Interconnected

Seeing the names and ages of the twenty children aged six and seven years old whacks it right into your face. Then there are the names of the adults who, presumably were terrified and possibly trying to protect their charges, and their lives also brought to a sudden end.

An old blogging friend, Chandira, has written a short item Shooting today and astrology lesson which touches on some predictions of future upheavals and changes. When it involves actions like this it is all too scary and just not fair, on the other hand, it promises a clear out of the old and better things ahead with a better world order.

When I read something like that I wonder why the young innocent have to suffer? There is no rhyme nor reason that can justify it. We can weep for those involved and the family and friends. Beyond that, what can be done? We can scream and shout about gun laws and mental illness and the punishment system but really, what good would it do whilst one area is being tackled and someone determined slips through the net to create the impact they think they desire.

It would do us well for each of us to remember that we are interconnected, that we are not islands even though we may at times feel alone. To remember that what you and I say to the other person in our household does affect the wider world, and those thoughts that we think that are unkind do seep out and grow like cancers in all sorts of ways. No one is innocent in this and we all need to take a collective responsibility.

Our love does affect the next person and just one smile to a stranger can be remembered as a beacon of hope for years. I know because a bus driver once smiled at me as a child during some very tough times and that kept me going. Sure we must look at gun laws but if people did not feel the need to pick up a gun in the first place to devastate others then there would be little need for the laws.

Chandira also talks about food additives and depression. Have I ever mentioned anything about vaccinations? And just yesterday my attention was drawn to some interesting ideas regarding eating patterns and the fact we are addicted to eating - we in the so-called richer world seem to live to eat rather than eat to live. So many things that we accept as gospel when it may well that however well meaning we arrived in that situation we are now firmly staying there because it suits this or that big business: the drug companies; the food industry; the Press and Media; and so forth.

This is bigger than just one person with a gun and if we all re-examined everything, were more open -minded, and less condemning of others then we have a chance.

Baggage

We all carry baggage of some sort. May try not to but it is inevitable. Some have beautiful, sleek items, some have joyful affairs stuffed full of love, some have pain and illness, and so forth. Mostly I bet, we have a combination to reflect who we are. I try to think of my baggage assortment and all I can see is a ratty, tatty odd ball assortment with one or two gems of potential.

Maybe it was always those gems of potential, or an inner faith if you like, that kept me going through my growing-up years and since. Not that I sit and wallow in my childhood and blame my parents and in fact it is the opposite and far too much that I blame myself time and again for every thing that goes wrong. In the past I have written a fair deal about my mother, who passed away last year, about her undiagnosed Aspergers* qualities that in her may have contributed to her psychological and physical violence towards us all. I have written a bit about my father's complicity in it as he too suffered and then also my brother's added violence towards me as the convenient family scapegoat.

All that adds up to quite a bit of baggage. Some of which has been processed through counselling and blogging and the love of good people around me. I may not talk or write about it much these days but all that stuff is still there. A rag of a rug ever present under my feet that I fear less will be pulled out from under me, but still often fear. It is very difficult living life always being on guard, trying to say things right and not make a mistake, always taking on board the blame, and many more self-destroying behaviours. All this without actually looking or behaving like I am a creepy-trying-to-do-right person. And there you go, I can kick myself for that behaviour too.

It would be easy to say to snap out of it. Very easy. If only.

*Aspergers: please note that I do not for one minute say that people with Aspergers are necessarily violent or horrible. What I do say is that my mother's behaviour is consistent with the diagnosis. She struggled through life trying to cope with it herself and her own violent childhood, though mainly, she was in a world of her own not aware of how others were affected by her behaviour. She was never kept in check (my dad, her husband could have lovingly done that) and so knew no boundaries. I have written a few posts, this being one Parents with aspergers and on account of the many emails I have received over the years about it and what people say, I shall start to put in some labelling on the blog so that other childhood incidents can be more easily found. The reason for that, is that when one goes through this sort of living madness, to read that you are not alone is a Eureka moment. To know it is not all your fault.

Remembrance

Thinking about myself and my own family, this year is a poignant Remembrance Day. I feel our lives are bound up in the atrocities of World War I and the psychological aftermath on my grandfather which I wrote about in 2006. And then the effects on my mother which she in turn inflicted upon us and which I in turn have tried very hard not to inflict upon my children. Of my siblings, one is incredibly scarred and screwed-up and the other does a brilliant job of keeping all the hatches tightly bolted down. There is half-sibling with whom we sadly have no contact.

From 1917 when my grandfather was first gassed to 2011 when my mother died is ninety-four years. My grandfather had nine children of which the eldest committed suicide, the next died youngish in a road accident and the next is a recluse knowing he had to stay away from people though is quite charming when I visit him, and then the next is my mother, the eldest daughter. After my mother the rest of the siblings, although damaged, did not obviously inflict the level of pain and suffering on their children that my mother did. But then, by the time he had fathered the rest and they were still young, he was finally and forcibly evicted from the family home so the rest did not experience or really know the violence experienced by the elder siblings and were left with a loving mother.

This is not to say that everything is blamed on the aftermath of the war, but if someone has something like Aspergers, especially from way back then when it was not acknowledged, then the brutality my mother experienced and witnessed from her father was easier to replicate on us. What if she had been brought into a loving environment that cushioned and supported her, life could have been so very different. I would be someone completely different. I have said it before, I do not subscribe to the idea of giving thanks for my childhood making me into who I am. Such brutality and psychological traumas are barely able to be survived. Cue my elder sibling who amazingly is still alive despite a lifetime drowned in drugs to escape reality.

