Childhood toys

[Ziggiddy]

Whenever I come across Little Zig, she is compulsively latch hooking sitting on the childhood bedroom bed.

Her room is ugly - 'decorated' by her uBPDm - there is an orange gothic looking Miss Muffet with an awful spider on a wall plaque (Little Zig does not like orange)

There is a toybox covered with grey disgusting adhesive contact paper and an orange lid. These things clash with the pink quilted bedspread. It is not a nice pink - it is a salmony pink and the bedspread is trimmed with scratchy lace that has long since come adrift and has become unsafe for a child's bed.

It's no place for a little girl so i asked her ":)o you want to come and stay in the safe place instead?" Not only did she immediately agree, she insisted she bring her brother too.

Anyway her mum has a terrible problem with hoarding and cluttering and this spills out into every room.

Including soft toys. Which I was not allowed to name.

"What do you want to call this one?"

"Um ... .I want to call him Fred."

"That's a silly name. We'll call him Honey Bear"

"Okay."

She's also grabby. Wants. From everyone.

What we here in Australia call a bludger. A sponge.

So if anyone goes overseas and says ":)o you want something?" She says "Oh yes please!" and gives them a list.

One of the things on the list is "Can you get my daughter a doll from the country you are visiting?"

So they would. And I came to have a collection of international dolls.

I say I did but I wasn't actually allowed to play with them.

They covered my entire dresser. No room even for my hairbrush.

Well the got so numerous that eventually my mum decided to hang them on the wall.

By their necks.

I'd was lie in bed looking across to these staring eyed vacant-souled creatures and try not to be scared of them. Staring silently at me. Waiting ... .waiting ... ..

Well on the excellent advice of a good friend, yesterday I decided to go and look for a teddy bear.

This one I was going to name myself.

During the search i came into this second hand shop and whilst tinkering around the knick knacks came across a replica of one of the dolls I had.

A Scottish Clansman with a white fuzzy busby hat which i wasn't supposed to touch in case I got it grubby.

Well i touched this one.

I picked it up and contemplated buying it. I then saw aNOTHER doll very similar to a native doll I'd had.

I picked that up too.

Then I closed my eyes and took them into the safe place. I found little Zig and took her out to the shed. I put the dolls on the floor and then gave her a hammer.

She looked at me a long moment then leaned down and neatly and efficiently smashed those dolls to bits.

I'm so proud of her.


Oh. And I bought a teddy bear.

His name is Mr Potts.

Mr Fred Potts.

[Turkish]

Wow, Zig, that's heavy. The doll-lynching thing is creepy at any age. I'm glad you're reclaiming that part of your lost childhood. It must feel good to finally validate Little Zig.

FYI, my first pet rat was named Fred (maybe after the Angel character?). I renamed her Rizzo, no offense 

[chronsweet]

Honestly, I am at a loss for words on the doll thing.  My mom collects dolls too, still, to this day.  She says that she is 'leaving' them to me and I say PLEASE DON'T.

Your post, like many others, brings back so many repressed childhood memories.  I wasn't allowed to touch many things in my mother's house.  She even told me that my room, as a child, was hers and she was lending it to me.  I had to keep it immaculate.  I remember her calling me one day and screaming while I was at my friend's house (I was only about 8 or 9), and telling me I had better get home and pick up a doll I left on the floor.  I remember her pinching me and screaming and making me feel worthless that I defied her by leaving my room unkempt.

I am glad you got vindication and released some of those negative feelings.  Sounds therapeutic. 

[Harri]

That is some wonderful work you did there Ziggiddy (and Lil Zig).  The fact that Little Zig went so readily with you and took her brother along as well speaks to me of trust.  She has learned she can trust adult Ziggiddy to protect and cherish her.  I think all the work you have been doing is showing up here and I am so very happy for you.    

I think Mr. Fred Potts is a fabulous name for your bear!

You did not just take back your power, you have embraced it as well. 

