Gamera3000
Silver Member
I received a large cache of scanned pictures from my aunt, who is one of the least crazy people on my mom's side of the family. Included were pictures from a "black" period of my life, which don't really remember. When I was 11, 12, 13.
I'm now 40. I have my own child. I'm married. I think I'm the only one of my family who made it into a normal life. Some died.
I went fishing around in my basement for my grandmother's diaries which covered that time period. I read the years from when I was 10 and 11. I have not ventured into years 12 or 13 yet.
I came away feeling very angry. The more time goes by, the more I feel like a regular person. I still have all the awful stuff shut up inside. I can see it but other people don't know it's there. I can act like a normal person in most situations. Keep crazy stuff away from my family. I know what normal reactions and normal situations are, you know? That gets easier and more natural as I get older. So now as a mom I'm aghast at how my family treated me and my brothers.
What I suspect is there in the black area is that there was nothing. I think we were starving, literally in the dark, with just one or two lightbulbs. I think we had fleas. I think I spent that time reading and watching TV, because we weren't allowed to go to school. I can tell from the pictures that we didn't have clothes. Some of my only memories are not having essentials like underpants or socks. No toilet paper. And my little brother, who is autistic, was always screaming. No one would accept that he was autistic, so no one bothered to learn anything about autism. God knows what was hurting him. I think there was a significant hoarding and animal hoarding situation going on, with trash and feces all over. I remember my mom fed the animals bread and they would periodically die from only eating bread. These are like vague memories. I don't know what year or situation these things applied to. It could have all been the same day or spread out over all those years. I don't know.
One of things that really got me was a note from my grandmother saying 10 year old me called or sent a postcard and asked for toilet paper and she said she had just sent us $2. Then she noted in the same day something about going shopping at several different places and having a nice dinner.
I'm fairly sure that my mom is either a psychopath or a sociopath. I don't know which. I know she is not able to love, feel guilt or empathy. She has always said things that were not true. I don't know if she believes those things or not. She can pretend to be a normal person, sometimes very well, but she does not have normal feelings. I know that like I know my name. I have heard from my grandmother that she was "always different" and that there was "always something wrong with her" and that she was relieved to no longer have a relationship with her. My aunt said my mom was once a regular little girl, but was smug, mean, and a bully, but that my grandmother started calling her a "slut" at a very young age.
I've come to a place where I can no longer tell myself that my aunt and grandmother were in a tough spot and did what they could. They shouldn't have let my mom be alone with us like that. They knew she couldn't take care of herself, let alone us. They knew what was happening to us and did nothing. There have been situations with my sister's kids where I have had to step in and help them, even though I knew it made my sister mad. Never did I think to myself, well this will create problems so I'm just going to mind my business. If I had been in my grandmother or aunt's position, I would have either gotten custody of us or been up to the house all the time to make sure we were taken care of. You cannot put yourself ahead of kids.
So I guess I just needed to ramble on about this. If anyone read it, thank you for listening.
I'm now 40. I have my own child. I'm married. I think I'm the only one of my family who made it into a normal life. Some died.
I went fishing around in my basement for my grandmother's diaries which covered that time period. I read the years from when I was 10 and 11. I have not ventured into years 12 or 13 yet.
I came away feeling very angry. The more time goes by, the more I feel like a regular person. I still have all the awful stuff shut up inside. I can see it but other people don't know it's there. I can act like a normal person in most situations. Keep crazy stuff away from my family. I know what normal reactions and normal situations are, you know? That gets easier and more natural as I get older. So now as a mom I'm aghast at how my family treated me and my brothers.
What I suspect is there in the black area is that there was nothing. I think we were starving, literally in the dark, with just one or two lightbulbs. I think we had fleas. I think I spent that time reading and watching TV, because we weren't allowed to go to school. I can tell from the pictures that we didn't have clothes. Some of my only memories are not having essentials like underpants or socks. No toilet paper. And my little brother, who is autistic, was always screaming. No one would accept that he was autistic, so no one bothered to learn anything about autism. God knows what was hurting him. I think there was a significant hoarding and animal hoarding situation going on, with trash and feces all over. I remember my mom fed the animals bread and they would periodically die from only eating bread. These are like vague memories. I don't know what year or situation these things applied to. It could have all been the same day or spread out over all those years. I don't know.
One of things that really got me was a note from my grandmother saying 10 year old me called or sent a postcard and asked for toilet paper and she said she had just sent us $2. Then she noted in the same day something about going shopping at several different places and having a nice dinner.
I'm fairly sure that my mom is either a psychopath or a sociopath. I don't know which. I know she is not able to love, feel guilt or empathy. She has always said things that were not true. I don't know if she believes those things or not. She can pretend to be a normal person, sometimes very well, but she does not have normal feelings. I know that like I know my name. I have heard from my grandmother that she was "always different" and that there was "always something wrong with her" and that she was relieved to no longer have a relationship with her. My aunt said my mom was once a regular little girl, but was smug, mean, and a bully, but that my grandmother started calling her a "slut" at a very young age.
I've come to a place where I can no longer tell myself that my aunt and grandmother were in a tough spot and did what they could. They shouldn't have let my mom be alone with us like that. They knew she couldn't take care of herself, let alone us. They knew what was happening to us and did nothing. There have been situations with my sister's kids where I have had to step in and help them, even though I knew it made my sister mad. Never did I think to myself, well this will create problems so I'm just going to mind my business. If I had been in my grandmother or aunt's position, I would have either gotten custody of us or been up to the house all the time to make sure we were taken care of. You cannot put yourself ahead of kids.
So I guess I just needed to ramble on about this. If anyone read it, thank you for listening.