Yesterday I was asked by a friend how I am since my mother died a few months ago and I said how strange it feels. This person who was so omnipresent and such a character is suddenly not there. Nothing. Nada. Wiped out. Gone. It is puzzling as to why a person could ever have had such a hold. She hated Remembrance Day and condemned the going on about the past and these old fogeys dragged out each year. Yet there were years, as kids, we'd all be stood to attention at 7am in the cold greyness to get the "best" spot at the Cenotaph in London. I do not have fond memories to remember and I do not cry for her. Yet, it is Remembrance Day and I do feel an interconnection and strangely sad and tearful. More for what could have been than anything that actually was.

All those lives and families affected. In contrast, there is a lovely article on the BBC News website about the Thankful Villages.

Spring Cleaning of the Mind

Laying in bed this Saturday morning all cosy and hugged up, my mind drifted back, way back and maybe it is a sign to me to write it down. These last weeks I have been feeling better about my life and my past in a "letting go" kind of way. I've blogged about epsiodes from my past but I have deleted the mainly painful posts. It was really helpful to write them but there came a point when I felt it was all just dirty linen pegged up in public. I often run by instincts and if I feel to hang up some more washing then I'll put it down to some more spring cleaning and see it constructively too.

Summer of 1978
Aged fifteen during the punk years should have been the prime of my life. Instead I led a cloistered existence between school and home attending to every need of my mother and never getting it quite right. My mother was handy with anything wooden, in particular wooden handled feather dusters and long wooden spoons. She only used the handles and could create quite a swish and pain. They were her weapons of choice in administering punishment to us kids, and the number she got through as they broke across our bodies was quite impressive. I am surprised she could afford to keep replacing them but she did. One of her mantras then, quite public to us kids, was to never, ever leave a mark that could be seen. In those days, that meant if it was under your clothes then no-one would have to see the marks.

My older brother was the apple of her eye and she obviously preferred his company back then, though he wasn't immune to the blows. He in turn, used to take it out on me. So on the one side there was my mother and on the other my brother was beating me up. He knew what my mother was up to but I don't think she particularly knew what he was up to with me. In the pecking order of things I was pretty low down. So I kept quiet in order to keep the peace giving my brother free reign to continue his battery of me throughout our childhood.

I was six/seven years old when my mother was pregnant with my younger sibling. I was terrified she would have another girl and treat her like me so when my little sister was born I both adored her and vowed to myself to always love and protect her so she wouldn't get what I had. In the end, my sister's life took a different path being the angel blonde-haired child with a musical gift. Unlike dark haired me who reminded my mother of one of her sisters who she (unfairly) felt was cruel and devious. But my sister was also subjected to my mother's physical and mental brutality though she ended up with a different brand of it that I don't think I could have coped with it!

The Turning Points
In 1978 I can't remember which of these two events happened first but they were fairly close. I have written before about the first of these events, not that it was the only example nor was it the most serious, because it wasn't. It was because it had such a mental effect on me. The indignation and sense of self that it created inasmuch as I finally realised this was not acceptable.

It was washing day and as requested, presented my clothes for washing. There were times my mother insisted all clothes were turned inside out and other times that they must be in the right way and one never knew what was the right or wrong way anymore. I'm not talking about socks being scrunched up, I mean seriously all must be turned completely inside out. Now, I can see that is typically Aspergers but her way of handling it was her. I had gotten it wrong on this occasion and in her fury she lashed out at me with bare fists. In the impact I was knocked to the floor which she thought was wimpish of me since she reckoned she hadn't hit me that hard. This infuriated her more so she launched into me with kicks as I lay prone on the floor protecting my face. What got me was laying there, being kicked by my own mother and thinking I'm fifteen years old and this shouldn't be happening. I was developing a sense of self.

At some other point during the summer, us three kids were home alone and doing the chores. Things got out of hand as they often do ..... I think my brother was messing around with the vacuum cleaner and attacking us with it as it sucked. I think I might have struck back for a change and so my brother blew up in the way he does. His arms lengthen as his fists tighten, his face puffs up, his body goes red and seems to grow six inches. (Maybe the creator of the Incredible Hulk saw my brother in action once!) He launched into me with anger, as I cowered on the sofa trying to be a tiny ball he couldn't hurt. Don't forget I was very tiny until the age of sixteen. He took hold of my ankles and pulled me up into the air, upside down and began to hammer my body, head first into the floor. It might be relevant to say that we lived in a inner city tower block in those days with floors made of concrete with only thin carpet covering it. My little sister looked on horrified and remembers it to this day.

Somehow, with my sister's help I managed to escape and with my sister ran to the bedroom I shared with her and barricaded ourselves in. My brother was still on the warpath and proceeded to kick the door in. His foot didn't go all the way through and just smashed a hole through the front of the door. That door was the first door one saw as one came into the flat. The hallway that my mother had recently decorated with orange and green carpet tiles (it was the 70s!) and created almost a mock conservatory with vines and whatnot. That was it, I knew we were going to be in big trouble with my mother. Never mind that I had just been beaten up!

Taking the managerial role I set about trying to fix the door so that I could cover up my brother's actions. That now seems like sheer madness on my part but at the time I knew we had to keep my mother calm and sweet or else it would be more hellish. The door was one of those cheap construction doors with thin panels and corrugated cardboard in the middle. So I packed it up with stuffing from newspapers and then applied a coat of polyfilla. But the whole mass just sagged in the middle of the door and at some point my parents were going to be coming home. Plan B (or it could have been C or D by then!) was to apply a thin but strong layer of card over the hole and its wet stuffing and pin it into place. That worked quite well but the door was orange (it was the 70s!) to match the orange and green carpet tiles. There was paint left over so I quickly applied a coat to that area, but of course I didn't appreciate about undercoats and applying just a top coat didn't work well at first. Undeterred, and not having a full 24 hours for drying time I went ahead with a second coat of paint. We had to do lots of airing and lots of woodwork polishing elsewhere in the hallway to try and cover up the smell of paint.

