Zander's Place

"The best index to a person's character is (a) how he treats people who can't do him any good, and (b) how he treats people who can't fight back." - Abigail van Buren

I originally started delving into this on my Unschooling page, but I feel that it needs to be expanded upon.

I am a survivor of emotional abuse. Well, I'm still dealing with it in some ways. Certain situations remind me of things my parents would say, so sometimes I say those things to myself.

It doesn't help that both of my parents were abused as children (a theory strictly based on observation of behaviors that are typical of abuse victims). And it especially doesn't help that they fail to recognize the emotional aspects of their trauma. So they probably didn't see anything truly wrong with their actions.

My Father

My father did not, and continues, to not enjoy being a father. He sees children - especially his (me and my twin brother) - as a burden, rather than human beings. But we were useful to him when a chore needed to be done. Since age 9, my brother and I had the responsibility of cleaning the house top to bottom at my father's conveniance. There was never, "Hey, when you guys get a chance, could you straighten up a bit for me?" It was pretty much, "I work all day so I don't have to do a damn thing!" And as if ordering us to clean wasn't bad enough, he was (and probably still is) condescending in his commands.

"Oh, chil-dren! To-morrow, you willlll cleeaaan theeee houuuusssseee. That does include, but is not limited toooo... dusting the furniture, vacuuming the floors, washing the dishes..." It also helps to picture the receptionist from the movie Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead.

But yeah. That's how he ordered me around until I moved out when I was 19. And cleaning the house was always bound to be a 12-hour ordeal because my father has high standards that seem to increase with time. I remember one time that it took me two hours to clean the bathroom mirror because the first few times, he refused to believe I'd done it, and then when I "finally did it," it wasn't to his standards. There was still a streak from the glass cleaner, or there was a speck of something in the far corner that nobody but my father could see. He called cleaning the house 'having a white tornado go through.' I called it 'the Joan Crawford Treatment (watch Mommie Dearest and you'll see what I mean. But, to my knowledge, I was never beaten with a wire hanger).

when I was a senior, I got my first job through a work program at my high school. It wasn't grand at all, and sucked very, very much. But I figured that since I was working and going to school, my father would be somewhat satisfied with me. but, of course, he had to bitch because he had to take 15 minutes out of six days to pick me up at 5PM (when you're a female-bodied, Pre-T Transguy who is disabled, common sense says to not try to brave the sketchy, downtown area at night during the winter). And even though I busted my ass at school and work, and spending almost no time at home, I still had to clean the house because my father "worked all day, so he shouldn't have to."

One Sunday, my father decided that my brother and I really wanted to clean the storm windows. So my brother and I were handed glass cleaner and loads of newspaper and given six or seven filthy windows. My arthritis decided to flare up that day, not to mention I was just really tired, so of course, my cleaning wasn't up to his standards. Along with that, I was not cleaning quickly enough. My twin, who is able-bodied and does not have arthritis, was maybe a few windows ahead of me and made it look like it wasn't that hard to clean them.

When a parent has a child with a disability, they always treat them like any other kid. However, my father has absolutely NO clue about CP it seems, and couldn't understand why I was slower, why my knees hurt to sit on, etc. He attributed it to my being "lazy." So the next day, I was to call out of work and come home tomorrow from school to finish the job.

So I left my boss a message on his work number, just telling him there was a family emergency, and left school at 12:45 that afternoon and walked all the way home. Coming down the street, I saw my father standing on the front porch drinking a beer. He saw me and glared, then demanded to know why I wasn't at work! I told him that he told me to come home to finish the storm windows, but he looked at me and said, "I didn't have to work today, so I decided to do them." You'd think I was off the hook, but - "Since you're home, though, you can start cleaning the rest of the house. Sean (my brother) will be home later to assist."

I went to work the next day to discover that my boss never, ever checks his work voicemail. So he never learned that I called out the day before. So I got in trouble for that, too.

My Mother

My mother was the most active in my life, so in a lot of ways she was much worse than my father. She didn't have impossible cleaning standards, but she relied on me to comfort her after my parents fought and stuff. Before seperating when I was 14, my parents literally had very heavy, drunken arguements every - if not, every other day. I'd like to point out that my father didn't waste time in abusing my mother as well. At age 18, she was expected to take care of two premature babies and keep the house perfect and clean upon my father's return from work (I kid you not, he is a professional carpet installer - this is to help visualize the white trashiness). And G-d for-fucking-bid he come home to find a spoon in the sink that still needed washing! As my brother and I got older, my father would bitch at my mother, "You're always home, sitting on your ass all day! You need to get a fucking job!" And our next-door neighbor (my dad's best friend) who was 100% aware of the situation, would make sure my father was in hearing distance, and say to my mother: "Hey, Rhonda! Oh hey, did you finish all the laundry?" and my father would storm into the basement, open the dryer to find clothes not yet folded, and proceed to bitch out my mother.

