I started life as the first of six children. Mom did her best to raise us with Dad at work all the time, but by the time my fifth brother was born she was on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Every one of us had our own issues, which, on top of her massive depression, just made our home life chaotic and often violent.
Looking back, I do not know how she was able to manage everything she did in our small three bedroom house. My brothers each had unique personalities and quirks. By the time they were all teenagers, she felt like a failure because they were all so wild. She didn't know at the time that one was bipolar, another had ADHD, and another was on the Autism Spectrum. The other two just went along with their brothers out of a sense of loyalty. It was always them against the world, and often against me.
I was the "responsible one", the " second mother". I had the same responsibilities as Mom without any of the authority. Add in a father who said housework was women's work, and Mom and I were treated as slaves. Add in the molestation that started when I was nine, and it's no wonder that I retreated into my own world by the time I was thirteen.
So that's how my life started. I had no sense of myself whatsoever. My relationship with my brothers was damaged to the point they left me out of everything, and ignored anything I said. The only attention my father gave me was tainted after I hit puberty at age nine, and my mother was hanging onto her sanity by the skin of her teeth and her reliance on me to help her out with the house. I had no idea that I was suffering depression on top of a genetic chemical imbalance that made it worse.
See, my dad did not believe we had any problems requiring medication. A social worker once suggested that I might benefit from medication and he threw her out of the house, forbidding my mother from taking us to any more counseling sessions. She pretty much gave up at that point. There was nothing else she thought she could do.
In hindsight, I guess that is why I married the man I did. I didn't believe anyone else could love me, and I wanted out.
More later.
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Random Memories
RandomIn the cacophony of life, sometimes the most random thoughts are the ones most in order. Bits and pieces. Dries and Drabs. Here a little, there a little. Slowly my life began to return to me. Sometimes I wonder what it all could mean. Why do so...
