Thoughtful Thursday

Do you see this face? Do you see the sadness in the eyes? Do you see the pain hidden deep inside? This was me when I was my sons age.....a sad hurting little girl!

As I go through my life I have always searched for answers to things that had no real answer. Things like....how could my mother beat me? what caused her to be the evil person she was? Why was I molested? Why were my sisters molested? Why didn't anyone look beyond those eyes and lend a hand? I have searched long and hard for these answers...to no avail. But then a part of me sees things in me and I start to think that maybe I can find an answer....

I suffer with PMDD (Premenstrual dysphoric disorder ) It's like PMS on steroids! It's horrible, you wake up pissed off and irritated and it does not go away. Your body hurts, you snap at anyone who looks at you...not just the ones who look at you funny. The littlest thing sets you off into a rampage and you end up either screaming and yelling and feeling like hitting someone or you end up bawling your eyes out trying to figure out what the hell the number is to the local psych hospital because you are certian you are going crazy! It starts about 1 to 2 weeks before your lovely friend shows up for her monthly visit and it goes away within a few days of her arrival. I take medication for it because I realized I was turning into my mother and although I NEVER once hit my child, I did yell for no reason and I knew I was hurting him emotionally and I did not want to do that. PMDD did not set in until after my son was born, doctors say the hormonal changes of age and giving birth probably activated it. ANYWAY...I wonder if maybe that is my answer....maybe mother suffered from PMDD too. Maybe it's genetic and she didn't have the modern medical studies on her side. I don't want to make excuses for what she did, but for some reason it helps me to overcome if I can rationalize it to the extent that it was something she couldn't control....like my PMDD. I can only control it with medication.....she didn't have that option.

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One memory I want to talk about today is one that doesn't directly involve me...I had remembered it one way but in talking to my sister recently I have discovered that it is not exactly as I remembered it and I want to put it down so it becomes concrete....because once it's concrete I can then let it go.

This was one of the most scary moments in my life, it was shortly before we were taken into foster care. Big sister #2 had come home from school on the bus, she had flirted with the bus driver (I think they were having relations, but I am not positive about that as I was only 11 and I was out of the loop on relationships at the time) Mother had obviously seen something happen because I remember standing in the living room and mother was beating the crap out of Big sister #2 for being a "devil woman" She was screaming at her, calling her all kinds of names saying she was going to send her to hell to live with the devil...in other words she was going to kill my big sister! I remember big sister #2 spitting in mothers face and that's when it got really bad. Big sister #2 was the responsible one, the one I looked to for mothering...this was not good. Then big sister #3 grabbed mother and tried to pull her off of big sister #2 since big sister #2 was lying on the floor covered in blood and mother was still beating the crap out of her. Mother grabbed the pillow off my bed (remember I slept in the living room) and she put that pillow over big sister #3's face and was determined to kill her right then and there. I was terrified, I remember thinking to myself that if they were killed I would be next or worse I would suffer worse beatings for the rest of my life because she would have less kids to beat on. I remember the fear, my throat closing, having trouble catching my breath. I remember the inability to cry out, to do anything other than watch this horror....then my mothers boyfriend pulled mother off of big sister #3 and saved her life....little did I know that he was also raping her and big sister #2! I now wonder if they would have prefered to die at that moment, were they disappointed that they had been saved to suffer another day??

Initially I had not remembered that day like that. I had somehow blocked out older sister #3, it was older sister #2 who was under the pillow in my memories, it was she who had been saved by mothers boyfriend. Somehow it had been too much for me to watch big sister #3 get hurt in that way. As I talked to her on the phone we talked about our childhood memories and I brought that one up and she corrected me. I think my therapist and myself have been right all along...there is a zone I had/have where I block out the really bad stuff. There is a place inside me that holds the memories correctly and in the right places, I am hoping that in talking to my big sister she can help me fill in the blanks so I can find peace. She and I were very close, I honestly would be lost without her!

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Another memory I want to mention is not a physical abuse nor a sexual abuse story...it is more of a psychological abuse, an example of the mind games mother used to play. I was little, so the details are very vague, I have no reason why she did this, just that it happened. It was confirmed by my sister so I know it did happen.

See I remember one day for whatever reason mother took a shotgun out of the gun cabinet, some bullets and headed to the basement. What I didn't know was that she had also taken a bottle of ketchup down with her. She went into the basement and locked the door, I stood at that door screaming and crying, afterall she was my mother and she was going to kill herself. I did not understand. We heard the gun shot, mother cried out, then we heard her staggering up the steps. She opened the door, there was what I believed to be blood all over her shirt. I screamed, I was histerical...one of those people you want to slap in a horror film! My brothers and sisters were all laughing in her face, they were yelling at me that it was not real, that it was fake. I did not believe them...I was traumatized, probably in some form of shock, I just kept screaming at the top of my lungs and they just kept laughing and yelling that it was not real. Mother got mad because they were laughing, they got into big trouble for it because her nasty mind trick didn't work and she took it that they didn't care about her...I was just a little girl, maybe 4 or 5 years old, I still don't understand how she could do that to me.

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Well that's it for this week. Today is a 1/2 day at school and I have a parent/teacher meeting so I need to get into a shower and get cleaned up so I can look somewhat presentable lol

And the thought for the week....don't play mind games with your kids, it might not work out the way you thought it would. Chances are they're smarter than you think and they'll just laugh in your face. Kudos to my brother and sisters for doing just that!