[Ziggiddy]

Oh my! Chest slapping moment there.

I never thought about the trust issue with Lil Zig Harri!

YAY! She trusts me! At least she has put the latch hook aside.

Thanks for the feedback on the progress. It's hard to see it for myself

Turkish - i am unsure what you mean about the doll lynching? You mean with the hammer? i am so peacefully passive it is a wonder I move at all! I used to hang out with these hippies to save trees and the planet and all that but they kind of left without me because I just wanted to sit quietly and passively among the trees!

I was quite surprised by the violence of the picture actually. Most expressly i actually contemplated buying them and taking them round to my mother'sa and actually doing it in front of her. But I don't like destruction and I don't like I really don't like - I mean I HATE violence. I did like my defiance though! (Mr Potts is nodding)

Chronsweet - that is SO interesting! Your mother even TOLD you it was not your room? I am gobsmacked.

It reminds me that when me and my brother left home, my dad gave us an itemised account of every single cent he ver spent on anything related to us or for us etc. This included a partial amount of rent, and phone rental, fuel etc. I mean to the CENT!

He even included the sheets of paper that I 'stole' from his desk as a little kid. I didn't actually see staples, drawing pins and sellotape in there but he included every gift for birthdays Christmas, Easter eggs etc.

I kind of shuddered at what you said about being pinched too - that brings back a shadow of a memory. What a horrible thing to do to you. And for such a small thing. I don't know why they don't understand how awful it is to be yelled at in front of friends either.

[Ziggiddy]

Maybe I should post about it separately but I am also thinking of clothing.

My mum chose all my clothing - to buy and to wear right up until I was about 11. that year some girls from school beat me up because they didn't like my clothes and after that she let me choose my own

I had this GORGEOUS Barbie doll - the first thing I ever saved up for and bought for myself. She had this white satin dress with an organza cape pinned to one shoulder with a diamante.

It was quite simply the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. i was completely enchanted.

Last week I saw a picture of that doll on a 70's website and I was overwhelmed with an emotion I couldn't define.

Looking for clues I went to old family photo albums and leafed through from age 6 months to age 6.

Never once am i dressed in anything like.

There are a couple of party dresses for sure - hand made to match my mother's. And I have clearly worn the same dress to several parties.

Oh there was one. There was ONE beautiful dress - hand made, yes but it had this gauzy slippery material which felt so nice.

What colour was it? Well orange of course.

<Headdesk>

[CBoo]

Amazing!

High five Lil Zig and  Mr Potts.

[chronsweet]

I kind of shuddered at what you said about being pinched

Yes, pinching.  She still won't admit to it as in it was a regular occurrence.  I haven't brought it up in quite a long time, but when I have in the past she acts like it was nothing.  She would grab my cheeks and dig her nails into them and pinch them.  I remember getting beat up and yelled at and pinched before school one morning.  I can't remember why.  I was only about 6 or so.  I remember having to go check in at the office because I was late.  She put foundation over the welts/digs she had made on my face and then told me if anyone asked I had to tell them the lie she told me to tell them.  I can't remember what the lie was.  But I do remember that I had to lie because it was all my doing and my fault anyways.  I had to protect her, of course.

So many little things I can remember.  I can barely remember the good times.  It's like my mind goes to the negative thoughts of her when I was little.  Perhaps it was my brains warning that this person was not nice and to remember what she had done to me. 

My mom has done some kind things for me.  When things are good, they are good.  However, as I have read alot, the negative times overshadow the feelings of doom.  It seems like such small events trigger such large episodic rages.  When my mind tries to grasp this and reason it out, it comes to the same conclusion every time, a big What the heck.  Like how can a person be so mean to a child or adult or human being, let alone their own kid.  I have had several frustrated moments with my son.  I have hollered at him in the past and its not often.  But every time I have done so, I have this huge swell of emotion that feels terrible.  I sit him down and explain how I was frustrated and acted out and am sorry.  I tell him it's okay to feel hurt and we will work together as a team.  He's only 4 mind you.  But, BPD, inflict pain, and it doesn't even register.

