Realized something last night - lucky

[Depression = 72% of members]

So to keep it short, both parents diagnosed manic depressed/bi-polar.  Both showed a lot of BPD/ASD behavior.  I grew up isolated, an only child, alone, far from any family and the taboo against outsiders prevented me from really having friends.  So our house was kinda crazy, shifting alliances of two versus one, between me and the 'stable' parent-of-the-day against the other, or both of them against me the child.  They were in and out of treatments and my mom especially had substance abuse issues, primarily abusing prescription drugs.

When things were 'normal', I was simply smothered and/or neglected, when they were obviously bad, I was trained to hide the bruises and lie about them if a teacher or school counselor asked.

Anyway, I joke that being the curious person I am, and am lucky to be alive.  When possible, I was up a tree, trying to mix things in the kitchen or bathroom to see what would happen, played with fire (but it was in the fireplace - I was being responsible:P), and was left to my own devices to get to and from school most days.  I had little to no parental interaction  let alone supervision much of the time, and to be honest, did a lot of stupid things that kids do as a result.  So I could easily have gotten myself killed all on my own.  But then, there are also the times when I remember how scared I was during the rages that one or both parents would have - often mom would start, and then goad dad into beating me to show he took my discipline seriously.  Or she'd goad him into beating her, It was crazy, as I said.

But last night I was watching a short film that was trying to show the dangers of some antipsychotic/antidepressant drugs, and it disturbed me quite a bit.  It starts out like a parody of an allergy medication, but it's purposefully off, and then descends into about 8 more minutes of a nightmare.

I know that some people can use these drugs just fine, but with my mom and her disregard for instructions and rules and dosages, she'd have been just the kind of person to drive us into a lake, or do something else.  She'd have reactions to other meds, and end up talking to my dead grandmother (scary when you are 8), and has attempted suicide at least once, and now that I am older, I realize she must have been a "cutter".  She had marks on her arm that as a kid I took to mean she'd been trying to slash her wrists (cuz a kid should know this ) but now that I think back, the pattern of marks on her arm look more like someone who cuts in response to stress.

The short film was followed by a youtube commentary on the film and it broke down what wasn't that hard to see, that some people will abuse theme, and historically, how bad that has ended up, with mothers killing children while under the influence.  And I realized that I was really damn lucky.  Really.  You give my mom a pill and tell her to take one, she'll take five.  In the 80s, if she wanted more of something controlled, she'd go to multiple doctors and lie to each one to build up a stash.  No internet, it was pretty easy - she wrote hot checks for the pills half the time to boot.  Dad had totally dissociated rages all on his own, and I figured many times we were both about to end up dead (he's stated such - "I'm going to kill you, your mother and myself and that will end this" while brandishing kitchen knives).

Anyway, I guess today I am just realizing that my gallows humor joke about how many ways I could have died as a kid was truer than I initially realized, and I am totally thankful for whatever kept me safe and protected, and finally got me away from them.

[isilme]

So to keep it short, both parents diagnosed manic depressed/bi-polar.  Both showed a lot of BPD/ASD behavior.  I grew up isolated, an only child, alone, far from any family and the taboo against outsiders prevented me from really having friends.  So our house was kinda crazy, shifting alliances of two versus one, between me and the 'stable' parent-of-the-day against the other, or both of them against me the child.  They were in and out of treatments and my mom especially had substance abuse issues, primarily abusing prescription drugs.

When things were 'normal', I was simply smothered and/or neglected, when they were obviously bad, I was trained to hide the bruises and lie about them if a teacher or school counselor asked.

Anyway, I joke that being the curious person I am, and am lucky to be alive.  When possible, I was up a tree, trying to mix things in the kitchen or bathroom to see what would happen, played with fire (but it was in the fireplace - I was being responsible:P), and was left to my own devices to get to and from school most days.  I had little to no parental interaction  let alone supervision much of the time, and to be honest, did a lot of stupid things that kids do as a result.  So I could easily have gotten myself killed all on my own.  But then, there are also the times when I remember how scared I was during the rages that one or both parents would have - often mom would start, and then goad dad into beating me to show he took my discipline seriously.  Or she'd goad him into beating her, It was crazy, as I said.

But last night I was watching a short film that was trying to show the dangers of some antipsychotic/antidepressant drugs, and it disturbed me quite a bit.  It starts out like a parody of an allergy medication, but it's purposefully off, and then descends into about 8 more minutes of a nightmare.

I know that some people can use these drugs just fine, but with my mom and her disregard for instructions and rules and dosages, she'd have been just the kind of person to drive us into a lake, or do something else.  She'd have reactions to other meds, and end up talking to my dead grandmother (scary when you are 8), and has attempted suicide at least once, and now that I am older, I realize she must have been a "cutter".  She had marks on her arm that as a kid I took to mean she'd been trying to slash her wrists (cuz a kid should know this ) but now that I think back, the pattern of marks on her arm look more like someone who cuts in response to stress.

The short film was followed by a youtube commentary on the film and it broke down what wasn't that hard to see, that some people will abuse theme, and historically, how bad that has ended up, with mothers killing children while under the influence.  And I realized that I was really damn lucky.  Really.  You give my mom a pill and tell her to take one, she'll take five.  In the 80s, if she wanted more of something controlled, she'd go to multiple doctors and lie to each one to build up a stash.  No internet, it was pretty easy - she wrote hot checks for the pills half the time to boot.  Dad had totally dissociated rages all on his own, and I figured many times we were both about to end up dead (he's stated such - "I'm going to kill you, your mother and myself and that will end this" while brandishing kitchen knives).