With the paint still wet, my parents arrived home and us three kids were the picture of lightness and bright to try not to give anything away. My mother stood transfixed looking down at the patch on the bedroom door, she had a quizzical look on her face but said nothing and carried on. The patch would fool no-one so maybe the thought of how this could be was too much so she left it alone on this occasion. She never did find out about it.

By now, I knew I couldn't do this much more and had to get out but couldn't do anything until I was of legal age to leave school. I plotted and planned to leave school and home at the age of sixteen. Otherwise known, as running away from home. I was fifteen and a half and I knew from the news that other kids who disappear their photos are splashed all over the news. The answer was to make sure I didn't have any recent photos taken of me so that I couldn't be identified. Not that there were many photos being taken of me in those last few years as I was always snivelling and obviously an abomination to my mother who was the photographer of the family. For about six months I consciously avoided any camera activity whatsoever.

1979 - The First Great Escape
As soon as I turned sixteen I started applying for jobs and bunked off school to attend interviews. Other kids at the time were bunking off to do wild things but not me.... job interviews were my lot. It was difficult juggling my time with the postman to make sure that any job letters were not seen by my parents but in those days the posties were reliable. I secured an office job in the city. In the City of London at an insurance company and they seemed to really like me, even though I had applied for a basic office job. That was it. I organised a hostel place, which was much cheaper than renting a room of my own and packed my bags. No-one was at home and my mum was out at work and I wrote a long "I'm sorry" letter to my family.

I was sixteen and a matter of weeks old and seemed to have packed everything except the kitchen sink. I struggled downstairs to the taxi cab office with my load (it might have taken two trips in the lift!) and set off for my new life. Meanwhile, my brother returned home early and found my letter. Somehow he knew to go to the cab office. I had only gone a few streets in the cab when over the cab radio came a message "RTB POB". I knew nothing about cabs, nor about codes but as the driver amended his speed I instantly realised that the message was "Return To Base Passenger On Board". I didn't fight it, I don't know why but I knew it would be futile to fight.

My brother was waiting at the cab office and ushered me back home with all my stuff. We stood in the hallway, the one with the green and orange carpet tiles and for once he spoke gently to me and asked me why. I told him a bit of how he and mum treated me. In his own unique "Mr Innocent" way, utterly believable, he told me that I had imagined it all. The way he said it was chilling and potentially dangerous. Faced with me or my brother, my mother would always believe him even though he was already a known accomplished liar. I knew then that if I stayed I would truly go mad. But I would have to bide my time.

My brother kept quiet about that escape because, like us all, he knew it was better to keep the peace. Besides, he was the kid in the family who had a history of running away and had been doing so since about the age of six (I kid ye not!) and I was the one who always took the flak for him and kept my parents sweet. Or tried to. My mother needed someone to attack to take the pressure off my brother. Yup, he was seventeen years old at this point and busy looking after his own interests.

Pity about the job because I wasn't able to go. I wonder where I would be now in the insurance business if I had followed that path?

1979 - The Second Great Escape
I kept my head down for a while but not too long. I applied for more jobs and secured one as a filing clerk in a branch of the Civil Service. Lowly paid but what one would expect for my age at that time. I told a friend of mine at school what I was doing but not exactly where I was going. I would have been 16 and a couple of months old by then and must have left home on a Friday so that I could settle into the hostel and start work on the Monday. My room in the hostel was shared with a number of other women. No privacy, no security but it was very cheap. I lived on cans of cold baked beans as they were cheap and sustaining. Cold baked beans can taste sweet and delicious when eaten with a peace of mind.

On the Monday I was shown how to do my filing job. Filing and making coffee for the other staff was my role. The staff were really sweet and were much older than me and found me curious. I remember one particularly kind woman was shocked to find that I ate cold baked beans as I had no other money. By the Wednesday I had sussed my job and was doing so well that I had completed all filing tasks, plus the back log, by about midday. Without any qualifications it was clear I was able to do more. On the Friday I was called into the manager's office and given my first week's pay and told that I should come and see the manager again on Monday. From what little was said, it was hinted that I was in for some sort of promotion before too long. I had my first foot in the rung of the Civil Service ladder.

On my way back to the hostel, with my pay in my pocket (paid in cash in a brown envelope at the end of every week in those days) and already assigned to rent and travel leaving barely anything else for food I was feeling really happy and triumphant that I treated myself to a strawberry shake from McDonalds which were fairly new to London in those days.

Adding to the triumphant feeling was having been taken out to dinner at a proper restaurant the night before by one of the women who shared the room in the hostel. I had only been at the hostel a week but we had become friends in the first weekend and not only that, I was fascinated that she worked as an agency nurse and worked all hours for a lot of money but lived in a hostel. She was from the Middle East and had come to the UK because qualified nurses were needed. Living in the hostel cost more than paying for a mortgage and of course there was no privacy and no real life. She was quite able but for some reason hadn't got herself together to sort out accommodation. So I offered to look around for her and found her the perfect house in North London not far from her work. She liked it so much she put in an offer on the Thursday and began the process of buying the house. She took me out for dinner on the Thursday night to celebrate and to thank me. She kindly offered that I would have a room in her house for nothing to help me in return.