Just freaking WOW.

[Ziggiddy]

I am grieved in my heart for you, Chronsweet.

I also get what you mean about reactions to your memories.

it's quite natural, you know although for you it feels scary at the time - it can feel a little out of control as the memories come back to you.

You are seeing them in  new light and rescripting them and the shift in reality can sometimes feel overpowering and deep.

If you haven't had a look at it, I suggest you might want to read or reread the Survivior to thriver Guide over on the RHS ----->

Yes pwBPD do not seem to register that you have pain.

i have struggled with this and continue to.

It's the core of the lack of empathy - they simply own all the pain there is. they find it difficult or impossible to imagine someone is in the same amount of pain they are.

i know some people are philosophical about this, excusing it or justifying it but I just can't. It is selfishness in the highest degree in my view. And I do ask like you, ove ran dover how can you do that to a child?

[Turkish]

I'm so sorry chronsweet,.that is unbelievably cruel. By telling you to lie, she was once again forcing you to meet her needs, to cover up a criminal act of abuse.

I never got scratching, or anything that left physical marks. I remember once in 4th grade, my mom was being particularly verbally abusive (she was probably smacking me too, as she did a lot). I had about a mile walk to school. I must have still been on the verge of crying, and I was always a stoic, emotionally resilient kid, hiding my emotions. The teacher noticed something though, and asked if I were ok. I was only 8 or 9, but I read people very well, especially women. She had this look, amd the tone of her voice made me think, "she's going to call someone. She thinks I'm being abused. My mom will find out. It will be worse."

In those days, and into my teen years, she would sometimes say, "I wish I had never adopted you!" The retort I kept to myself was, "you and me both."

So I swallowed it. Brightened up a bit and said, "no, everything's fine." She didn't believe me and gave a sidelong glance.

I did the same thing at 13 when my mom lured me into family counseling, then abandoned me after the first appointment (something my Ex did 29 years later). After my mom verbally attacked me in the one joint session, I clammed up when the T didn't jump in. In the following 8 appointments or so, where I drove my sleeping mom 60 miles to the city (yes, at 13), I assiduously avoided telling the T about my mom, and talked about everything else under the sun. The appointments stopped. We were living on 25 acres in the woods in an uninsulated barn shell with 50 dogs, goats, chickens, a sheep who thought she was a dog, no running water, no electricity, and not even an outhouse. Once summer for a few months I walked literally a mile down and back up a canyon road to haul water bag in gallon milk jugs. Yes, perhaps I should have been honest with the T, but I survived and am here, so that's what counts, eh?

Did I just hijack? *sigh*

When we moved to my mom's mountain retreat when I was 12? The toys were gone. No video games, even those lame early 1980s handheld LED "football" ones (which my mom said would rot my brain). No tv. It was obsessively reading in my off time, during the day because it was hard on the eyes at night by kerosene lamp (Old Abe notwithstanding). I read Stephen Kng's The Stand when i was 13, and it was adult books thereafter. It was chopping wood by hand with a maul (like an ax with a weighted end), being a logger's assistant 2-3 times per week for the uy my mom let cut down trees on our property for money, and eating cold food out of cans for lunch because we had to conserve fuel on the camp stove. Speghettios are ok cold, but the tamales in a can weren't so great due to the grease. I recently picked up a can of vienna sausages (I had my kids try them), and I couldn't finish them, thinking, "I used to live on this crap?" Ditto for Spam, hot or cold.

[chronsweet]

i think all of us kind of high-jacked the post **sigh** ((apologies))

'toys' in childhood or just the word childhood and BPDm (diagnosed or not), stirs up tidal waves of emotions, i can relate to what most people say about their experiences especially if they were raised by a 'witch' uBPDm.

