Hidden Secrets: Surviving a Dysfunctional Childhood: The Middle Years Part 1

It's been a few weeks since my last post and I would like to apologize for leaving you, my loyal readers, hanging.  My fibromyalgia has been kicking my butt!  Between the fibro and the end of the year activities with my kiddles, I just haven't been able to write. 

In my last post in this series, I explained that at the end of my 4th grade school year, my family and I moved away from the town I had spent five years in.  My mother had just finished getting her college degree and had decided to pursue her Master's Degree at an esteemed college in another county.  She had also secured a job working for a man we will call Dave. 

So we packed up our belongings, cleared out the double-wide trailer we had been living in, and we moved into a big old farmhouse in the middle of the country a little more than an hour away from my grandparents.  It was about a 30 minute drive to her school from this house, and about a 5 minute drive to her job. 

We had moved in the summer, so my brother, sister, and I enjoyed countless days of roaming the property the farmhouse was on.  There was a big old bar, a pond where blue herons would bathe, creepy, old chicken coops to explore, and plenty of old scraps of junk that had been carelessly tossed into the woods many, many years before.  There was even a row of old, rusted out cars lined up just behind the wood line...Volkswagens, I believe, though my memory is sketchy on this point. 

The house was down an old dirt road and I can only remember one neighbor nearby.  At night, there wasn't any light pollution, so the skies were pitch black, but for the stars.  Bats, swooping down from above us to engorge on mosquitoes would occasionally frighten me as they rustled my hair with the breeze they'd create.

We lived in this child's paradise for just around a year, and in that time, I can recall a few things about my family life, but much more about being a student in the local elementary school.  This would be the first time I would have to start over as a new student, but it wouldn't be my last. 

As a child, I think the most challenging part of beginning the new school year in a new town and school was when we had to keep secrets about who we were and where we came from (just in case my biological father tracked us down and came looking for us).  Other secrets began to pop up, too, that at the time as a 10/11 year old didn't seem strange to me...because it was just more of the same.  The same strange life I had been living so far that somehow seemed normal.

Shortly after we moved here and my mother began working for Dave, she would need to go to his home (where his office was) to do work.  The three of us kids would tag along, and would even play with his own children at times (he had 5 of them).  They had a lot of property, too, which we would roam around on, playing with their pets, and climbing in and out of their parked camper.  I quickly became friends with Dave's daughter who was around my age (but possibly a year older because she wasn't in my elementary school). 

And then, more secrets evolved.  Dave would sometimes come over to our home to visit (or work or whatever) and before we knew it, he was destined to be our "new daddy".  I can recall many conversations around this...Dave and mom would marry, he'd take care of us, we would move into his giant home (though, who knows what would happen with his family?!) 

But!  We just needed to keep it a secret from his children and his wife...whom we spent time with!!!  I remember being in their home and thinking about how it would become ours.  I remember looking into the bedrooms as we played with his kids, making a mental note of which room would be mine!  And I remember negative comments about his wife (that didn't make sense to me, as I had experienced her as kind).  It was very stressful to me to be around these kids (even staying overnight once!) and thinking all of these things about stealing their daddy and home...and keeping these BIG SECRETS! 

As the year went on, there were many incidents that continued to add stress to our family, and me.  I recall a tiff between my mother and our one neighbor...and then we weren't allowed to speak to them again.  They had had a young daughter around my sister's age, but we were no longer allowed to play with her.  I am not sure what had occurred between our two families, but it must've been pretty bad if we could no longer play with their daughter, right?

Many of the details of this year, are of course long-forgotten.  But a few other tidbits do come to mind.  As children of a single-mother who is getting her master's degree and trying to support a family of 3 kids and a dog, responsibilities for the children become essential to survival as a family.  Often, we were responsible for packing our own lunches, helping with housework, doing laundry, stacking wood for the woodstove, etc. 

Those are all typical chores that any family would expect children to contribute to the family by doing.  And when you're in a single-parent family, not only is each child expected to pull more weight, but sometimes there are responsibilities that fall on the kids that are not within the typical purview. 