No wonder that after my first week of freedom I was feeling so good. My job was going brilliantly well and accommodation was going to improve. Slurping my exotic strawberry shake (that first one was exotic!) I arrived back at the hostel to have the hostel manager call me into her room. Another kindly woman, she made me sit down and told me that my father and brother were in the next room. She told me I had rights and that I didn't have to go home with them. I think she might have guessed the situation. Going back into child mode I knew I couldn't hold out against my parents and packed my bags. I wonder what would have happened if I had taken on board what she had said and refused to go home.

I wonder what happened to my nurse friend. I wonder if she completed on the purchase of that property and I wonder if she ever thinks of me. I don't even remember her name or what she looks like. I don't even remember anything else about her, but she was part of giving me hope.

My father had tracked me down because he interrogated my school friends (he was an ex-police officer) and although didn't have any precise hostel location knew the general area and knocked on every door until he found mine.

On my return my mother said one nice thing. Out of my entire childhood I can remember just one nice thing she said to me. Yes, that still makes me cry. Sat at dinner that night I said something like "thank you for having me back" and she returned with "It's good to have you back". I sat quietly crying into my food with such fucking gratitude. They knew nothing of what I had achieved during that week away and still don't know.

I was returned to school as I was told that I was not legally allowed to leave. When one's birthday falls on a certain date then you are not allowed to leave school until the end of the summer term, and not at the actual age of sixteen. Back at school my meeting with the headmaster is told here!

1979 - The Third Great Escape
Once again, my head was down and I trawled onwards. Life at home was as rubbish as ever and nothing changed. As a result of my previous escapes I learned a number of things: tell no-one anything; leave no clues; travel light; and get a live-in job as there are no accommodation costs to worry about. The writing was on the wall and surely my parents must have seen it. Being a year ahead of myself at school I had to re-sit all my O levels at the normal age and knew I was flunking them all over again. Once more I was secretly job hunting and found a live-in job in a bed and breakfast hotel in West London. There was no point trying to trace my nurse friend as my father could do that too. I graciously waited for my brother to have his birthday and made a quiet exit the day after with only what I could carry. An overstuffed rucksack and a bag and caught a bus down the road. I prayed as the bus drove away. Prayed that nothing would go wrong. I left a little "I'm sorry" note in the back of the fridge, just so that my parents knew I wasn't actually dead. A year later, I was still away discovering life and me. A body of an unidentified young woman had recently been pulled out of a canal and was on the news. She had a scar on her foot, as do I, so I sent my parents some flowers via Interflora to say I was OK. I went to an Interflora well away from my area and paid by cash (a whole week's wage back then!) and used false contact details. I knew well to cover my tracks.

Two and a half years after leaving home and after one too many breakdowns and with the support of my wonderful boyfriend of a year I contacted my parents again. I wonder where I'd be now if I hadn't done that! Those depressions would have been there anyway and I just had to work through them.

My mother would like nothing more than to know we are where we are at because of her. She appears on the whole to like me now and takes a glow from my achievements. Sad to say but it is just too late. I don't like the way I don't give her a second chance and make allowance that we all make mistakes, but I truly feel I have tried so many times before and had it thrown back in my face and trashed. So I protect myself by keeping from her emotionally. We have lots of contact now, which quite frankly, she is lucky to have but I wonder if she and my father are aware of the emptiness from me.

My father is not beloved by me nor innocent in all this. He was struggling too, to keep the peace with my mother. Often he would allow things to happen because it meant that my mother got whatever it was through her system and order was restored. If that meant me taking punishments for what I didn't do then he allowed it and told me to get on with it because it was better. No! In the long run it wasn't better. Someone should have stopped my mother. Should have set up boundaries of what was acceptable. But there we are. It is done. It is life.

Interestingly, my brother, still with anger issues even now, acknowledged to me in my twenties that what he did to me as a kid was wrong. He has apologised. Thoroughly. Acknowledgment and apologies go a huge way that if he goes before me I know that at his funeral I will be crying with all my heart for his mixed-up soul.

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Writing all that has been interesting. I bawled my eyes out at one point but am OK now. Re-reading it seems to distance me from the events and brings perhaps more objectivity. Perhaps I might print a copy of it and go outside and burn it and see what happens.

Parents with Aspergers

Back in December 2005, as a result of some astute friends (Cheryl - you are one of them), I was looking into the possibility my mother was an adult with Aspergers. It would explain a lot of her bizarre behaviour, but at the time I couldn't get to grips with it and then life took over and within a matter of weeks I was in contact with long-lost cousins. One of whom is so special to me and then ended up validating stuff that she saw in my childhood so I knew I wasn't making it up. With all that going on the Aspergers thoughts were sidelined.

Until late Sunday afternoon when my sister stuffed a Times newspaper article under my nose. Does your partner have Asperger's? might be about partners but ends with a checklist. On all eight points we can unreservedly tick for our mother:

The Asperger’s profile

Your partner may have Asperger’s syndrome if he (or she) has most or all of the following traits. Does he . . .

1. Have difficulty interpreting body language and facial expressions?
   
   
2. Have difficulty understanding jokes, metaphor and sarcasm because he takes everything in a very literal way?
   
   
3. Struggle to maintain friendships?
   
   
4. Become withdrawn and seem to be uninterested in others, appearing aloof?
   
   
5. Have poor social awareness and find it hard to imagine how his behaviour impacts on other people?
   
   
6. Love routines and get very upset if these are broken?
   
   
7. Have an intense and all-consuming special interest or hobby?
   
   
8. Have sensory difficulties? Is he oversensitive to touch or smell or noise or to a particular taste (people with Asperger’s have a very limited diet). In some cases, there can be an undeveloped sense.