I am reading an interesting book about turning negativity into positive outcomes.  I think I can benefit from some of that type of thinking tbh.  Trying to fill my head with positive thoughts about any of the stuff I went through, just makes me feel worse.  You can't put a band-aid of positive words over a life that robbed you of being able to express yourself and develop a normal ability to view yourself among others; our psyche isn't that easily 'tricked' or deprogrammed.  Positivity wasn't a recurring feeling in my upbringing. 

Smashing a dolls head in, well there's negativity turned positive, a release if you will.  Knowing that it was ok to be mad as hell about being raised by someone with a serious personality defect.

[Turkish]

i think all of us kind of high-jacked the post **sigh** ((apologies))

'toys' in childhood or just the word childhood and BPDm (diagnosed or not), stirs up tidal waves of emotions, i can relate to what most people say about their experiences especially if they were raised by a 'witch' uBPDm.

I am reading an interesting book about turning negativity into positive outcomes.  I think I can benefit from some of that type of thinking tbh.  Trying to fill my head with positive thoughts about any of the stuff I went through, just makes me feel worse.  You can't put a band-aid of positive words over a life that robbed you of being able to express yourself and develop a normal ability to view yourself among others; our psyche isn't that easily 'tricked' or deprogrammed.  Positivity wasn't a recurring feeling in my upbringing. 

Smashing a dolls head in, well there's negativity turned positive, a release if you will.  Knowing that it was ok to be mad as hell about being raised by someone with a serious personality defect.

It is ok, chron, and I think I only realized it after my split from my uBPDx, and I started looking more at my childhood, felt guilty for joining the board, until this past summer that my mom admitted that she had BPD. I feel like I got over a lot of stuff a long time ago (apparently not for ending up with someone who was emotionally similar to my mother). It's ok to be angry. What we do with that anger is up to us, not our pwBPD.

[Woolspinner2000]

Yaay for you Zig! 

I'm glad that you found Mr. Potts who of course needed a home with love in it and what a great name! Good deal with how you dealt with the dolls and Lil Zig. I'm so proud of you and the trust that she showed you. What a team!

Your memories of early childhood were eerily scary and reminiscent of my own. While my room wasn't painted orange, to this day I cannot use burlap for any crafts or very minimally because my uBPDm wallpapered my walls with avocado green burlap and she frequently used burlap for the myriad of crafts she did.  Here's another very strange thing which I haven't heard of happening to others:  my mom moved us from one room to another all throughout the first 16 years of my life. I was in 3 different bedrooms at least one time each during those years, and my siblings of course played musical rooms too. So I never had a sense of having my own safe room in a way because she always moved us around and of course one never knew when she would barge in. Isn't that strange about the rooms? I never did that to my kids (we would rearrange within their room but not switch rooms), and now that 2 of the 3 have moved out, I still call the rooms by their name. I realize that never would've happened at my childhood home.

About the dolls... .my dad travelled abroad when I was 6 and brought back a whole collection. I couldn't play with them either. My mom had dolls in cases on her walls in her FL home for years, and I brought them home to research history on them, but sadly I cannot deal with them. My first Barbie doll and all the clothes were given to me when I was a bit older because my mom was worried that I was dealing with an 'adult' doll. All my clothes were hand me downs for years and years. When mom made my sister and I outfits for Mother's Day, all 3 of us matched  , even up until I was 12 years old. Not cool to match your mom and little sister.

Your thread has brought up many memories for us all. Good post!

Wools

[Reluctant Dragon]

I'm sorry you had to go through that! I wonder if it would be better to have no toys than to have toys you're only allowed to look at but never touch!

We always had normal toys and were allowed to play with them just like other kids. I think because my Dad was the normal, stable parent. I shudder to think what our lives would have been like with just egg donor. Maybe by today's standards Dad would be called an enabler but back then a man getting custody of children in divorce was pretty much unheard of. I believed he stayed married to Broomhilda to protect us as best he could.

