So, I've been wanting to write about my fathers weed use from when I was little, but I keep getting distracted when I try to sit down and write. Also, tonight (or this morning to be more accurate) I kind of want to write about my strongest fears. Not really sure why, but I might as well since it's on my mind and this blog is supposed to be part sharing myself with people and part therapy to help me deal with some of the stuff in my past. I'm a really depressive person and this year I have gotten the best help I've ever received for it due to an accidentally watched TED Talk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eBUcBfkVCo) helping me to realize just how severely depressed I was, an excellent Psychiatrist who listened and helped me find some good medicine and a wonderful Therapist who's been helping to guide me through getting better.
Anyway, before I get too distracted, my biggest fears are dying alone (being alone all my life--no friends, family or loved ones), the dark and loud noises. The dying alone thing isn't so big a deal as it used to be, since I started addressing my depression instead of only addressing it when I thought it was bad. The TED Talk video made me realize that my perceived, "not depressed" was actually "severely depressed" compared to normal people--normal being defined as average. The fear of the dark isn't so big a deal either because it's rarely dark in this world. Even before the abundance of light pollution blotted out the stars, it was rarely ever truly dark--stars are very bright and easy to see by if you don't have flashlights and fires ruining your vision after your eyes adjust to the dark. It also helps that I have a good memory and thanks to Boy Scouts learned to be able to find things in the dark.
The biggie for this bit of writing (well typing in the dark actually) is my fear of loud noises. I'm generally a quiet person. I actively try to eliminate all excess noise from everything I do. I do this because of a fear of loud noises my dad instilled in me as a kid. I recently shared a bit of this with my girlfriend after I made a joking comment that upset her--I ended up explaining a little bit of my fear and problem with noise so she'd understand why I said what I said--my roommate after he asked why I always have the volume so low on the TV, and a few coworkers who were poking fun at me for how soft spoken I am.
When we (my brother and I) were kids (elementary school for me, my brother was still in diapers when it started) our dad would punish us any time we woke him up. If we small children made a lot of noise he would come into our rooms screaming and yelling to spank one or both of us then make us stand in the corner--often until bedtime and without food.
There were several times we went into the backyard to play and he would take a nap then get angry at us for continuing to play and make noise. This usually led to us getting a spanking and then being locked outside the rest of the day. I remember one time we talked about it at church and he claimed the backdoor often got stuck and we just couldn't open it--then he was furious when we got home (go figure). The part we should have brought up, but were too scared to, was when we would sometimes cry at the door, just to have him open it up and yell at us to shut up. There were many days we drank from the water hose and ate mushrooms growing in the yard just to have something. One of these instances Thomas (my brother) almost died. We were outside hitting the fire-ants with sticks as they flew away when he accidentally stepped into the pile and got swarmed. He was covered with ants and I was trying to brush them off, he was screaming at the top of his lungs and I was pleading with our dad to help him but he just got angry and told us to shut up so he could sleep. Eventually our mom got home and was able to get him into a cold shower and helped him (I don't remember if he went to the hospital, but I do remember wishing I had thought to wash him off with the hose).
Worse than being locked outside all day was waking him up in the morning by talking or using the bathroom. I hated Thomas so much when I was little because he was never quiet. Even when he whispered it was loud--still is actually. It wasn't that I really hated him though, I was just terrified of how loud he was because I understood better how much trouble we would get into if we woke up Tom (our dad). I used to plead with him, sometimes in tears, to be quiet and stop talking in the mornings and evenings because of how scared I was. I knew that the walls were thin (since I was often awake late at night and would listen to the TV or my parents talking. More often than not our dad would wake up, yell at us, spank us and make us stand in the corner all day.
It was actually during these times that I developed my habit for chewing on my finger and toenails. It started because I was so hungry at night and just needed the sensation of chewing on something to help with the hunger pangs. I still pick at my finger and toenails and will chew on my fingernails from time to time when I'm feeling anxious. I recently discovered that if I eat something and then brush my teeth it helps stop the habit for a few hours.
Worse still was if we used the bathroom and flushed the toilet first thing in the morning, he would wake up, spank us and then make us stand in the corner all day. I eventually learned how to pee on the sidewall of the toilet so it wouldn't make a splashing sound and taught Thomas how to do it. Before this I would hold it as long as I could, sometimes for many hours, until our dad would wake up and then I would pee. There were a few times I couldn't hold it, but I was so afraid of being out of bed or making a noise that I ended up peeing on some dirty laundry in our room.... Learning the silent peeing thing helped a lot--we also figured out it could be quieter if you sat down, but this ran the risk of accidentally dropping the seat, which could wake up our dad.