Adapted from the National Autistic Society website: www.nas.org.uk

So now I am digesting. And researching, again, and came across this list from a Conference in 2005 given by Dr Tony Attwood (originally found on faaas.org):

The Parent with Asperger’s Syndrome

Characteristics
• Knowledge of normal childhood abilities and the parental role.
• Perfectionism.
• Regimentation.
• Anger.
• Abuse.

Child’s Perception
• Lack of affection, understanding and support. (Aloof).
• Criticism not compliments.
• Embarrassment in public.
• Fear of the parent’s mood and not to antagonize.
• Fear of the ‘cold’ touch of affection.
• Disagreements between parents.
• Parent has a monologue on their own problems.
• Intolerance of noise and friendships.
• Egocentric priorities.
• Favoritism.
• Feeling a nuisance.
• Desire to leave home or move inter-state or abroad.

Child’s Reaction
• Seeking affection and approval.
• Hatred.
• Escape using imagination, solitude, alternative family.
• Choice of partner.

Issues
• Recognizing the disorder in a parent.
• Resolving past issues.
• Explaining the person to other family members.

I am still working out my position but it seems clear that my mother has undiagnosed Aspergers. But also thrown into her mix is a whole bundle of stuff that created a hellish childhood for me. Any thoughts of mine to seek acknowledgement or even an apology are shot through but that's sort of OK. This might just help me to finally let go.

PS. I love this article I have just read:
Alien Parenting - A mother with Asperger's Syndrome (Link removed as no longer working - 12/2012)

PPS. A post I wrote since writing this, telling a bit about how life was for me Spring Cleaning of the Mind

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PPPS. In early May 2011 my mother died very painfully and I was there for her doing what I could in those last days. I would not wish that level of pain on any living creature. Still, the past happened but I feel like I am supposed to whitewash and forget it. I am still processing and will likely continue for some time to come. I am up and down not sure what or why. Your comments here are still relevant and very much appreciated - thank you. 14 June 2011

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PPPPS. December 2012: I am starting to add labels to my posts so that other relevant posts of mine might be more accessible, if wanted. I have also added back some of the more upsetting posts (Jan 2006) as they may serve a purpose for others who feel they are alone. Labels include aspergers   childhood or see the label cloud to the left. I read all the comments posted and welcome them.

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Who's frying tonight?

This post re-published December 2012

Not for the faint hearted.

This is neither a cookery nor a funny post. After several wonderful and euphoric days re-discovering long lost family I finally got to speak to my cousin long-distance after about 33 years. Amidst everything, she recalled an incident of my youth which greatly disturbed her throughout the years. An incident I only half recalled but that bit that I do recall, it is with absolute clarity and remembrance. Something I had remembered through the years but it seems I had expunged part of it.

I was 9 and half years old. My cousin and I were sent out by my mother to buy baby milk. It cost $1.98 and she gave me a two dollar bill (some countries really had $2 dollar bills!). My cousin was nearly 2 years older than me and was taller and happy with golden red curls that flung carefree round her shoulders. She persuaded me to spend the 2c change on lollipops for us. I daren't and she found that strange because her family would let her spend the change. After a bit of badgering I decided to throw caution to the wind and to be brave. So we happily licked our lollipops on the way home. I pretended but inwardly was scared witless.

On our return my mother asked after the 2c change. I tried to fudge the issue but in the end had to admit what we had done. My mother hit the roof and she ranted and raved over this 2c and all I remembered was that it was an extremely difficult time.

As an adult and even as a child, I understood it was the principle of it. But nowhere do I understand the next bit which I had forgotten.

Today, my cousin told me that my mother then put a frypan onto the cooker and heated it up. She then proceeded to put my hand onto the hot pan as punishment. I don't remember this bit at all and yet I remembered clearly the first part of the event. I don't know if I was burned or to what extent my burns were. And yet, I clearly remember another incident where I (and my brother) were given burns to the hands as a punishment.

It is just so darned peculiar. Bizarre. Outrageous. Obnoxious. Disgusting.

It's done and what's done is done. It is the fact someone else entirely, witnessed this and years later can tell me.

Yeah, so I keep crying at the moment. I can't help feeling that this is the year when everything gets sorted. I have arranged to visit my mother tomorrow to bring news of this family and to finally confess that I had found her other siblings, my Aunts, but hadn't told her. I shall tip-toe around the fact that her own family had been terrified of her or couldn't bear her and so hadn't wanted contact with her. But times are a-changing. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The tragic things that happened to my mother in her childhood or her obnoxious behaviour throughout?

There is no doubt she had an extremely violent father. In fact my cousin was staying with us as her father, my mother's brother, had commited suicide. Reasons unknown but possibly the memories of his own violent past were too much. And here, within days of the funeral she was being barbaric to her own child.

I don't know. I shall no doubt be the wonderful daughter tomorrow, as ever, and do everything to help her. Contact with her beloved brother's family is significant. I'm not sure if I am angry with her or if it is even helpful.

I'm writing this because if I say it here then I have got some stuff off my chest and cleared the decks a little.

15 Comments:

Ally said...

I can't think of anything remotely constructive that might help - only, I think I would feel the same way about it helping to write some of it out; and that I hope tomorrow goes okay. Look after yourself.

Friday, January 20, 2006 10:02:00 PM

doris said...

Thanks! :-)

Friday, January 20, 2006 10:52:00 PM

Astryngia said...

It's the expunging that's so darn bewildering - how can we 'forget' that such terrible things were done to us. But we do...The person who was once the most important in the world, who was once 'our world' on whom we were totally dependent...better to forget than believe we were bad enough to merit the treatment. And yet we continue to help, to protect, to...hope...? (Why?)

doris - what a bitch she was. I think you give her too much credit in saying you understood it was the 'principle'. If it was the principle of the matter then the punishment would have fitted the crime.

