I'm sitting here feeling rather cold right now because of this cool weather we've been having of late. I've forced myself to smile and laugh at work. I've forced myself to be cheerful and put on a "happy" face so the mentally challenged children I work with don't get too upset or afraid. I've forced myself to push forward through so many things just to get to this point today. And now, I sit here typing at the computer, cold and miserable.
I hate the cold, it makes my hands hurt. It burns me. As stupid as it may sound, it burns on my skin like hot water and can drive me to tears fairly quickly. And yet I'm over weight by close to 40 pounds (gaining more despite my best efforts), wearing sweaters, and the temperature is just a shade below room temperature in the living room where this computer is right now. It seems to be a metaphore for these horrible feelings that lurk beneath the surface everyday inside me.
At one point, I had a friend of mine theorize that I have seasonal affective disorder because I seemed to get depressed in the winter and the most in February. Ofcourse, that was while I was at college. In the winter and in February, I was dealing with my family. They didn't see me during the summer. In the summer, I was usually fairly miserable as well. Having people who treat you like you're worth about as much as dog-shit, usually does that do you.
Like I said, my family are crazy and not generally that good for me. I think that you've gotten some of that impression from my efforts to recount my childhood memories that are published here. I don't really think that my family knows this blog exists. I don't think that they're ever going to read it. If they do, I don't know what I'll say or do. I'm fairly certian that there will be some version of World War III happening at that time in the social order in that little group.
After all, I'm publishing the dirty laundry out where the whole world can see it. That's a bad thing in the eyes of my family. You keep family stuff in the family and don't talk about it. You talk about it and people will look down on your family and look down on you. Talking about it makes your entire family look bad and can hurt people in your family, even if you don't mean to. So, don't talk about the family.
Sounds kinda like the way some people would describe how the Mob operates, I suppose. But that's what I grew up with and what I'm bucking in some indirect/direct way here. I can't say if it's direct with any sense of confidence because I am not saying the family name or identifying any of the parties I'm referring to. If I were in a counselor's office, I may be naming names, but that information is kept under lock and key. I don't have to worry about my gossiping grandmother getting hold of it and shaming me before the immediate, extended, and all other familial relations that she writes to in her Christmas letter. Not to mention the non-family members that get the letter because they're "friends of the family." Translate that to her friends, and you get the real picture. After all, I've never seen these people except at DAR meetings and then they try to treat me like I'm about 12 or something. With the exception of one, who treats me like a young woman of some substance.
Ronna, I really appreciate that. I know you'll never read this, but I can't fully express how much I appreciate the fact that you treat me as an adult woman that is valueable because of who I am, not who I'm descendant from or related to.
I really hate how I'm always judged against some other person. It's usually:
1. My mother- A woman that is a self-avowed bitch and misanthrope, generally means well and manages to make life extremely uncomfortable for me about 90% of the time when I deal with her because everything comes down to some strange kind of challenge to a pissing contest. I'm still not sure if she loves me. She's been more affectionate since I've virtually cut all contact off with her and my father in an effort to force the relationship to be something she maintains. Ofcourse, I've questioned if she loved and wanted me since I was about 8, too.
2. My aunt- A crazy woman that abuses drugs, manipulates people, and carries herself as though she is entitled to all the luxuries that are available by virtue of her existance. Never mind the fact that she actively enabled the abuse of myself by her wife/lover and attempted to pressure me into silence via shame. I suppose she loves me, in her own fucked up way. I really don't care anymore now that I realize what she did/didn't do when I was younger and it's impacts on my life now.
3. My grandmother- Who is slowly going insane due to Alzheimer's and her own brand of psychological problems, and can't fully grasp the fact that I'm a grown woman leading her own life. I'm not the little girl that needs doted upon or will be slavishly devoted to her. She's torn between feeling hurt and angry with me between recent events with the death of my aunt's lover (which my grandmother blames me for) and the events surrounding the wedding two years ago. The relationship is strained at best. My grandmother is a gossip and a busy body. She feels that she can fix people and makes it her effort to do so, if you want it or not.