But it was the fights that happened later in the night that were scary. My parents didn't seem to give a shit about arguing in front of me and my brother. Or if they did, they didn't do too good a job hiding it. The fights were about my mother not working, the house being a mess, me and my brother not doing well in school, my needing physical therapy or anything else for my CP, how much money my CP was costing, etc. My brother was very rarely brought up. But in every fight, he and I didn't have a name. It was always, "your son," or, "your daughter." Eventually, the fights would end, and my father would go into his room and pass out from all the alcohol he'd consumed (but he swears up and down that he's not an alcoholic *snrk*). My mother would sit in the living room, turn on the stereo, and cry. Even as a young kid, I'd come out of my room to see if she was okay. Sometimes she'd be able to vent without interruption. Sometimes my father would wake up to do a few more minutes of yelling, and then go back to bed.

Then there were ocassions where she would just get frustrated and declare to me and my brother, "My name isn't Mom anymore! Don't talk to me anymore! Go to your room and play!" If (when) I was fucking up in school, my mother would tell me that I could always ask her for help with my homework whenever I needed it. But when I would, she would be too busy with something else (drinking beers with friends or something). If my grades didn't magically improve, she would say, in a very soothing voice, "I know you can do it! Just try harder, sweetie!" But my grades would still suffer, and then she'd sing a totally different tune. "You dumb, little shit! Why the fuck can't you just do your fucking work?!" and she'd finish the first round with a smack to the head or face and ground me. But her punishment didn't end there. She would talk to friends about me, when we both knew I could hear her, and say things, like, "She's just lazy... she's stupid... never going to go to college..."

I could never really talk to her about how I felt. If I ever tried, she'd one-up me with her childhood abuse. "My stepfather used to beat the everlasting shit out of me every single day! Your life isn't that bad!" And on ocassion, there was "Oh, poor you! Your life is just so horrible isn't it?! My mother used to ground me for three weeks if I forgot to empty the lint trap in the dryer!"

My mother also has a very short fuse and is extremely paranoid. The reason she always felt the need to invalidate my feelings and one-up me is because she feels that if she hadn't done so, the whole fucking universe would think she was a 'bad mother.' To avoid being accused of such a thing (even though nobody's ever accused her), she's used me and my brother as "proof that she's the better parent." I consider the abuse my mother inflicted on me much more damaging, because not only was she not drunk 90% of the time, but she's also intentionally crossed lines so, in her eyes, she wouldn't be wrong about whatever the issue was. I lived with her for three years after she and my father split, and I thought our lives would be better. However, she didn't seem to want anything to do with me. She'd promise that we'd go to the mall or something and have "us time," but would dismiss those plans on a whim. I finally plucked the courage to tell her I wanted to live with my father again. Her words: "Just remember that I was there in your childhood!" She took it way too personally, I think. It wasn't even all her that made me want to leave. She had started dating another man who is actually worse than my father! Almost immediately, he became an authority figure. From the word, "go" my mother allowed him to practically dictate our lives and make us miserable. I couldn't even look at him a certain way without him flipping his shit! And he did not respect anyone's privacy in the least, but we were expected to respect him completely. If the phone rang for me or my mother, he had to play 20 Questions with us. If we asked him who was on the phone with him, he would snap, "Mind your own business," even if it was my aunt or something. He was that controlling that I am shocked that he didn't make anyone leave the bathroom door open if we were in there!

Living there also meant that I was the middle-man between my parents. "Mom says she wants some of the baby photos." "Tell her she'll have to come over here and get them herself!" "Dad says you have to go there and get them." "Tell him to just give them to you the next time you go over there!"