What a maelstrom of feelings must be bubbling under right now.

If you are driving tomorrow, please be safe. You matter. And you deserve better than you got. But what a magnificent person you became as a result. :-)

Saturday, January 21, 2006 12:22:00 AM

Writer Mom said...

Oh dear lady...you really got me.

By being the good daughter, you've broken the cycle. History of family violence is definitely the recurring component of child abuse. She was bad, her mother was worse...But if YOU break it, the curse is broken. Still sucks that SHE couldn't have broken the cycle. Why? Why oh why.

Changing the subject a bit, this touches another nerve of mine. Concerning repressed memories. My son had surgery at 20 months...it was traumatic for all of us. That day, they gave him some sort of potion that was supposed to keep him from remembering any of it.
He was recently diagnosed with autism...and I can't quite get that day out of my head. Up until that summer, he was off the charts in development.
Jack does everything fantastically well--except communicate (getting much much better...but slower than kids his age)...His recall is the problem. Asking him what happened yesterday...only this month (at age five) has he begun to cross the wires in his brain and make it happen.
I had a friend who used to tell me she couldn't remember ANYTHING before the age of seven. I always worried about her. Had something terrible happened? She suspected it, I could tell.
This topic...traumatic experiences causing memory loss...it's very important to me.
All the more important is for people to realize children grow up...These actions have consequences. Of course, if child abusers were rational enough to think ahead like that, they wouldn't hurt their children to begin with.
Sorry for taking up all the space, but you spoke to me tonight.
I wish you well.
(hugs from over the pond)

Saturday, January 21, 2006 1:09:00 AM

Cheryl said...

Wondered where you were and if everything was OK.

HUGE HUGS.

Saturday, January 21, 2006 8:33:00 AM

birdychirp said...

that's so sad. Am thinking of you

Saturday, January 21, 2006 5:03:00 PM

decrepitoldfool said...

Amazing story, yet all too common. I imagine many people you know have had similar experiences but cannot remember or if they do remember cannot talk about it. You do everyone a service in telling the story.

I will be thinking of you - your 'sorting' will surely help.

Saturday, January 21, 2006 6:26:00 PM

Ghone said...

Thinking of you also... x.


On another matter - so you think your blog is better than mine? Eh?
(have a look at our current Blog Explosion - Battle of the Blog rankings!)

Saturday, January 21, 2006 10:55:00 PM

Jo said...

Doris :-(

Hugs hon...noticed the lack of posts and worried a bit about you...

(strangely I have just posted about my mother too - before I read this).

This is a terrible story hon. Just horrid. It does you great credit to break the cycle of abuse, as others have said, and to talk about it. Astryngia says what I would say too...

I guess from what you have said before, she would simply deny having done such a thing if you confronted her with it now?

Though what would be the point I guess? Unless you wanted to end your relationship with her - which you might.

I wonder how your day went?

Thinking of you :-)

Jo

Sunday, January 22, 2006 1:30:00 AM

Badaunt said...

That your mother - that anybody - could do that to a child is horrible, and sad.

I wonder if she remembers, herself?

Memory is so strange. When I get together with my brothers (which doesn't happen very often) and we talk about things from our childhoods I always find it disorienting. We remember the same events so differently. Also, they remember things I don't remember at all, and vice versa.

Sunday, January 22, 2006 2:45:00 AM

doris said...

Thanks everyone! I have written a follow-up post.

Writer Mom The repressed memory thing is interesting and I hope to discuss it further especially in the context of your son. Your mentioning about the medication has, excuse the irony, stirred a memory about something related to my time working in a children's hopsital but I'd have to think about. Not now thow!

Ghone Eh? What are you on.... :-) But no doubt I shall dive in at some point and hope I won't be too late for your moment of glory! :-)

Sunday, January 22, 2006 9:37:00 AM

Carol said...

Doris, I'm appalled. How could the person who should have been loving you so dearly have done such a dreadful thing to you? This seems to be the Year of the Child Abuse Memories for me and mine. I'm so sorry this happened to you. (((Doris)))

Monday, January 23, 2006 9:26:00 PM

jane said...

I want to say so much, yet I don't know what to say. Nobody but you knows what you're feeling right now, so I'm not even going to try & guess.
What I will say is I'm sorry anybody ever hurt you. Knowing who you are now amazes me, Doris. Just know I'm hugging you.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006 7:45:00 AM

Anji said...

I'm speechless. I suppose you must have blanked it out.
You seem to have come out of it a lovely person.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006 9:58:00 AM

mrshellonheels said...

((((Doris)))) I am so sorry you had a childhood like that..so horrible at times that you had to totaly block it out. Mine is simular you know. For me, all I can do, is acknowledge that it happened. That it was a part of my life, and then move on. Blogging has helped me with that. We can't change the past, but we CAN shape the future : )

Tuesday, January 24, 2006 6:39:00 PM

And the beat goes on

This post re-published December 2012

When I was seven my darling baby sister was born. My mother so wanted a boy (such that my sister ended up with the feminine version of the boy's name chosen) that I vowed to myself that I would protect my sister and love and take care of her so she wouldn't end up like me. In the end I needn't have worried quite so much. She was everything I wasn't and so ensured a better place in life.

My sister was born beautiful. She was blue-eyed and became curly blonde haired and the image of Shirley Temple at the age of three. I loved her so much but she was utterly gorgeous, care-free and fun-loving that her future was assured though she had her own problems. She became a 'musician' at six years old and was hot-housed by our ambitious mother. It wasn't easy for her, just different. And she had an inner strength and resources to deal with our mother most of the time.