4. My great-grandmother Hazel- She died when I was in 3rd or 2nd grade. I can't remember clearly anymore. She was a constant source of comfort and generally acted to keep me away from the insanity of my family when she was well enough to do so. Her decline due to Alzheimer's crushed me and has long since given me a terror beyond words for the concept of losing my mind. Her death broke my heart but I have felt her presence with me over the years. I'm convinced that she's my "gaurdian angel" and has been there to guide me through the years. Hazel was an author, a bit of a poineer, and a feminist before feminisim became all about shattering the glass ceiling and the gonads of men.
I recognize that I am idolizing her a little too much, but I only have a child's memories of her. As I learned about her life, in later years, I have found that much of my idolization was too much romaticism of her life. Hazel lived a hard life that bore her a mixed batch of fruit in the forms of success, joy, and sorrow. She became a pillar of her community and a figure worthy of my admiration thru the triumphs she made in the face of adversity.
While I can be pleased or even flattered to be compared to my great-grandmother's pioneering spirit, my grandmother's compassionate nature, or my mother's strength...
I am generally angered by it. It denies me my rights of passage, my trials and sufferings and the marks they've left on my soul. It robs me of my personhood, regulating me to being a shadow of some one else and not my own person. And so many people in my family do that. I find myself expecting others who may have remotely heard of my family to do the same, and either look at me and see my misanthropic mother or my sycophantic aunt. Either way, I don't expect the image to be pretty or flattering.
With the others who never had encountered my family, I expect the social hell that I went through at school from day one until I graduated high school, and experienced to a lesser degree at college. I positively *hate* the "popular" people for one very simple reason. The "popular" people are bigoted bastards in my experience not even worthy of being spat on. Sure, they may benefit the earth by breathing, contributing fertilizer via fecal matter, and possibly their actions and efforts may be of value, but their value as a person is nil because they're generally malevolent and vicious creatures.
No, I'm not bitter. I'm really not, I'm rather caustic and vitrolic on the matter. I went through hell when I was younger. I listen to the ever so polite rants about how certian behaviors are not tolerated due to their hatred spawned nature and I want to vomit. I had so many ugly rumors circulating about me that I had college students at the state university in town asking me the cost of a blow job when I was twelve. These people shouldn't have even known who I was! I should have been just another ankle-biter of little or no interest, other then a possible source of income in the way of a tutoring or babysitting gig.
I had teachers harassing me, telling me that I was wrong to defend myself when I was assaulted by students because I deserved it. There were so many people saying so many ugly things, it simply had to be true. I was lying when I said that my mother wasn't a prositute or that I didn't do drugs. The other person may have thrown the first punch, but I obviously had to have provoked them or they wouldn't have done it. It wasn't really my lunch money that the person was taking, it was theirs that they were taking back from me because I obviously had stolen it. As my parents were too poor to afford it... and it went on and on.
And all of this harassment that I dealt with, it was supposed to be normal? I was being overly sensitive and thus I had to go to the school shrink? I was the problem?
I'm sorry, but I didn't do a damn thing to provoke having people take meter sticks and lift up my skirt. I didn't provoke having people slam me into lockers, trip me on the bus, push my down stairs, or step on me when I fell to the ground. I didn't do a single damn thing wrong, unless you counted my existing.
So... if you were one of the pretty people and I offended you with this, I'll apologize. You're most likely not one of the bastards that made my life hell when I was younger. You don't deserve to be in the center of my crosshairs on that one. On the bizzare chance that you may be one of those people that I went to school with and you feel that I'm being unfair, that's fine. You can feel that way. At least you got to feel that once in your life, because I felt that way for many years because of you.
...
I'm not sure if this is doing me any good. On one hand, I am expressing this stuff. At the same time... I ... I'm not sure how to look at it. It's keeping the crying jag at bay, but I'm getting indigestion from the anger bubbling up and a headache from the anxiety. God, I wish I had health insurance, then I could go see some one qualified to actually help me with this.
No comments:
Post a Comment