Trauma? I will tell you how I got trauma!

My parents split when I was less than a year old. My 25-year-old dad just got kicked out of the Navy for heroin trafficking and my 21-year-old mom took her 2-year-old and infant girls from Verginia, back to her home state of Wisconsin and my dad went and partied and did not move back in with us until I was 11. Mom didn’t have it easy by any means. She worked mostly as a waitress at truck stops or diners, and she kept a roof over our heads weather it was ours or a relatives and she sewed most of our clothes. She did well for the first 3 years. She was even kind to me. Still, kids were always meant to be seen and not heard.

It’s party time.

Mom started dating and parting. Self-medicating. Over the next year or two she became an alcoholic and started to struggle with her untreated Bipolar 1 disorder. That is when she decided that one of her daughters was worth it and one was less than. I know, I know it sounds very sad and self-serving, but unfortunately in this case it was true. Over the past 7 months of therapy, I think I kind of figured it out. My sister made up the perfect happy family. Everything was top notch. I came along and the fit-hit-the-shan and everything fell apart and my mom was stuck with this (cross-eyed, boy she sure isn’t as pretty as Talesa was, colic) baby. I became the focus of all the bad in my mother’s life. My extremely intelligent and quiet and very likable lovable sister was the pot that mother filled with all of her love and good attention.

You are scaring the children.

It isn’t just the material things or the affection. My mom was terrifying. You never knew what mom you were going to get when you walked into a room. Is she the nice mom or is she the screaming glass throwing mom? Is she going to be alone or is she going to be entertaining some stranger on the couch at noon, or 3pm or 7pm or 9pm or midnight. There could be a party with friends doing drugs and drinking. Porn laying around. Sex was always heard a daily basis. Very loud daily basis with many different men in a week basis. We were told to go to bed at 5pm so the fun times could start. Get out the pot first and smoke it up and then nobody cared about the kids upstairs and weather they had been fed dinner or not.

Second-Hand Smoke

Wendy was always the neglectful mom. She didn’t take me shopping and buy me clothes. I would get a few things from Good Will, but not enough to last the week. I was the dirty, smelly girl in school. I was THAT kid. I had a few nicknames. Ashtray and Burbank’s are two that have always carried with me. My mother was a chain-smoker and never did the laundry. I figured out how to do the laundry for both my sister and myself by the time I was in 3rd grade, but that cigarette smell doesn’t come out of unwashed hair or coats, backpacks and shoes. My clothes and underwear were filthy. I can’t even type in here how disgusting it was. I remember getting a special soap from the doctor when I was 5 to wash with down there, but I don’t know what it was. It was red though.

I fly away.

My sister was able to escape into her books, I couldn’t read like she could. I just had myself. So, I started withdrawing into myself. My brain started building up walls of protection. Creating a safer place for me to be. I started escaping from my reality at a young age. The majority of my childhood memories seem like a cartoon. I thought that was how all people remembered. Until I went into therapy and found out what actually had happened (My Damage has a First Name…). It also kept me from linking the memories to actual definitions of what actually occurred. I didn’t know that I had childhood trauma. I didn’t know that my mother neglected me. I always knew that my mom gave Talesa more than me, but that was because she was smart, her birthday was at the end of summer when she had the most tips from waitressing. I was a hard person to like, and my birthday is in February when she is broke and nobody wants to tip after the holidays. I always knew those things happened, I just never put them into the right perspective. To me everything was normal. No one ever told me otherwise.

Daddy comes home.

I am not sure why and I am not sure what happened, but my dad got out of jail for his last drunk driving and went through rehab and was declared sober and was ‘allowed’ to move in with us. I had seen him a handful of times throughout my life, but we had never lived together. He had never bonded with me. But he saw pretty quickly how mom treated me and he stepped up and covered for me or protected me from her reign of terror more times than I can count. He also kept the house clean, did laundry and made dinner every night. The neglect, for the most part, had ended. You would think. He still didn’t buy me clothes or school supplies. But maybe I didn’t know how to ask. I am not sure. I still didn’t have shit. And after 6th grade neither of them ever bought me school supplies or clothes again. My dad did suffer relapses, but they were only for weekends, and he always cleaned up his messes.

Time to get a job!

I started working when I was 11 over the summer going into 6th grade. I also was showering on a daily basis and was no longer finding bugs in my bed or my hair. My mom still had her boyfriends and still drank. In 6th grade I had 3 pairs of blue jeans and 4 shirts. I had to take one of my mom’s or sister’s shirts to not have to wear the same shirt twice in a week. I ripped a pair of jeans in the butt doing a science experiment with a parachute and weights. I went to the office and called my mother to bring me a different pair. We lived 3 blocks from school. She SCREAMED at me. She was taking a nap. It was either 11 or 1, just after or just before lunch. I cried and the office lady hugged me. I went back to class with a hole in my ass and was now down to two pairs of pants. Fuck. Well, abuse, neglect still continued. I just didn’t have to be dirty or hungry anymore. I just had to wear the same pair of pants three times a week.

If you see something, say something.

I am going to end my first official blog post here. This is my main message. I fantasized about someone taking me away from my mom. Someone turning her in. arresting her. I never ever told anyone about anything she did to me. The neglect or the hitting or the drugs or men. But I hoped that someone would take me away. If you ever suspect or if you ever see something. Step up say something. Intervene. Don’t walk by. Don’t just let it happen. React. I have put myself in danger more times than is wise to step up. Thank you for reading.