances really, just my “godly” family and the strangers in church that I would eagerly embrace in my starvation for affection. There was no one to tell me what "normal" looked like. I had no idea that love-bombing and love-withdrawal were abuse, no idea that hitting a child with a belt was abuse. No clue that my father screaming at me any time I did not meet his expectations, then hitting me in rage if I yelled back or got angry, wasn't normal.
Attention, affection, encouragement, and consideration were only for those of us who lived up to their expectations and met their interests. If we did not, we would be abused, with neglect, deprivation, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, screaming, and belts across our backsides. To use a metaphor, those of us who pleased our gods were rewarded with manna from heaven, those of us who did not were whipped and given moldy bread crusts thrown into a dirty corner.
My father was a trumpet player for the church as well as being the minister. When I was 9, my father bought me a trumpet, and put me to daily classes on playing it. I was not asked if I would like to play a trumpet. I was not given pep talks to excite me at the idea. I was instructed I would be learning to play the trumpet. That was my dad. An "If I say jump, you say how high" person. I can't count the times he screamed that at us in rage. He had dreams of having a family brass band, and we were going to fulfill it, willingly or not. My inability and reluctance to become proficient at it was met with emotional abuse. And I hate brass bands now.
If it weren't clear yet, my parents were extremely self-absorbed. During the summer, we were sent away to church summer camps. Out of their way, but still being indoctrinated. Win-win. When my youngest sister was 6(?) she was away at one of the church summer camps, and somehow had gotten an eye injury. My parents were called to come get her. My baby sister had all of her things gathered, her clothing, her stuffed animals, and it was all placed at the entrance to the camp where she waited for my parents to come get her. The staff then all went to have a church activity with the other kids, leaving my sister alone. On the way to get her, my parents stopped and had lunch while my sister stood there injured, and by herself with her toys. It started to rain. My parents continued to have lunch. The camp staff assumed she had already been picked up. My sister stood there in the rain, watching with her uninjured eye as her stuffed animals got soaked, while my parents continued to enjoy a leisurely lunch. They did not think to order anything to go for my sister, btw. When they finished and finally went to get her, they did not understand why she was upset.
This has been a common lifelong theme. When my dad is hungry and wants to eat, the rest of the world better take a back seat. I can't count how many times on road trips I was having intestinal cramps from my digestive system issues where I was expected to hold my bowels until it was convenient for my father, usually when he stopped for lunch.
So this is a good point to expand on the “importance” of my father's convenience. Any time in my life there was or is a need for my father to do anything involving other people where they are reliant on him, it is always at his convenience. “Have to go to the bathroom? Well, can't it wait until I'm ready to stop?” If I visit them and I get cramps and need to go home, my father would and will still sit at the kitchen table piss-farting around until he's good and ready to leave. “Need to go grocery shopping? You’re out of food? You don't you have anything? Not even Ramen? I can take you next week or the week after.” The reason for me needing to wait so long? He always has other "interests" he wants to pursue until he's good and ready. It's always about "when he's good and ready.” Like he believes he has to assert his dominance in every given circumstance. It even applies/applies to health concerns. Doctor visits were/are always at his convenience.
When I was somewhere around 10, my mother developed a heart condition and began taking digitalis(?). And one time after this my middle and youngest sisters were fighting. My mother wanted them to stop. Instead of trying to reason with them or break it up – you know, normal parenting – she rushed out into the hall and faked a heart attack. That stopped my sisters cold, and me as well, who had come out of my room to see what the fuss was just in time for the showstopper.
Another incident occurred related to my mother's heart condition. One time I was having trouble with my homework and didn't want to do it. I don't even recall what it was, something related to one of my developmental difficulties. Probably math. My mother got sick of trying to help me, and just insisted that I do it until it was finished, and then to wash the dishes afterward. I tried and tried and just couldn't get it, and my mom got madder and madder. Eventually, I had run out of fawn, and felt trapped in a corner and switched to fight. We argued. She slapped me, commanded me to finish no matter how long it took, and then she went to bed.