Your mother's affinity for pinching, though, that really struck a nerve. My egg donor's attack of choice was hair pulling. Sometimes she'd give a small warning: "I'm going to rip your hair out!", but most of the time it was a sneak attack for reasons known only to her.  I think it was worse if I was wearing pig tails or a pony, then she could get enough of a handful that when she yanked I felt like my neck was going to snap.

[Ziggiddy]

Boo - missed your tiny little post in there! Thank you! <Hi5> Mr Potts is nodding. or he could just be asleep. All that porridge, you know.

No such thing as  a post hijack IMO. I think it's great to share experiences. So useful. Plus I love it to come back and see the discussion.

Turkish it never fails to amaze me how er ... .'rustic' your childhood was. Or maybe the word is 'earthy'?

I do believe damage is worsened immeasurably by the coverup. And the lack of stepping in by outsiders who suspect something.

Honestly I don't blame them because it is hard, so very hard to bring accusations onto folk and you know it will result in acrimony, revenge and a complete breach with the accused. And if you're wrong ... .all for nothing.

However it does leave the child in an untenable position.

It dents your reality and reinforces the idea that grownups have all the power and that you, as the child are at fault.

I've no doubt mentioned it before but I recall going to school about age 7 and had the school librarian (of all people) come up to me before school and ask me if my parents were hitting me (due to the plethora of old and new bruises on my arms  -I couldn't cover them up - we lived in a desert town where the average temperature in summer was 104 - no one wore long sleeves at all.

I remember the ray of sunshine - the unbelievable hope for a moment that maybe it might stop. And then I answered honestly about the latest set of bruises from being karate chopped by my brother and said "Oh - those are from my brother."

So the librarian said 'Oh. that's alright then' and the sun went back behind the cloud.

I wonder now what it would have been like to have been separated then. Still not sure what to make of it.

I also wanted to point out that I did not in fact smash the dolls! I just imagined letting little Zig do it. And it wasn't violent - it was neat an efficient. Like an appropriate ending to a story.

I like the idea of that being a negative energy release. I still am in deep fear of my mother if I am perfectly honest. I'd love to get done with that but it is still stuck here behind the rage. I still feel guilty for holding her responsible. She denies it all and tells me she was the best mother she could be. this saps my confidence.

Chronsweet, turning negatives into positives is a great idea but if you don't go through the emotions naturally and properly you are just imposing a form of preforgiveness in my opinion.

Fully feeling something is not just a right it's necessary for complete healing. Else it's just a partial form of denial and leads to minimising your pain. When you are ready to see the positive side it comes naturally from insight. And insight only comes from resolving the problem.

[Ziggiddy]

Woolspinner - thank you for your positive msg also the great suggestion to get a teddy.

I did not even think about the fact that he was stuck in a second hand shop with no one to love him! That made me feel really good.

I never heard of ANYONE being required to change rooms. i guess it was your mother's way of effecting the 'environmental' change that keeps them from looking too hard at their own feelings. Pretty destabilising for a kid though. And likely to foment trouble between siblings.

RD - I am singing that song now!

You made me think - would it have been better to have no toys? I don't know. I did have other toys I may not have been clear. Mum chose a LOT of toys for us.

Being grabby, she would go to the rubbish tip and pick out toys others had thrown away and give them to us - telling us to clean them up. And due to her hoarding never allowed to throw anything out -even if it was broken and/or dangerous. She still has shards of glass from a cabinet I brought her years ago that got broken. What the heck? #-4 kettles that would electrocute you or short circuit the whole house. Toasters the same. Boxes of used dead matches, bags and bags of scrunched up tissues. Barbie dolls legs (?) etc

So yeah we had plenty of toys. Too many to store. Especially on top of her boxes of stuff she stored in our rooms. Didn't stop us from getting in trouble for not having our rooms clean though.

The hair pulling - awful. AWFUL. people don't know - it REALLY hurts. Something in that is stirring me up. Surprise attacks. How very sick. No wonder you call her Broomhilda.

I laughed and laughed - egg donor and Broomhilda. So going to use those!