She has two children of her own now. What bothers me intensely is that our parents live next door to them, well actually, on the same property, and have been for some years now. My sister and her husband are both busy musicians and need to come and go, so our parents have become useful child carers at all hours. They get to live rent-free but then do so much in the way of house developments and DIY and buying bits for the house/s. There are no clear lines on anything. Not helped by our mother who has no clear boundaries on anything in life.

It has long bothered me the way my mother treats my sister's children. These are children of the modern era and they will not accept the sort of messed-up bad treatment that my mother gives. On the other hand, she has bought their love and once I chatted to my ten year old nephew and he more or less told me that he loves his Gran because of all the things she buys him that he wants.

Yesterday I spent the day out at a musical event at which the whole family was there. Even my temperamental teenaged daughter was there for the weekend helping out and was a star having to put up with my mother who was obnoxious and thoughtless towards her. Coming home in the car very late last night my daughter (who at times barely grunts at me) took the entire two or so hour drive talking to me about it all. Debriefing in effect. Showing so much more maturity and understanding than my mother ever has. It is all very poignant.

Yesterday I witnessed my mother go overboard with her grandsons.... my son and my sister's son. I had already "told them off" and sorted out things and then she feels the need to go in overly heavy when my back is turned. I didn't say anything to her because it is wrong to undermine someone because maybe I didn't know the full story. I also can't trust that I won't just flip at my mother and land her with my lifelong anger towards her rather than just the event at hand. Also, she is one of those people with whom it is incredibly difficult to have a sensible and reasonable conversation. She wants to be perfect and ultra wonderful and would take it as a complete offence. Worse still, there would be consequences and she would no doubt take it out on everyone else around her which would mean my father and my sister and her family. Worst of all my nephew and niece.

The two boys are so close it is like they are in love and it broke my heart to see them split up during the last concert. (Yes, I know they can be a pain in the backside but I was prepared to handle them sitting together.) My nephew was with me in the row behind and my son was with my sister in the row in front and both us sisters spent a lot of the time holding the boys tight with hugs. My nephew just couldn't understand and it was as if his heart was broken too.

It is evident my nephew holds so much anger towards my mother. As for my own kids, they only have periodic meetings with my mother so it is not so bad - but bad enough. From being a kid worried about my sister I now find myself being worried about her kids. It is difficult talking to my sister about such things because of course it is convenient for her to have our parents around for the childminding. And then there is a part of her that chooses to not take on board the effects on her kids. I've talked to my brother-in-law too. At times both have acknowledged what is going on but they all have coping mechanisms, and things go back to the same, and maybe they will all just cope and get through it.

There are enough people around who can see what is going on. Everyone can see that my mother is just not right although there are plenty of times when she can seem extremely helpful and wonderful and will sit and tell you stories of her own terrible childhood. She is in her mid-sixties but I can't see any signs that she has moved forward and found some resolve or inner peace. She is like a viper. You can be having nice moments and then suddenly she verbally strikes and you are left confused and hurt.

In the car my daughter revealed that she was left thinking she was starting to imagine things, but then admittedly, my daughter does have an imagination for things that haven't really happened! But on this I could assure here she wasn't wrong... it has my mother's mark all over it. Talking of which, there was a point during the last concert when my mother couldn't take the music and left clutching her head in her usual dramatic style. It turned out that both my daughter and I had both simultaneously thought at the time that my mother might throw herself down the stairs of the concert hall in order to get the whole hall to turn their attention on her instead of my brother-in-law on stage!

Even my daughter wants to help and resolve the situation but thankfully she has realised that it is not her job to do so. Sadly this is a lesson I missed out on as a kid growing up and it still sits on my shoulders.

I can be temporarily smug because my daughter is delighted to be home and appreciates us and my son is reinforced that home is best. They are glad to be home and I am very glad to have them both. It is awful that my niece and nephew have this mixed hell and that my mother continues to wreak havoc in this world.

9 Comments:

Cheryl said...

Do they know you know? It must make a world of difference to know they can turn to aunty Doris to moan about their miserable, unfair, batty old gran - I guess saying too much to mum and dad must have an element of guilt involved.
Thank heavens they have you! :-D

Monday, November 07, 2005 12:23:00 PM

MrsDoF said...

I like that phrase "hot-housed" about parents doting on a child's talents. Must be British, I haven't ever come across it before here in the States.

It's nice that all your youngsters recognize you as the anchor of the family. It must be quite your burden to hold, but they will come up stronger for the knowing.

Monday, November 07, 2005 1:03:00 PM

Jo said...

Doris

Poor old you and your kids and your sisters kids. I can relate to some of your story. The word 'viper' is a good description for how my mother can be too. Bitter, widowed and lonely, she attacks first and asks no questions later. She sounds different to your mum because she is socially isolated (through her own behaviour) locked in a time warp of twenty five years ago where the family structure was headed by her and the world revolved around her. She has simply never been able to move on. Myself and my brother are the only people who see her regularly, and wow is this tough sometimes.

Anyway - different to your mum, but maybe equally tricky. The connection perhaps comes in the effect on the children. My children 'know' that Gran can be poisonous. Some years ago she kicked off criticising them. It was part of her attempt to restore the power model that she felt comfortable with - she did it unconsciously but the intent was clear. It's the only way she knows to relate to people in her family (and as far as I can gather she was taught it by her father.)