I did the best I could on my homework, and sometime very late started doing the dishes. My mother came down the stairs, peered around the corner into the kitchen with her hand to her chest and informed me:
"Kamyk, just so you know, if I die tonight, it's your fault.” Then she went back to bed. Nothing more was needed. I knew exactly what she meant.
A year later she had to have a hysterectomy which caused premature menopause. She was given estrogen pills, but they didn't work as well as they should have, I guess (I also used to swipe some of them and take them, but that's another story arc). Her temper got much, much worse at this time. One time we were in the front room, and I don't at all recall what prompted this (maybe I failed at some church-related thing again?) she was so angry at me that her face turned red, she was blowing air out her nose like some bull, and her arm shot out, her hand smashing into my throat, knocking me back and up against the wall, my feet pattering against the plaster as she proceeded to slap my face repeatedly with the hand that wasn't engaged in a chokehold. I fell unconscious.
I think it may have scared her or something because after that my mother's abuse became mostly verbal. Finally, someone to fight with instead of fawn on. So that was lots of "fun.” We argued intensely for most of my teen years. Usually over stupid shit like me being late to school again because my intestines were acting up. That period was when I started resorting to fight more than fawn, at least with family (yay! teen angst!). With anyone else was I pretty much still responded by fawning.
We'd also fight about the music I liked, shows I watched, things I read. If it wasn't of god, it was of satan. An oddball exception to this was sci-fi and fantasy. My mom loves fantasy novels, and my dad loves sci-fi shows. Just another example of hypocrisy, or rules for thee but not for me, I guess. At least I got to read fantasy novels and watch star trek.
During this time I also developed problems with overexplaining and oversharing because explaining wasn’t ever enough. Any number of times I would try to explain my side of things, but no matter what I said, it didn't seem like they understood or could even see my perspective so I would keep explaining, hoping something I said would get the disapproving look off of their faces. I could not understand how they couldn't see something so easy to see. Or when I was in trouble for something, and no matter how much I explained my side of things, it never mattered. I was still in trouble. I would still try though. Kind of like a mix between fawn and fight, trying to appease them by being defensive. It didn't always work though, sometimes it just made them angrier. Why did I keep trying? Why do I still keep trying? No one listens.
In relation to this, I also overthink constantly. My father was very volatile, and my mother was unpredictable. I spent my entire childhood walking on eggshells. I had to constantly have my brain running, trying to read their mood, trying to guess how they would behave or react. Relating to both things here is an example from as recently as yesterday. I was out with my family paying my bills. I smoke. I am conscientious about it. I do not just flick my butts on the ground. When I finish a cigarette I squeeze the cherry off of it, and then pocket the butt to throw away when possible. Sometimes they drop out of my pockets. Apparently, my father found one on the floor of his van. Despite the many, many, many years I have been doing this with butts, my father’s automatic assumption was that I smoke in their car when they leave me alone in it. I explained to him that no, I do not, have not, would not. His reaction was to get angry and aggressive with me for contradicting him. I can't even defend myself against the man’s incorrect accusations without him getting triggered. Between my family and my peers, my entire childhood was spent in a constant state of low to high-grade anxiety.
Also sometimes in my teens, my parents would become enraged and would punish us by sending us outside if we were living somewhere with large bushes and telling us to choose a switch and bring it back. Oh, the anticipation of considering, “Which one will be too thick and hurt more? Which one will be too slender, break, and make them even angrier? Which one will be too supple and leave welts?” Thankfully that wasn't often.
Here is a paradox to throw in here about one of my very few happy places. During summers my parents would take us on big vacations. Cross country, Disney, every year to the boardwalks in New Jersey where my grandfather and uncle lived. When I was younger my siblings and I "jokingly" referred to the vacations as their way to make up for the rest of the year. As an adult I now realize that it was just more pursuit of their own interests, and we happened to be along for the ride. I do appreciate the experiences I suppose, even if my involvement in them was a side effect rather than the focus. And ride we did. In a big maxi van, large enough that I had my own seat all to myself.