For example, I became much more responsible for my little sister.  I was like a second mother to her.  I helped her with her room, packed her lunches, and even helped her with homework.  I will never forget the one time when she was having a really difficult time with her homework and we had to keep erasing it.  We erased it so much that we accidentally tore a hole in the paper.  I felt so badly about that that I wrote the teacher a note on her homework to express my apologies...but I couldn't remember how to spell "erase" at the time.  I was a great speller...even made it to the district spelling bee that year...so this little mistake in spelling was embarrassing to me...and has always stuck with me.  In hindsight, it's kinda funny and cute.  As an adult now, I feel the enormity of what I had been tasked with...basically helping to raise my little sister.

There was always stress, frustration, and anger in our home.  But this year marked my first year of really feeling it to the point where I felt like I was "different" than other kids, and I really started noticing that I felt unloved.  I also had a harder time controlling my own feelings.  One day, I got angry with my sister and tried to hurt her. I pushed her...not paying attention to my surroundings...but we were at the stop of the stairs.  Luckily, she didn't fall down the stairs, but obviously she very well could have.  And she could have been seriously hurt.  The guilt doesn't ever go away.  Neither do the memories of the first time your own mother calls you a bitch.

I do not excuse my behavior in any way.  I'm incredibly grateful that nothing bad happened to my sister.  And as an adult I can completely understand that we were a family under duress, and that shit happens.  Your kid does something stupid and dangerous and you blurt out words you wish you could take back.  Knowledge and understanding never take away the sting of such hurtful words, though.  I hope with every passing day, that I do not hurt my daughter like that.  Oh gosh, believe me there are times when I am thinking it!  How could you not with a sassy tween?! But, I have yet to say it out loud, and I pray that I never will.  One can only imagine the hurts I've already caused her that she will one day blog about!!!

As our year in the farmhouse continued, at some point, we had to start going to my friend's house after school on the bus so that we wouldn't be home alone...for fear, once again, that our father would come kidnap us.  It didn't start out that way, but something must've happened to reignite the fear, because we were no longer latch-key kids.  I did like going to her house, though.  It was nice to have a friend to spend time with and she was one of 5 children, so there were a lot of kids around us.  They had a piano that I would sit at and pretend to play, and they ordered from the Schwann Man!  I loved being there when their frozen packages would arrive, especially considering that we were always treated to one of the ice creams they had ordered!

I don't recall when exactly, but somewhere in this year, we began doing drive-bys of Dave's home, and the other house he owned in town.  We even went into this second home using a key and checked it out.  I think this was going to be a new temporary home we were going to move to?  But I do remember for sure being told that Dave had brought my mother here on several occasions (hmmmmm....???). I know that I felt guilty for being inside this house...we weren't supposed to be there.  And it was another BIG SECRET we had to keep. 

I think that what had happened was that the relationship had soured and she may have been grasping at straws at this point, and probably also trying to deal with the rejection and broken promises of a man who, in the end, refused to leave his family, thereby also refusing to be our savior, her shining knight.  No white horse this time. 

Our landlord lived far away, but had a camp somewhere nearby. He would come up on the weekends (or something like that).  We would occasionally spend some time with him...going to his camp, riding his dune buggy, or going up to this other home (he may have owned??) where there was a pond with a dock.  I remember swimming there, in particular, because this was the pond where I almost drowned as a kid.  I had been swimming around but I wasn't a very strong swimmer at the time.  I was a bit tired, so I put my feet down to stand and take a break, but there wasn't any ground below me!  It was deeper than I had thought in that spot.  And that's when I panicked and started bobbing up and down in the water, gasping for air.  My mother had to jump in and come save me.  It was such a frightening experience that it definitely still colors my world. I am absolutely paranoid about my own kids being in water. 

Later on, there was apparently some kind of argument/disagreement/lack of payment or something like that with the landlord and he was deemed a jerk.  So, the summer after fifth grade, we packed up and moved from this home into another house closer to the city where my mother's school was.

It had been an eventful year in my childhood, to say the least.  In my next post (hopefully it will be much sooner!), I will continue on with my middle years...there's really so much more to come! 

