Every memory I have of my mom and any partner is of them fighting with each or mom fighting with whoever she is with. There are not too many good memories and the bad out weighs the good.
My mom was raised in a home with a mother who was an alcoholic and who was in a string of bad relationships. She had to grow up too fast, had to take care of her mom. She met my dad at some point I don't even know the story of how they met. She got pregnant with me when she was 16, far to young to be a mom. Her and my dad got married, this should never have happened period. I can only guess what it was like for them both forced into marriage and not having a clue how to even take themselves let alone take care of a baby.
They split for the first time before I could even walk and my mom was onto the next one. My dad was abusive physically, I can't remember if it was mentally but I do know it was physically with my mom and my self. He was raised by his mother and my Papa, which I just learned of the true story about them I never had any idea.
When I was three we move to where I live now, my dad and mom bought a house, my grandmother from my moms side moved here as well. My dad joined the local carpenters union. I have no idea when my aunt and uncle moved here but at some point they did the same and my uncle joined the carpenters union as well. I remember my dad working on lots of cars with my uncle, I remember owning a car that we had to use a screw driver to start, and playing in the old trucks in the back yard.
We spent as much time as possible up in my home town with my grandmother and papa on my dads side. My dad was in and out of my life, my mom drank too much, my dad did too many drugs and my aunt and uncle were always around. My cousins were my best friends and of course I watched them and my sister after school from a young age. We all grew up together and we grew apart as well.
The police were called often, there was always people around lots of partying and drinking and fighting of course. I don't think my mom every really loved us, I know she tried of course and did everything she had to do to take care of us. My dad was out of my life more than he was in it.
I had serious issues from the time I was very small, I had anger issues but what child wouldn't growing up like that. I spent a lot of time with my grandmother on my moms side and she became my surrogate mother. She is the women who raised me more than my mom did. We moved in and out of my grandmas and apartments a lot when I was young and my dad was still around.
My mom was in a serious of bad relationships, drank too much, worked too much and went to school. She took care of everything like she was supposed but never really was "with" us. Back then I was what was called a latch key kid, meaning I came home and no one was home. My mom always had dinner in containers for me to warm up for my sister and if my cousins came home with us that day.
I remember some but not all of my mom relationships.The first long term relationship I remember she having was my first step dad, Jim, he was just as abusive as my dad but bigger and louder. Police were called often, lots of parties and again drugs on his part.
My second step dad and the one who raised me and my sister was as far as I could tell a good man, he never hit anyone, rarely yelled, liked to spend time with us, and loved us. Lots of parties and drinking continued, this step dad didn't do drugs and from what I know was my moms longest relationship. She split from him a few times, moved us all the way to Sudbury because she suddenly wanted to be with my dad again and within a month we were back home with my step dad. I felt safe with my step dad, pretty sure he was the only man my whole life that I actually felt this way with. He seemed like he cared. Well according to my mother when she finally got sober that he never loved me, actually hated me and never wanted me in his life. I don't know if this is true or not I haven't had the guts to actually ask him, but it hurt and broke my heart.
Through my childhood my dad would beat me, beat my mom, yell, threaten, just be an asshole, I didn't know a relationship to be anything but pain and hurt. My grandmother had an odd relationship with the man we called brad. I never seen my grandmother drink, she got dry before my time and I am glad she did. She loved me, she cared for me, every one said she was just trying to make up for what she didn't/couldn't do with the all of her children when they were small but I didn't care. When I was small this is all I wanted, to be loved and cared for by someone. I trusted her and always felt safe with her. I know now as an adult it was an unhealthy relationship but as a small child it was all I had.
Being a child in a home like the one I had caused me to have all kinds of issues and I became the one in the family who just couldn't listen, couldn't handle the word "no" and was bad. Well to everyone but my grandma. I would hit, kick, bite, go into blackout fits of rage before I even started school. I hated everyone. Once I started school this wasn't a safe place for me either, I was sexually molested by another little girl in my class daily. It started out at circle time. I soon didn't want to go to school and would throw fits about going, once again I was just the bad kid and didn't want to listen. I learned from 5 years old to rely on myself and only myself and my abilities, that I could trust no one else. By grade 1 I learned if I was teachers pet and too busy doing things for her the abuse would stop. At school I could pretend life at home wasn't happening. I spent all my school years being perfect in school, doing everything right, being helpful and of course cute. At home life got worse not better. I lived with my grandmother more than my mother. I had mental break downs and "freak outs" and just couldn't function.
I had the cool mom once I got older, I had no curfew, she didn't care what I did or who I did it with as long as the police didn't bring me home. I was raped the Canada Day before I turned 15 by 2 guys who were supposed to be my friends. I went home to tell my mom her exact words were "your clothes are not ripped so your lying". The following year just before the 1 year mark I had a major break down and was hospitalized. I went through one horrible relationship to another using whatever "power" I had to win boys over. I was cute, sweet and everyone loved me and I used this to my advantage.
I left home for good when I was 16. I moved in with my grandmother and then went from one bad relationship to the next. Every man I was with was abusive usually physically. Back then mental abuse wasn't really a thing. My mom got sober when I was 18 almost 19. We had our first physical fight the night of her last drunk. I grew up taking care of her, making sure I had her keys so she wouldn't drive drunk, I can't count the times she told me she wanted to kill herself or tired to drive drunk or tell me that I would just find her dead in a snowbank.
She worked in many bars from the time I was young. I remember being in these bars and being the cute little one. Men would give me quarters for the music machine and lift me up onto the pool tables. I would put her to bed most nights because she was too drunk too, so I would kindly put her to bed and make sure I had her keys, I continued this in every alcoholic relationship from then on. It was my job to make sure they were safe, to calm them down from harming them or someone/something else.
Once she got sober she left my step dad and had a couple relationships and she now has been with my third step dad for a few years now. I like him, hes a nice guy. When she got sober and was in AA I thought it would be mean that her and I would have be able to have a real relationship but that never happened and never will. She replaced drinking and not raising me with AA and too busy with those things, but that's okay at this point I am so used to it I just don't care anymore.
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adult who thought he walked on water. I took care of my mom day after day. My mom see our past a little bit different than I do. She see it as, well hers was worse, or others had it worse or it wasn't that bad. Well its too bad she was too drunk, too busy or just not even there to actually have lived what I did.
As I grew into an adult I took care of everyone, doing things that I thought I had to do to keep them happy, keep them in my life, keep them loving me. I did things they were more than capable of. I treated everyone like children and it seems I attracted those who enjoy that role.
My childhood was the roadwork to me as an adult. We tend to forget that we give children what they need to travel the world of adulthood safely. We forget that its a parents job to teach our children what a relationship looks like, how they should act and we forget that they only go into the future with what we have given them as children. I went into adulthood with only the ability to please, help, take care of, and "use" my "powers" to get what I wanted or needed.
When these children grow up we have to relearn everything, we have to teach ourselves how to be in a healthy relationship, how to properly treat others, how to set up boundaries and how to just be.
We can't fix anyone but ourselves!
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