Even then I had sleep issues, and some of the time during those trips I would put my pillow and blanket on the floor between the seats, lay down, cover up with my other blanket, and sleep a while. My father would listen to old radio shows, or my mother would be reading a fiction novel aloud to my dad. I'd lay there on the floor, the soft sound of the freeway rushing under the vehicle, the vibrations of the van traveling over the road, the safe feeling of being wrapped up in a space where I didn't have to be on guard from anyone, the rush of wind past the windows and the fresh air they brought in. Being surrounded by the only people I knew who provided the only level of love I'd ever known. The soft drone of the radio shows, or my mother reading also provided comfort. To this day I sleep better in a moving vehicle than any other place. Some people pay for vibrating beds, or white noise to relax them. I sleep with a fan running all year (for several reasons), and I place it in such a way as to make my bed vibrate.
Of course, my perspective means nothing to my father, who insists that I wasted all of those vacations because I wasn't looking out the windows at all the trees and cows we passed I guess. It was always about getting there and following his itinerary anyway, so I don't know why he even cares. I can't count the interesting things that we just plain passed because they weren't on his agenda. This kind of thinking was so prevalent in him that I actually adopted a life perspective quote in retaliation that I either made up myself or read somewhere: “Life is not about the destination, it's about the journey. It doesn't matter where you are going, what matters is who you are going there with, and what you share along the way.”
Back to the religion. So, for years and years, I went to the altar every single day. Begging god to make everything ok, to make my family ok, to make me ok. I had been thoroughly indoctrinated to believe that if god loved you, and you accepted him as your blah blah blah, that you would feel his touch, feel his love, feel something, anything... Nothing. Nothing my entire childhood. No touch, no presence, no spiritual hug. Ie. No dopamine, adrenaline, serotonin, or endorphins. All the chemicals that come from closeness and affection. The ones religious people hype themselves up on in services, and then call it touched by god. Their god did not want me, did not care about me. Did not stop what happened to me, either at home, or when I was abused by other people. Especially not when I was kidnapped. I was filth, tainted, unworthy. The very first complete rejection of me in a lifetime of rejection.
Every sermon my dad preached was usually the same song and dance about being weak and utterly worthless without god, and fire and damnation and sin, and indoctrination about promiscuity and sexuality, yadda yadda. Sometimes there would be a change-up and we'd hear about agape love (self-sacrificing love) and being our brother's keeper. Or about how Jesus healed the sick and fed the hungry. More often though that was my mother's Sunday school domain. I learned that giving everything you had to someone else even at your own cost was an ideal state of existence (do whatever it takes to meet the needs of others). That if someone strikes your face, to turn the other cheek (if someone hits you, let them, and even submit to it, but never fight back). The golden rule of do unto others as you would have them do unto you (which no one ever seemed to actually act on).
These things were hammered into my head to the point where another one of my core beliefs is that I MUST give everything I have physically, emotionally, whatever, in service to helping others no matter what it costs me. This has severely negatively impacted my life in countless ways, but to sum it up: it basically turned me into a walking doormat.
My dad, after a day of preaching all about how you should treat other people how you would want to be treated, would do anything but behave that way. And after a day of fiery sermons about self-sacrificing love, and doing unto others, they would go home and hit us, or scream at us, or pretend to die and blame us. But it was all good. On Sunday Jesus would forgive them their failings, so there was no need to work on themselves. God would do it for them.
And yes, they would run dinners for the poor, and grant money to those in need, and run "educational" programs for kids. All for the low, low price of joining the congregation where they preached about the love of god and how Jesus fed the poor, healed the sick, and accepted everyone, even prostitutes. Then they would vote for people who would cut funding for schools, or who were anti-gay, or who voted on legislation that jacked up the prices of health care to raise stock prices, or the lovely couple who started the war on drugs that incarcerated thousands and thousands of "lower class" people in prison, sometimes for nothing more than possession of marijuana.