Anyway, I guess today I am just realizing that my gallows humor joke about how many ways I could have died as a kid was truer than I initially realized, and I am totally thankful for whatever kept me safe and protected, and finally got me away from them.

[Woolspinner2000]

Hi isilme, 

Sounds as if you had a sobering realization, seeing how significant it is that somehow you managed to survive.   That's a good but very tough thing to grasp, how scary and dangerous the potential for the unimagined was. But here's the great news: you DID survive and look at how creative and strong your little one was to make it!  Good job!

How do your inner children feel about this realization? Are they happy or scared or sad? I imagine they may be feeling a lot of different things. I am glad you shared your thoughts with us. 

Wools

[Naughty Nibbler]

Hi isilme,    

I'd like to join Woolspinner2000 and offer you another hug 

I'm certainly glad that you survived your childhood and are with us today!  Thanks for sharing your story.  It can be therapeutic to share.

Are you in contact with your parents at the current time?

[isilme]

Naughty Nibbler,

No, I am NC with both of them - dad kicked me out at 19 and did his best to defame me to leave me no safe harbor - he copied pages out of my diary and mailed them to all family and to my then BF's family (now my H), to show them I was a whore who deserved no place to live (seriously, at 19 I was still a virgin - was until I was 22).  I did not do drugs, drink, party, and was literally a choir girl and lived pretty much in fear of the memory of the physical abuse and in fear of the revocation of dad's 'love' as I was very aware at that time he was all the family I had. 

Mom - dad had cut all contact to her when I was still in HS, from age 15-19, telling me she hated me and never loved me.  Keeping me from her was to hurt her, and also to hurt me.  I believed it - I was dumb and confused kid - their divorce was pretty bad, and I wanted to believe at least one of my parents was high functioning, which was dad - I was mom's caretaker.  So, when she finally got ahold of me when I was 20, she was shocked I'd not just come back to the enmeshment of my childhood.  Time away from her allowed me to grow a bit, and then time away from dad did the same.  I've tried LC with my mom now and then, but I just cannot keep it up.  She seems to take contact as permission to steal my identity, and ;later, H's mom's.  That was the last straw, had to go NC.  I took what felt like a big step, and unblocked her from Facebook, just to be sure she could see my wedding photos - I would ahve liked to include her in that, but also panicked each time I got close to it.  We eloped anyway, and ahd no guests, so she got pretty much what everyone else did. 

So I am NC with both, have been for about 19 years with dad, and about 7 straight with mom - it was on again off again for a while with her.

Woolspinner,

Scared, unsettled, I think were my main feelings.  I only saw dad actually try to kill mom once, he was throttling her on the bed Father's Day, 1992, the day we left her.  I was 15, getting dressed for church, and heard what was happening, and got him off her.  I don't know how.  Months before that, he had repeatedly threatened murder/suicide, or just suicide.  He was how I learned what suicide is - talking him down the first time when I was about 8-10 years old - had a knife and locked himself in the bathroom.  Again at 14, locked himself in the garage with the cars on.  He would dissociate when angry - no one was behind his eyes and the video and discussion of people killing their kids reminded me of that.  It just dawned on me that no, my only dangers were not just the neglect and what I could have done to myself, but that I was damn lucky that something held them both in check, stopping with the belt at some point, leaving the room or house at times.

I admit I cope with life by joking.  A lot.  And I am refusing to hide my childhood trauma anymore - I strongly believe that the taboo I grew up with, "hide the home life at all costs, lie about bruises, lie about who's home to feed me, don't ever say anything bad about your beloved parents", is a big reason kids have childhoods like mine, and others on here.  We hid it all so well that now, as adults, it's very hard for people to see our poor elderly parents are the boogiemen we knew.  How many on here talk about how no one believes how angry and vindictive their parents can be, when they present such a sweet countenance to the rest of the world, or even the rest of the family.

So I joke about my mom being my wayward 60+-year-old teen daughter and the like.  And it's helped.  People stop assuming I'm weird because I don't go see my mom.  People know how uncomfortable I am when they ask about my dad (mom's in another state, but up till recently, I still had dad's last name, uncommon, and he lived here and in the next town over for years).  And I have some coworkers who have been willing to warn me should he decide to saunter over here and give me an exit. 

I am still working on reassimilating my actual feelings from growing up.  I spent a LOT of my life with great factual recall about events - I have a not-quite-photographic memory.  I could recite events just fine, but it was often as if I was watching a movie about someone else.  I found this site when the feelings started re-attaching to the memories, and I was overwhelmed.  I was sad - very sad, mourning the parents I wanted but never fully had (they had good days, where I felt we were a good family, we went to museums, movies, and those I mourned).  And I was finding I was angry.  I was angry that I grew up far sooner than my peers and learned a level of self-sufficiency that my peers never seemed to have to have.

And yes, I am thankful that in some weird way, the childhood I had seems to have at least given me some skills that may not always be the best or healthiest way to deal with stress or crisis, but they are there.