At the time, my father's house was a bit more sane. He was still a dick, but he never went through my things or tried to control every single emotion or thought (largely because I knew not to talk to him about feelings). And his punishments were not unreasonable, in comparison to my mother's. Normally, if a kid gets grounded, it usually means no TV for a week, or no TV and internet until grades improve, or whatever. My mother would ground me at the drop of a dime. If I looked at her the wrong way, or said something that could be interpreted as back-talk if you really wanted it to sound like that, or lied about something completely ridiculous, I was not even allowed to read a fucking book! I had to lay in bed if I wasn't at school. Even prisoners - psychotic freaks who mutilated children and ate their skin while their parents watched, are allowed to read books! Not me, though. I did something much worse. I said I cleaned the living room the second I got home, when I really forgot because I attempted to do homework - which she wanted me to do, anyway! So there seemed no winning with her. So I moved back into my father's house.

Thoughts of suicide

When I was sixteen years old, I was still living with my mother and her boyfriend - and I had reached my boiling point. I couldn't stand being yelled at by my mother, my father, my mother's boyfriend, my father's girlfriend (at the time), my teachers, and was exhausted from criticisms from other kids at school... and I was just tired of constantly being told in some way or another that I would never be good enough, that I would never amount to a fucking thing. So there was no point because it didn't matter whether I tried or not. I wanted to die. At least, sometimes. Most of the time, I just wanted to do something so everyone would just fucking drop everything and realize what they were doing to me. My mother waltzed into my room without knocking, just wanting to scream at me over, yet another, shitty report card, only to see me curled on my futon holding a pocket knife to my wrist. I was crying out of frustration. Like, really seriously crying. My mother, surely having been at this point, given her upbringing, rolled her eyes.

"Oh, come on! Put the knife down. You look so fucking stupid right now! You know that? Just really fucking stupid!"

My mother later confided that she used to slash her wrists. And it didn't have to be a big deal because it was stupid, and she got over it. She "got over" her trauma by completely ignoring it, and pretending it doesn't exist. She confiscated my pocket knife (which wasn't a total loss because it was a pretty pathetic thing. Not the least bit intimidating) and life continued as of nothing had happened. I still had high expectations, I was still expected to miraculously get As on all my schoolwork, I was still a burden. And nobody has ever told my father.

How am I now?

The last few months before moving to Boston were emotionally draining. My father's abuse was kicked into hyper drive and he'd make sure to yell at me about something at least once a day, calling me a moron or retard, etc. and ocassionally threatening to kick me out. I ddn't want that, and I didn't want to move back in with my mother and her boyfriend, either. I just wanted to stop being a burden to everyone. So I was very blessed to wander into the Yay For Queers Chatroom one day, where Michael told me that his partner (at the time) had a room opening up in the Boston area for disgustingly cheap. Fortunately, I'd been working for four months at a crap restuarant and hadn't really spent any money I'd made. So I talked to Michael's ex through IM for a few days, figured out how I wanted to travel, bought luggage, and started telling select family members about my journey. So in a week, I temporarily moved out of my father's and into my aunt's house, bought the luggage, kept in contact with Michael, started telling my family and friends that I was moving (three grandmothers, a brother, my mother and her boyfriend, my aunt and her boyfriend (at the time), six cousins, my aunt and uncle, and a few good friends) and, in between that, I moved out of my aunt's and temporarily moved into my mother's. Of course, my mother and boyfriend tried to make my stay there awesome. And it was, but I knew it was just them trying to keep me home. My mother even said to me, "Why don't you just stay here for a little while longer, go to community college for a couple years, and then we'll think about you moving to Boston?" Obviously I said no. The night before I boarded the train, my mother forced me to call my father. "You're an idiot." is all he said. We didn't speak for over a month.

As I write this, I've been in Boston for one year and eight months. I can't say that I'm a well-adjusted, fully functioning, happy-go-lucky guy, but I'm trying to get better. I am currently seeking a therapist and treatment for depression.

Here's a set of lyrics that hit pretty close to home on how I'm feeling. Great song.

For You - Staind
To my mother, to my father,
It's your son or it's your daughter,
Are my screams loud enough for you to hear me?
Should I turn this up for you?

I sit locked inside my head
Remembering everything you've said
This silence gets us nowhwere!
Gets us nowhere way too fast!

The silence is what kills me
I need someone here to help me
But you don't know how to listen
And let me make my decisions

'Cause I sit here locked
inside my head remembering everything you've said
The silence gets us nowhere!
Gets us nowhere to fast!

All your insults and your curses make
me feel like I'm not a person
And I feel like I am nothing but
you made me so do something
'Cause I'm fucked up because you are
Need attention, attention you couldn't give

I sit here locked inside my head
Remembering everything you've said
This silence get us nowhere!
Gets us nowhere way to fast

LINKS

Er... link!
Emotional Abuse