Oh, no SWOT! No one in my FOO is the least bit sick, either.
Well, I think my mother would have flipped her lid if anyone would have suggested she had some sort of personality disorder. Of course, I was not privvy to her childhood. Maybe she had CPTSD too, but she did not stop the abuse. She continued it, if true. Sis knew
she herself) had problems, just not, in my opinion, smart enough to do anything about it. Brother has been in therapy for a long time so he knows. My Uncle, who I still have a really weird memory of (I hope to recover it in EMDR) was a neurotic mess who had to get my sister to hold his hand when he went to the doctor. He was about 46 at the time. That's all I had in FOO.
Like with your family, whether or not they admitted it or admit it now or are too busy telling me what I already know (that I have problems due to my family) none of them was normal as society defines it. The one who could fit in the best was my sister, but she was just an Emperor with clothes on. She was pure fake. She played normal well, but she isn't.
My friends used to think my mother was weird, but they never saw her at her worst.
Moving on! I remembered this today and wanted to share. It still shames me when I recall it. I can still feel that horrible feeling.
Ok, so I have a very old and very embarrassing memory from first grade, which happened because I was never taught manners or how to talk to others or social norms. I remember certain embarassing incidents very well and this is one.
I was seated at a little table with all the other little first graders who were in the "slow" reading group for dummies. I was seated next to my teacher and I raised my hand and Mrs. Goodman (still remember her name, but she is long deceased) called on me and I gave her a big smile and said (I blush as I type this and am not even sure you two are uncouth enough to know what I was talking about).
"I have to make."
Give me a moment to blush again and get over it.
Ok.
In case you were raised in a house that said, "I have to use the bathroom, then you understand that this crude way of putting having to go to the bathroom was not how the other kids asked to use the toilet. They knew better, even at age six.
I remember my teacher's face flushing as she huffed and asked, "Who taught you to talk that way?"
By then, I had my hand down and was scared at how she looked and my little girl tapes were telling me "Uh oh. You messed up again." The other kids were laughing at me, of course, as happened a lot.
The teacher was staring at me, still flushed.
"My mother," I said, softly. I was thinking, did I say something bad?
The memory ends there.
Things like this happened to me all the time as a little kid. I was not parented. I was not taught right from wrong. I was not taught the right and wrong way to say delicate things. I did not know that everyone didn't blurt things out like this. Maybe my siblings figured it out, but I never did. I was neurologically different. If you didn't parent me and tell me, I did not learn.
I was a child with parents who never taught me anything I'd need to function in the world, and more than the other two, I needed parental guidance, encouragement, teaching and love. This incident haunted me for a long time as the kids taunted me about it for the entire rest of the year.
I didn't know any better. I just knew my own home and my mother or grandmother would ask me, "SWOT, do you have to make before we go?"
I believe, but can not recall clearly so maybe it's a false memory, that nobody ever told my brother to take his hand out of his shorts when he was a toddler and standing in front of the house. It wasn't that he did anything wrong...it was normal...but most parents tell their kids gently that this is not something you do outside. I swear I remember him standing there with his hand in his pants forever.
What parent doesn't teach her little boy to save that for inside the house, maybe away from any company?
My brother and I had absolutely no social skills. My sister was a whiz kid at picking them up from her normal peers, but my brother and I did not and did not have friends. I learned slowly and he did too. And nobody taught us.
As an adult, going to my future mother-in-laws house for dinner, I still did not k now which fork to use for the salad. I had to watch everyone else.
Not that these things are huge. but they permeated our entire childhood. We were not taught anything bout right and wrong, boundaries, manners, socializing, nothing. We had no rules. I didn't even have to pass school. There were no punishments. All I had to do was wear long hair and date Jewish boys. I kept the long hair. I dated Jewish boys for my first two years of dating, but quit after my mother didn't believe I was doing it even when I was. Plus I thought it was a ridiculous rule. As a Jewish kid growing up in a 97% (at the time of my own childhood) Jewish neighborhood, the kids who tormented me for eight years were Jewish and the two or so kids who were not Jewish in my classes were usually much nicer to me so I was getting a sadly negative opinion about Jewish people. To this day, Jewish people still kind of freak me out. Being bullied at school is a huge trauma for anyone and it was constant, peaking in eighth grade before I got relief in high school because other towns went to my high school and I didn't see the tormenters as often plus I had a best friend who taught me how to talk back to bullies. Copa, I hope you are not offended. I did not mean it offensively.
One day I'll have to clue you in on the capricious way Judaism was practiced in my house. Copa, you will appreciate the lunacy of it. It's no wonder I leapgrogged to trying other religions and spiritual beliefs as soon as I got out of the house. The most traumatic days of the year were the Jewish holidays. I can feel my hands shaking just thinking of them. The house was WWIII every Jewish holiday...but that's another post.
A preview: Dad: "Your family isn't Jewish enough! We should use separate dishes, even though I never do!"
"Well, YOU drive to synagogue and your NOT supposed to drive. Why is it ok for YOU to do these things, but not us? Plus I know you eat non-Kosher food."
"So do you!"
"Well, why shouldn't I since you do? But YOU, you're the great Jew! You're really wonderful!"
(Insert many swear words and severe yelling).
Ok,I got tired posting this one so I'm going to read. (by the way, this was not a real fight t hey had. I don't remember any word-by-word. They were about who was the better Jew and what WE should be doing on the hoidays and let's just say we had not family get togethers and made no pleasant memories of the holidays and I longed to celebrate Christmas). Horrible statements about one another's families were very much involved in these holiday brawls.
Yes, I'm still in a good mood