I began to see that their words and actions did not match. At all. I began to develop what would be a lifelong hatred of hypocrisy. All of this also began to add up into a hatred of religion.
My family also completely disregards boundaries. When we were younger, we had no privacy or autonomy at all. They would open our mail, read our diaries, listen to phone calls, search our rooms for "contraband" media. If they found anything they disapproved of, they would make us destroy it. They also did a non-existent job of teaching us about boundaries. Something that has caused huge issues among us kids. When I try to set boundaries to this day, most of my family still reacts like I am being unreasonable and selfish. Go figure that is the case with people who saw us as extensions of themselves. This continues to this day. I live in the ghetto, have almost my entire adult life. I occasionally ask if I can get amazon orders delivered to their address. Sometimes my father will decide to see what is in those packages without asking. His excuses are that "well he didn't see my name on it (my birth name is his, and I HATE it), or "well it's my house, so it's my business".
I mentioned the perfectionism already, yes? Related to that was some fun during my teen years where I started to wonder what to do with my life. It was pretty clear to me at that point I wanted nothing to do with my parents’ plans for my life. Not that they gave up.
I developed an interest in writing, and poetry, and singing, and playing piano, and sketching. I joined the choir in school, and amazingly my parents hired a piano teacher.
I would sit for hours drawing people. Other people. People I wished I was or knew. I got fairly good at some of it.
I wrote a poem about a crystal angel that had been damaged and discarded. (I didn't realize it at the time, but it was about me. I was the flawed angel. I posted it in the poetry sub-forum, btw). "How beautiful, and how sad" says my mother, followed by a talk about how poets die poor, alone, and hungry.
Or the first piece of music I ever made on a relatively inexpensive keyboard. Nice, but do you know how hard it is to get into the music industry?
And "Why do you devote so much time to your hobbies when it will never get you anywhere?" and "You aren't bad, but you aren't going to be able to make a living doing that".
Or the first truly representative piece I drew of a guy I had secretly a crush on. "Wow, you drew that? That's really good, but it's nearly impossible to make it as an artist. Oh, and don't show that to your father. He's thinking about taking up sketching again and seeing yours might discourage him from trying".
That was my mom and dad's priorities. Dad #1, mom #2, god #3, interests #4. Us kids were in there somewhere from #5 down.
Speaking of which, back to dad. When I was in my early 20s, my family moved again. I was done. I wasn't going this time. I made arrangements to split an apartment with a friend. It turned out to be a bad situation, but hardly worth mentioning except as a placeholder. When I left home, I was told that I would need to make it on my own, and that I better make it work because I would never be welcome to move back in again.
More things happened, but this is the point where most of it isn't family-related anymore. Except for the following gems.
One, when things went south, my dad made good on me never coming home again. First, I ended up homeless, then I ended up in the sex trade being pimped, then I ended up at the local rehab center that my mom and dad administrated here before moving, then I ended up in a group home where I met my longest relationship partner. True to form, my dad did throw money at my circumstances occasionally. I was not invited to come back home. Honestly, I wouldn't have gone if I had been.
When I was still recovering from my ex leaving me and everything that involved, I had started writing music and lyrics again as a way of expressing my pain and grief. I wanted to share my creative efforts with my parents. I shared my expressions of pain and grief with them. I suppose I was at least expecting a "that's really touching, but it isn't professional", maybe a tiny touch of empathy. What I got from my dad was "That's nice, can we eat now?"
When they were close to retirement my dad became very ill and almost died. The hospital put him in a drug-induced coma. He had extreme nightmares that traumatized him - based on his obsession with religion naturally. I don't know the specific details, but it involved a well-known celebrity actually being the devil, who was attempting to take all of us kids to hell. He was relating this to my one sister who is the golden child and said that what got him past his nightmares was when he realized that "the wrong child was going to hell." I asked him if there was a right child to go to hell, and his reply was "well you don't go to church do you?" He now denies saying this.