Resiliently yours,
Marathon Momma

Are you a Marathon Momma?  Do you run marathons in between raising your little people to be decent humans? Or maybe you aren't a traditional runner, but a runner-after-kidser? Do you feel like every day is a marathon?  Yeah, me too!  Come join our community! Sign-up for our Email List!

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Hidden Secrets: Surviving a Dysfunctional Childhood The Early YearsPart 1

Life is Not Perfect
Life doesn't always wrap up in one neat little package.  We all know this.  Yet we strive for the perfect experience.  We want our marriages and friendships to be full of love, compassion, honesty...and fun.  We want our children to be wonderful little angels with a desire to please everyone (well, at least their parents, anyway), and a willingness to engage with and explore the world around them. We want our homes to be clean and neat, nothing out of order.  We want our cars shiny and new, running consistently and efficiently.  Heck!  We even want our dogs to play fetch or lay around and snuggle with us on our own time frame, no barking included.

But all of this perfection is not possible.  And if it were, our world would actually be quite boring.  Life is all about struggles that help make us stronger; challenges that teach us new things. 

As a young girl and eventually young lady, I had fully believed that when I became an adult, I could MAKE my life perfect like this.  Of course, having experienced many events in my adult life that I did not have control over, either, I have realized that this is an illusion; being able to MAKE life perfect. But it was an illusion I needed to believe in order to survive my childhood--a childhood marred with emotional and mental abuse, violence, fear, and uncertainty/insecurity.

I used to be embarrassed about my past.  I used to hide it from others because I was ashamed.  But I didn't have control over what happened when I was a child.  It was out of my hands. It was none of my doing.  I am a product of the choices other people made.  But I have always strongly believed that, no matter your early life circumstances, you have a choice in what you become.  You can choose to overcome your past.  Or you can choose to wallow in self-pity, head down a self-destructive path and do nothing with your life. It's up to you!

Over the next several posts, I will be sharing with you some of my imperfect past, with the hope that other people will learn that it's okay to talk about your childhood, regardless of how messed up or embarrassing it might seem.  You did not have control over how you were raised. And you are definitely not alone. There are so many other people that have lived experiences like yours, too.  And the power that comes from sharing those experiences is immense...Self-Empowerment Overload!  Without any further ado, here's what it was like to grow up...as me.

Violence in My Early Years
While I was growing up, my family faced challenges that most families never face.  Before I was five years old, I had already lived in several different homes and towns.  My biological father and my mother had separated and I clearly remember some scary moments from those early years. 

I can remember at one point, as a 3 or 4 year old, hearing my mother shrieking while I was upstairs.  My brother and I had raced down the stairs, crept into the kitchen and saw my father looming over my mother with her arm behind her back.  It was violent.  And it was frightening.  My mother has claimed that my father had been trying to break her arm.  My brother seems to remember my mother had a knife and my father was trying to get it away from her.  To this day I still do not know or understand the truth behind that event, only that it haunts the darkest recesses of my memory. 

At one point, probably after or somewhere around that time, my parents split up and my father had visitation rights.  One of the times I was supposed to go with him, I can remember that I was crying and afraid.  I did not want to go.  I'm not sure what my reasoning was at the time, but I did NOT want to go with him.  Was I scared of him?  Did I just want to stay home with my mother?  I don't remember what actually ended up happening that particular day...if I went or not.  But I do remember going on one visitation to his apartment.  I even remember the TV being on, and at one point, listening to Rick Springfield's "Jesse's Girl" on the radio.  It's funny because with what had transpired next, you might think that I would associate that song with negative emotions, but I still freaking LOVE that song!  I mean, who doesn't?!

Anyway, an adult's memory of an event that occurred under the age of 5 can be blurry.  But I will tell you, I clearly remember that we were supposed to go home.  He was supposed to take us.  But he didn't.  He told us that if my mother really wanted us back, she could come get us herself.  Well, she did just that. But she had to call upon the police to make sure she could get us back.  When they came to the apartment to get us out, it was terrifying.  My brother, sister, and I were ducking down, hiding behind the one side of the bed and I remember being afraid of getting shot by the police (I must've been some kind of big, bad criminal in those days of barely being able to reach the counter!). Of course, nothing like that happened.  But it DOES happen to other children in other families. Luckily, just not to mine. 