I simply would NOT have this happen. And I told her so. Not in an angry way - though I was angry often, and hurt and disappointed by her and still am...but in a clear and simple and assertive way. I just said, several times, that it was not appropriate for her to speak to my children like that (or - her other typical behaviour at the time - to have a go about them to me privately as if I was supposed to support her view against theirs). She eventually laid off.

In fact I had to do the very same thing when I first got married, when she tried to impose on my wife her regime of emotional blackmail and vicious words that she's been using with me for years. She is regularly snide and unpleasant about my parents in law (who are by contrast a fairytale grandpa and grandma to my children) - it's a diversionary tactic to try and get at my wife without alerting my 'defences'. I stonewall her on that too.

Critically, I have built an emotional moat between her and my kids. I take it as my job to shield them from her, until she proves to be worthy of their trust. Which isn't ever going to happen now. If she ever tries to 'get at' them, she meets an absolute brick wall from me.

It didn't have to be like that, but she made me choose emotionally between her and my wife and children. I chose my wife and children. I still see her,but I do it through duty and because she is infirm and elderly now. But no easier for it.

Sorry for the ramble...I guess this is just about taking the chance to say 'Enough' to someone who you think might be hurting your children? If you think she is, (and of course you have 'previous' with your mother so you are feeling every remark keenly and personally I bet) you may need to draw a line. And it it is possible to do such things assertively - not in anger, but clearly setting out what is permissable and what is not in how she behaves and how she treats your childen and your sisters' children.

How does your sister deal with her?

Monday, November 07, 2005 6:20:00 PM

jane said...

My gosh, after reading that I am almost speechless. It's so sad what all of you are going thru, what you obviously have had to live with forever & now your niece & nephew now will be raised with this.
Your daughter sounds like a godsend, able to be objective & realize her limits. It's obviously heart-wrenching for you to have to re-live when around your mom.
I'm so happy for your kids that they have a safe & loving home to return to. This brings to life the saying, "There's no place like home."
You're one in a million, Doris

Monday, November 07, 2005 8:45:00 PM

doris said...

Cheryl That's a good point Cheryl. I feel I have tried to indicate to my nephew who is older but am concerned that he will re-write what I have said and throw it back at his Grandma as ammunition! But this last weekend I certainly acknowledged to him that I could see what was going on. I've long had an arrangement with my sis that my kids know that at any time they can talk to her confidentially ... now her kids are older I think it is about time I reciprocated and she told her kids there was a safe other adult they can talk to.

Mrs DoF The Americans have a simialar word but I can't think of it. I almost have the feeling that the whole process of speeding up a child's abilities or "forcibly growing them" is an American thing! In our case, I would say it might have started out as 'doting' but got way out of hand.

Jo You've written in a different voice you know and I love it too! Thank you for your very powerful comment and talking about your situation especially in relation to your kids. I guess I just have to become more assertive with her at some point and then keep that up. I guess it is going to be like jumping off the highest diving board and once I start it will get easier.

But as I said, the complication is any knock-on effects she decides to throw at my sis. As for how my sis deals with her, occasionally there is a mega blow-up of an argument. My sis is then fine, my mother withdraws and then whinges on to me (I try and draw a fine line between allowing her to express herself but not letting her go on snipe attacks at whomever has upset her) and then things eventually get back to how they were. My mother is a lot better than how she was when we were kids but she has this habit of getting out of line.

I rather suspect that another big mega argument is long overdue and that the likelihood is that my sis or her hubby will be the one to do it. That's all very well (so to speak) but doesn't really get at the heart of it and I wonder if that is ever possible.

Funny what you say about your wonderful in-laws.... sounds like my in-laws and they make more wonderful grandparents and are not even blood relatives.

Jane Thanks for your kind words. The upside of times like this is that I get to see and hear a lovely side of my daughter and my daughter appreciates me more! As for my niece and nephew, at least they are not subject to my parents 24/7 so things aren't quite that bad and they have parents who clearly love them and another grandma and uncle who are special and close to them so they hopefully do not feel alone.

Something funny though, my kids and I have always been exceptionally close to them and I'm called Aunty Doris. So when Mr Doris came on the scene they were quite young and still learning their words and so assumed Mr Doris was called Aunty too :-) We have that as a family joke now.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005 8:25:00 AM

MattyD said...

the only thing that ever happens to people that perch themselves that high is the inevitable fall. i really hope that if that happens, she doesn't bring anyone else down with her!

Tuesday, November 08, 2005 4:20:00 PM

ella m. said...

I suppose with the drama queen tendencies, nipping the individual incidents in the bud as they happen is out of the question, as she'd just make a larger scene.

A mega blow out would'nt seem to help either, as it's just more of the attention she craves.

It's a tough situation but you all are dealing with more grace than I would. my condolences.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005 4:55:00 PM

mrshellonheels said...

Doris, I really am speechless, for once I dont know what to say. I know for me and my sisters, and brother, we kicked that in the butt as soon as we started to have kids. Each and every one of us let our parents know, its our way or no way. When our children were small they would even have to ask our permission if they could give them candy. We had to be that way, even tho it sounds cold. otherwise, I think we would be dealing with what your going thru now.
I can remember looking my mother straight in the eyes and telling her. Mom you raised your kids, these are MINE. You did things your way, Im doing things MY way.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005 6:02:00 AM

doris said...

MattyD I reckon that people like my mother don't fall because they don't see it as a fall. I suppose there is something to be learned there!

Ella M. That's pretty much how I see it. What's more, I don't have to live with it 24/7 so I can just turn my back on it which makes it easier.

Mrs Hell on Heels You have given me some food for thought there. I reckon I shouldn't be quite so complacent about it all!

Wednesday, November 09, 2005 9:12:00 AM