<< nervous chuckle >>
It seems silly when I intellectualize it, but putting up this site truly terrifies me. I know that the chances of me being actually harmed by it are nil, but deep inside there is this little girl, who feels like I'm inviting disaster. I can't blame her. To her, it was only yesterday when she got up from her nap, after a morning of dealing with a disgruntled mother, and went to the bathroom, muttering to herself. She finally announced out loud to herself that her mother was a grouch. The next thing she knew, her mother, who she thought was sleeping still, came flying into the bathroom in a rage and beat her into the floor. The little girl learned then that saying the wrong thing was a horrible offense.
Being the oldest child of someone who acted like a schizophrenic, I had
younger siblings to take care of and protect from my mother's rages.
Until recently, I thought she was schizophrenic, but the therapist of one of
my sisters pointed out that Mom was usually pretty careful of where she'd
lost her control. I don't know how to look at her now. Sometimes I try to tell
myself that it really wasn't that bad, but if that was so, then why do I
understand other abused people so well? I know my life could have been
worse, but one does not ignore a cut just because it's not a severed limb,
does one?
Frankly, I still haven't accepted how weird my childhood actually was. Strange to think that not every eldest child is a surrogate parent to their younger siblings. Yet that was what I was told, and I know my father filled the same position in his own family - I suspect that my paternal grandmother is also a schizophrenic. Don't know for sure, she doesn't care to have much to do with her granddaughters.
I need to face my past and deal with it, not on an intellectual level, but
on an emotional one. The paranoia I developed as a child, is crippling me
as an adult. I am hoping that the website will help me in my quest, by
forcing me to create an overview of the abuse I often try to forget.