We would also get in trouble if we didn't flush the toilet, so whenever one or both of us would sneak into the bathroom to use it I would be sure to wake up and listen for our dad to up and out of his room to go pretend to use the bathroom and flush from the evening.
After a few years there were fewer spankings, but we would always have to stand in the corner after being yelled at and often it would be until bedtime and we wouldn't be fed anything all day. Our mom would sneak into our room in the middle of the night to feed us a couple slices of bread because she was afraid of him too. She didn't want him to notice we had eaten something because she would get in trouble and to punish her he would be evening meaner to us in our punishment for eating when we weren't supposed to.
By the way grandma and grandpa, this is why I always ate so much when we visited. It was the only time we would actually get regular food and wouldn't get in trouble for using the bathroom in the morning. We weren't afraid because dad was more afraid of you two seeing him act this way. Also, there will be more stories from the past coming out--I need to get them out because they still haunt me, and some of them involve you too because you deny he ever did any of this.
What really brought this fear up was Halloween. About a month before Rebekah and I were at target and she started playing with one of those hanging witches that cackled when it detected a sudden noise. Well, I freaked out a bit and after a little while realized it was because I was afraid of the thing. Not because it was scary, but because of the year our dad put one in our room to torture us. He told us that if we made any noise loud enough to make it cackle, we had to stand in the corner until he told us we could get out. There were a few times we stood in the corner for several hours before he came to get us. A few times he laughed about forgetting about us. But the worst thing of all was that he put it on the most sensitive setting--and then bragged about it. I remember him laughing and telling people about what he had done and just being sad and scared. This witch was so sensitive that it would go off when our toys would touch together. We couldn't actually play quiet enough--even me with my intentional efforts to not make any noise--and spent so much time just standing in the corner because if we didn't we would get a spanking. And more often than not, we wouldn't get to eat lunch or dinner and would have to stand there until bedtime. Rolling around too quickly would also set the thing off. At one point he changed it out to a pumpkin one, but did the same thing with the sensitivity. One year he used a Santa one that "ho ho ho'd."
Starting very young I spent time during the day practicing not moving, being quiet, moving silently, picking up objects and putting them down as quietly as possible and other similar things. My fear has cost me friendships because I was afraid of louder people. It's cost me camaraderie with coworkers because of how soft-spoken I was/ am. I still get overwhelmed by noise when at bars, church, restaurants and other places with lots of noise and end up spending most of the time not saying anything at all. It's been a source of self-esteem problems because I spoke so quietly people couldn't actually hear what I was saying--which I didn't realize and took to mean I was being ignored and not important because I was already messed up from the other emotional and mental abuse from my dad.
So... I'm still scared of loud noises. And my dad is the root of it--as he is the root of a lot of my depression problems. And what still makes me sad is that right now, after writing all this and remembering other awful things he did to us I still want to love him. I still want him to know I've forgiven him. But he refuses to admit he did anything wrong to us. He lies and says we were brainwashed by our mom, he lied to our grandparents who say the same thing. He's never admitted to his faults and shortcomings and though I've told him this before, this is the reason he doesn't get to see his grand-kids. That he wont be invited to my wedding or be asked to take part in my kids lives. It's why I don't call him anymore. He won't make the effort, and continues to deceit he used to confuse and control my brother, my mom and myself. This breaks my heart and I pity him because I know he wont even change. I've even offered him and my grandma advice with dealing with their depression, but they won't take it because I wouldn't understand "real" depression (as my grandma told me) despite the fact that I've been depressed since the 4th grade--possibly longer--and was suicidal from sometime during the middle of 5th grade until college, and still hoped every day I would die in some accident until earlier this year and a few other brief periods of my life (though I only tried to commit suicide during 6th grade--part of my testimony actually--and almost became suicidal a few times in my adult life).
Despite the truth I wrote here, I really do pray for my dad and grandparents well being. They probably don't know or believe this, but I do. I want to be apart of their lives, but can't until they stop vilifying my mom and stop trying to make my brother and I out to be "wrong" about everything.
Speaking of my mom, she used to try harder than anyone I knew to get Thomas and I to like our dad after the divorce. She didn't like us saying bad things about him, and would tell us nice stories to try to get us to like him but they never worked because when we visited him it was still the same abuse. She never spoke a bad word to us about Tom until we were in our twenties and she had finally stopped believing everything was her fault. Even then she wanted us to like him.... I miss her a lot. I wish she could see me now, actually getting treated for my depression instead of being angry and depressed and miserable all the time.
So yeah, I'm still afraid of loud noises, and though they are bothering me less and less often, every now and again I freak out and say mean things or react oddly because of it. One of the many things I'm looking forward to becoming less of a problem for me now that I'm getting the treatment I've needed since elementary school.