When called out on anything like this his passive-aggressive response is "Well, I guess I just won't say anything at all then," or "I guess I'm not allowed to speak my mind in my own house."
A very recent incident of emotional abuse was based on the fact that he is old and doesn't have many years left. He is desperate to make sure all his kids are "going to heaven" and brings it up constantly, even if we tell him we don't want to discuss it. You'd think it was a concern for us, but no. He openly and blatantly said to one of my sisters and myself that if we don't go to heaven that he hopes he forgets us, so he won't spend eternity sad. It has nothing to do with our well-being, and everything to do with him.
All my life that I can remember I have always felt that my parents don't actually love me. Me, the person. They tell me they love me. Yeah, they love "their son". The idea of "their son", not the person. I actually brought this up to my mom recently, and she said she did love me as a person. But that I'm still going to hell for being gay, and that I'm gay because of "satan" and my abuse. So, she loves me as a person, just not all of me.
I've left many things out, but I am so done oversharing trying to please the inner perfectionist. So that's my family upbringing. My sisters are all dysfunctional too, and there is so much abuse between some of us, but this was just about my upbringing.
Aftermath:
- I overshare
- I over explain
- I overthink excessively
- I am a self-perfectionist
- I often give up if I encounter hurdles
- I have trouble making decisions
- I am primarily a people pleaser (so is my mom)
- I have trouble standing up for myself unless I feel trapped
- I also have trouble standing up for myself unless I am triggered by specific triggers
- I have an ingrained compulsive need to stand up for other people
- That I am only loved or accepted if someone is getting something out of me
- That my feelings, needs, and experiences are less important/less worthy than other people's
- That my hopes, dreams, ambitions, and goals are meaningless or unattainable - (I no longer have any other than to free myself of compulsions, triggers, anger, grief, and damage. Well, and the very unlikely hope that someday I will meet someone with compatible interests and sexuality who will understand me, can relate to me, love me, and accept me warts and all)
- That I must put others needs before my own (which they didn't fucking do at all, except my mom catering to my dad)
- That unless I am of service to others that I am a waste of potential
- That my only reason for existing is to meet the needs of others
- That my only worth comes from what I can do for others
- That I am lazy
- That I am a failure
- That I am incompetent
- That I'm "too sensitive"
- That my feelings are invalid
- That my opinions are invalid
- That I cannot trust my feelings or instincts
- That if anything is wrong it must be my fault
- That anything I do has to be perfect
- That nothing I do will ever be perfect so why bother trying at all
These are inner monologues only. I was able to reject these as core beliefs (much to my parent's dismay)
- That without "god" I am worth less than nothing.
- That I am incapable of helping myself or fixing myself without "god".
- That any feelings, thoughts, opinions, beliefs, interests, knowledge, or identity I have that are not 'of god', are 'of satan'.
- That if I don't do what I am told to do and believe what I am told to believe that I will be punished here and now, and also for eternity
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. This must have been so hard to write out. I see we have similar environments growing up. The hell spawn children of the adopting parents loved to get me in trouble and then delight in my humiliating and painful punishments. Nothing I said was listened to or made a difference just like your situation. The AP had their own interests and they did not include me. I also was considered a disappointment and not manly enough. Your telling of the father not stopping the car until he had to use the facilities, get gas, or eat was so reminiscent of going anywhere as a child with the AP. Your laying down is what I would do and get harassed for it. I would get so tired of the yelling, fighting, the hate in the front of the vehicle that I would lay down and try not to exist. I was once on a trip to Canada with them, they were in the front of the truck and put me in the back on a cot. No radio or anything, no way to contact them. The entire trip I rode in the back of the covered pickup bed on a cot. Not sure why it was important to take the truck, they had a nice car. But while it was nice not to have to listen to them fight, I was miserable with not even a book to read. As you said of your parents, it was always about them and their needs, wants, and desires. I do wish the best for you and your new journey of healing a lifetime of hurt. Scottie
