Saturday, February 27, 2010

This is normal right?

One of the things that happens when news stories break about kids that were facing abuse in the home is everyone says, "Why didn't they tell? Why didn't someone notice?" I can tell you it's because until and unless it gets so great that you can't help but notice you won't. The kids won't tell. In fact it wasn't until I was older that I really understood that it was an abusive situation. I thought it was normal sibling issues and that she was just a bitch. My friends all fought with their brothers and sisters. We just had lopsided fights because she was older is all. And to this day she doesn't remember most of it and because I never said a word my parents and other siblings didn't know either.

I never said a word at school, to my friends or to my parents about the worst of it. I knew I would just get in more trouble if I told my parents so that avenue was closed. And I didn't want to think about it at school. I had a few hours every day where my sister wasn't the dominating feature in my life and I lived them. I got to choose who I was at school. So everything that happened at home stayed there. I learned how to compartmentalize my life.

People at church knew there were issues with my sister. My dad had been an Elder in the Church and had resigned his position. He felt that if he couldn't control his own house then he had no business sitting in a position of control of the Church. This started a wave of gossip as is typical among the Old Biddies of any church. And then when she started working with the youth minister in counseling and eventually got straightened back out this was talked about as well. So what would happen is some "well meaning" person from the Church would ask me how I was, pseudo-sincerity just dripping from their words. And I would say I was fine and leave. No extra information from me. It was none of their business. And you don't air dirty laundry outside of the home. Except now I have the clothes line out for all of you to see, ah well, it's good to get the stale musty stuff out of the attic right?

But this compartmentalizing that I did led to some interesting choices on my part later in my school years. I say interesting but what I really mean is bat-shit crazy. I will tell you about the things I did and you will read them and wonder what the heck I was thinking. But the beginning of that behavior was here. During the years that it was the worst at home. I didn't want to deal with it so I locked it away in my brain only to pull it out when I was actually with her. The rest of the time anyone would have thought I was living the Norman Rockwell/Leave it to Beaver life. My parents were still married (late 70s early 80s this was a big deal as most people's parents seemed to be getting divorced)I made good grades we were good church going folks. And that was what was presented to the world on a daily basis. And I was really good at it. You presented me with a situation and told me how I needed to act for it and I would give you that person. And honestly there were a lot of good times in there as well. Normal family interactions. That's the real issue with drug or alcohol abuse, it can fade away and come back at different times. So when things were good I just didn't think about the bad things. Tucked them away like they were happening to someone else.

For awhile in my 20s I thought about pursuing a career in Psychology. I read almost anything I could get my hands on while I explored the idea. One of the things that I found really interesting was split personality disorder. Generally when you find someone who has a true split it is the result of horrific abuse. The brain shatters to protect itself. I wondered and I still do to what degree we all do this voluntarily. My compartmentalizing was just that. I could put on and take off different personalities as needed. The difference being I was in control. If the abuse had been more serious, not just the result of chemical alterations in her personality but true sociopath stuff could I have split involuntarily? And how close to the line are we all in a day to day basis? Is the person you are at home the same as the person you are a work? For most people it's probably pretty close, but for others it could be vastly different. Nothing I faced was even close to bad enough for that sort of shatter to happen, but I still found it fascinating looking back that I did the split voluntarily.

The next parts of my life that I am going to talk about are the things I did and how I felt about life in general. It's the really whiny stuff and the examining my own belly button lint stuff so be prepared. But it really is all tied to these early years, I just didn't realize it at the time. This is really a long road from why was she such a bitch in high school to such a mother love now right? Sorry, but sometimes when someone says, "It's a long story," it really is!

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