No Coffee Please

One of my mother's favorite punishments was withholding food or forcing me to eat unsuitable food.


Due to this, there are many foods I still cannot eat to this day.

Coffee:  My step-father drank coffee on the weekends and in the latter part of the next week she got such satisfaction from making me drink the leftover moldy coffee she left in the coffee pot all week.  It took a good 15 years before the smell of coffee didn't evoke a sensation of queasiness in me.  I finally like the smell of coffee but am pretty sure I will never enjoy the taste.  I also get tired of people telling me that I will eventually develop a taste for coffee...doubt it.

Pinto Beans:  I know there is nothing evil about feeding a person pinto beans but it is another one of those things that I doubt I will ever eat again.  I ate many a meal of pinto beans, usually cold, over the years.  I am not sure if it was what I was eating as much as it was the fact that I was not allowed to eat with the family, nor at the same time as the family, or that getting to eat was a reward instead of a right.  Regardless me and pinto beans are not big fans of each other.

Move On Bullies

A true story...

A woman who was bullied mercilessly in high school 25 years ago has gotten some closure from a class reunion page on Facebook.

Lynda Frederick, a graduate of Orange Glen High in Escondido, Calif., in 1987, posted a heartbreaking poem about her experience on her school's 25th class reunion page.

Excerpts:

that little girl who came to school with the clothes she wore the day before
instead of asking why.. you picked on her...
the little girl who had bruises and was dirty
instead of asking why.. you picked on her
that little girl was me...
that little girl had love in her heart to share with all but no one wanted it...
this WOMEN has grown up now
however the little girl inside still crys
because her childhood was shattered

This poem resonated with me in a big way, thankfully I escaped my tormenter the first semester of my freshmen year.  I can imagine high school teasing would have been 1000 times worse than what my junior high bullies dished out.


It reminds me of that saying, that in effect says be nice to every one that you meet is fighting some kind of battle, which I have found to be absolutely 100% true!

FULL OF AWESOME

An AWESOME post....read it....

FULL OF AWESOME


You know what sucks, I mean really sucks...I have no recollection of that feeling...because the person that should have been reinforcing it...was well....beating it out of me.  I am not having a pity party here I am just thinking as a mom, how sad it is that she took something so innocent from me.  It makes me thankful for the blank slate I have been given with my own AWESOME babies.  It also makes me recognize the things that motivate me to get my AWESOME back.  There is this part, deep down inside of me that is constantly trying to get the world to see that I am awesome.  Maybe not normal-popular-gorgeous-perfect awesome but funny-loyal-honest-tenacious awesome...which counts for something right?  She may have taken that young innocent awesome but she cannot touch this current awesome...and the future awesome...which is bound to be even AWESOMER!!!!

Ignore

"I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in." Virginia Wolfe

I think that being ignored is the cruelest way to make a point......to flaunt control.....to wield power. Not acknowledging a person can create a hurt so deep - it's the harshest thing someone can do to another...especially if that person claims to care.  Many years of my childhood were spent either being ignored or being the focus of her anger.  I still haven't decided which was worse.  Hard as I tried to win with her, I NEVER did.

Since having my own children I have come to understand that she too must be locked in her own sort of hell.  Really, she must have been truly miserable to do the things she did to her own child and been able to function in her daily life.  Was she ignored as a child? Was she abused?  Did the person that was supposed to protect her hurt her in the worst possible way? 

The grass

I spent a number of years literally living outside.  I cannot recall what triggered this punishment but around my 9th year (I think) sleeping and mostly living outside became the rule rather than the exception.

At first this was a bit of a relief because the last few years I slept inside I was either handcuffed to the frame of my bed while sleeping on the floor, awoken by a glass of cold water thrown in my face or roused by being pulled off the bed by my feet resulting in an almost constant sore spot on the back of my head. 

We always lived in southern states, that's not to say I didn't feel like I was freezing sometimes.  When I was in therapy at one time my therapist had me draw out the houses I lived in and I could draw out the yards down to minuscule details but there are few things I remember about the actual houses.  In a way the yard was a much safer place for me.  Yes, it was dehumanizing.  Yes, it broke my heart every single time I was locked outside.  Yes, I longed for the days when she would let me sleep in the shed instead of on the porch.  Yes, I would rejoice when she would forget and leave one of the dogs out overnight. 

FEEL

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel”. -Maya Angelou

So so so very true.

There are days when I wonder, will I ever truly feel good about me.  The person that should have cared the most caused so much damage simply because she didn't care.

I am pretty darn positive most of the time but there are days when I just wonder.....WHY?

A bully comes in so many forms

There has been a great deal of attention recently to the effects of bullying and I agree, it is a horrible, terrible situation but I was struck last night while watching Anderson Cooper's Special Report on Bullying in which Dr. Phil stated that bullying is so much more hurtful now because home is not even a safe place anymore, due to our ever-growing dependence on electronic communication.  You see, my bully was my mother.  Truth be told, she could and did hurt me worse than anyone else.  Ironically some of the things she did to me resulted in additional bullying at school but the peer bullying was such a minor part of my life. School for me was still a respite.