Moving to a New Town
We moved across the state and into my grandparents' vacation home after that.  This town is where we spent the next 5 or so years...one of the longest stretches we ever lived in one town.  So, this would also be where I began my illustrious education at the local elementary school, as a timid kindergartener afraid of the BIG, Scary World. 

On my first day of kindergarten, I climbed up the big yellow bus that would empty out into this new, ominous building with complete strangers.  When I walked through the doors and didn't know where to go, I stood in the hallway and began to cry.  My teacher, Mrs. Schuler, found me and put a loving arm around my trembling shoulders, guiding me into her classroom.  I loved her.  She was warm, welcoming, and always sang songs with us.  She had a piano in the classroom that she played "Suzie Snowflake" on, and she was simply glorious!

During that first year, I met many new friends...and even had a boyfriend!  Yup, that was me...the five-year-old floozy! 😆  His name was Jason.  And we played together on the playground a lot.  During nap time, we sometimes had our carpets (remember those?!) next to each other, too. 

This first year in my new town (my grandparents' weekend and summer town), we were always looking over our shoulders.  We were afraid of my biological father coming to kidnap us.  My brother, sister, and I overheard adult conversations, and were also taught all of the safety rules...don't go outside alone, don't tell anyone anything personal, and do NOT go with your father if he shows up to take you.  Also...he could try to take you at school, so the school knows that you are not to leave with him. But always be on the lookout for your crazy-ass father.

For the longest time, I never understood why my sister had a kindergarten graduation when she was finally in school, yet I hadn't had one.  And we had had the same teacher!  How unfair!  Yeah, well a few years back it finally, FINALLY dawned on me.  The reason why I hadn't had a kindergarten graduation was not because there wasn't one...it was because we were pulled out of school early that year to basically go into hiding.  After being picked up from school that day, us kids had to hide on the floor of the backseat of our light blue station wagon while my mother ran errands so that my father wouldn't see us, kidnap us, or shoot us.  (He was a sharp-shooter, you know.)

We lived in a world of fear. Which is why, one afternoon during my kindergarten nap, when a tall, strange man entered our classroom, went into the cubbies to grab a few things, and proceeded to remove my boyfriend, Jason, from the room, I thought he was coming for me.  It turns out that he was Jason's father, and yes, as the non-custodial parent, he actually did kidnap my friend.  He picked Jason up off of his napping carpet and carried him right out the door of the classroom, bookbag, coat, and shoes in hand. 

My teacher was clearly upset and worried, running out to the principal's office.  We didn't see Jason again for a very long time.  The local newspaper had run at least one story (that I remember) on Jason's disappearance.  Eventually, he was found and he returned to school.  But it was weeks or months later.  I cannot even imagine what his mother must've went through during this time.  To this day, I still think about how strange and coincidental it was that something like that happened to another child in my world, especially considering that it was a fear I lived every day.

In a nutshell, that's how my year of kindergarten shaped-up...fear of kidnapping, witnessing a kidnapping, missing out on my kindergarten graduation.  Were there good times/happy times?  Yes, of course there were!  Not having unlimited time to explore every single aspect of my childhood, though, I am focusing on the point of this series of posts.  Which, again, is to help other people realize that 1) childhood is a crap shoot...and you have absolutely NO say in how it turns out; 2) you have a choice in what happens AFTER childhood...what you become is all up to YOU; and 3) you are NOT alone...other people have grown up in messed-up families and have survived or THRIVED, so you can, too!  I am a prime example of that!

In my next post, I will continue sharing my early years with you.  I know that not everyone has experienced this type of childhood, but I hope some of you have connected with this post in some way.  Want to add to this conversation?  Feel free to write in the comments below!

No longer embarrassed,
Marathon Momma

Are you a Marathon Momma?  Do you run marathons in between raising your little people to be decent humans? Or maybe you aren't a traditional runner, but a runner-after-kidser? Do you feel like every day is a marathon?  Yeah, me too!  Come join our community! Sign-up for our Email List!

http://eepurl.com/cH91Mn

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