Day 3 homework. Bonus TISMF

The following is a list of selected events from my childhood. They only asked for 7, but just to be thorough I wrote down a list of those stories that come back to me time after time. None of it is happy or uplifting (Leave now if you don’t want to read sad things) and I even made the goddess cry when I sent her a longer version of one of them. I will include some extra details in italics for clarity and also in case someone out there is looking for some prime examples of neglect with which to screw with their kids psyche.
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My mother doesn't let me (pregnant) with 2 young kids stay in her house for a couple of months because "she has a life." She says maybe she can handle it for a week. We spend the winter in our unheated house while it is being renovated.

It occurred to me today that this should sting extra hard when thinking about how utterly gracious I was when, about 8 years after the snub, both of my parents were cancer ridden and living in my house for 7 months, while I cooked for them every night and drove them to their chemo and doctor appointments when they were receiving treatment all while raising those three children who they couldn’t be bothered hosting for a couple of months while our home was unlivable.

Mother asks my opinion regarding college graduation gift for little sister. I say it would be strange to ask me for advice since I did not receive one from her when I graduated. She insists that I did even though I am positive there was no gift and she could not recall what it might have been. I did not receive a gift.

We never spoke of it again. I know what this was about, though. My mother said to me “What do you want for graduation? I will get you get you anything you want other than camera equipment” She can go fuck herself.

Little sister steals my money and mother tells me I must be mistaken because she wouldn't do that. She very obviously stole from me. Mom didn't want to deal with it.

I am not even going to comment on this one because so much of mom’s damaging actions are tied into not addressing little sister’s problems. The more I think about it the more clarity I get and the worse it all seems to me.

When my biological father (may he burn in hell for all of eternity) demands visitation my mother takes me (8) and my little sister (6) out of school early to go to The Port Authority where she puts us ALONE on a local bus to Albany NY. The trip took somewhere around 3 hours each way. She did this every other weekend for about a year. 

ALONE. IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE THAT CAN EVEN MAKE THIS WORSE? I MEAN, AT LEAST SHE DIDN'T LET US PLAY WITH LOADED FIREARMS, SHE HAS THAT GOING FOR HER! 

Mother left us with strangers. Once she even left us for 10 days with someone she met for the very first time on her way out the door.

My parents were going on vacation together for 10 days and whoever they hired to watch my sister and myself backed out at the last second and my mom was on the phone frantically calling everyone she knew to see if anybody knew someone. She finally got a name and she called this woman and the woman was available to live in our house for 10 days and take care of us. Two days later, this woman knocks on our door for the very first time. My mother opens the door, introduces herself and then my mom says “Come here" and she introduces me to the lady and then she kisses us goodbye, tells us to “be good” and they head off to the airport. Even though I was probably only eight or nine years old I remember knowing how completely fucked up that was and I knew it was a fucked up thing on her part. The take away that I’m trying to do away with is how unimportant and worthless it made me feel. Can you even imagine?

She allowed my younger sister and her emotions of the day to control every aspect of the home environment.

The whole family lived in fear of the times little sister was on the enemy rotation with her creepy little bully friends. This group of nasty little girls would rotate victims - each week one girl was on the outs and got picked on. Then she’d be back in and another girl from the group would be picked on. It was insane. If lil sis wasn’t happy NO ONE was happy. She made sure of that. We would hold our breath when she walked through the door because god forbid you had a smile on your face and she wasn’t happy. Watch out! You didn’t get to stay happy for long!

I was told "You have to take a back seat because you're okay and she is not". The message came through

Just don’t ever say this to your kid if you want them to grow up and hold any respect for you.

Parents left for a vacation on a Friday, on Saturday I woke up with double pneumonia. I was 9. I begged her to come home. They did not come home early.

So, this was a strange 9 or so illness days because on the one hand I knew there would never be better tender loving care than what my grandmother was providing but I still cried and begged my mother to come back and she did not. I knew I was testing her and I didn’t actually think she would come back. She came back the day I kind of came back to my senses after being shockingly ill for such a young kid. I know I said something to her about not being there for the worst times when she got back. I don’t know if she ever really knew what a shit head move staying on vacation was.

Here is a bonus one that I did not put on the homework assignment: 
TISMF:
I was just thinking about how my parents sent me to this summer camp that I kind of hated my entire childhood and how I didn’t know that they were camps for kids who were artsy and until I was an adult and how fantastic of an experience I could’ve had if my parents had only looked at me and said this kid shouldn’t go to a sports camp. This kid should go to an arts camp and I realize that as a kid, I knew that you were supposed to be sad on the last day of camp and you were supposed to love it and I’m wondering if I pretended to love it and not admit to my mom that it was a disgusting miserable place.


Oh, but as I say this, I remember that I did write them letters one summer about how much I hated camp and how awful one of my counselor was, and they called the camp to address it and the camp sent the counselor that I thought was wretched to talk to me and have a heart-to-heart about why I was so unhappy and I lied to her and told her I wasn’t unhappy because I wasn’t gonna talk to this woman... she was the reason I was so unhappy. I just wanted to get away from her. She was mean and when she pretended to care about me it was creepy.


So never mind, I don’t think I was pretending to love it or maybe I pretended to love it after that incident. That was such a betrayal. It’s like sending the rapist priest in to ask his victims why they don’t want to go to church. What the fuck?