My Abusive Parents, My Fears, My Insomnia and My Obesity

Please read this article from Slate Magazine. What Do Grown Children Owe Their Terrible, Abusive Parents? http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2013/02/abusive_parents_what_do_grown_children_owe_the_mothers_and_fathers_who_made.html?utm_source=tw&utm_medium=sm&utm_campaign=button_chunky via @slate

My parents have died. My dad died suddenly when he was 49 back in 1975. That there was no way to confront him as I needed to is not lost on me. I was pregnant with my second baby. He was the father of a little girl from his second marriage.

My mother had a lingering cancer and passed last year. My uncle had challenged all the family members to "step up and help" my mother. It was abrupt and came out of nowhere as far as I was concerned. I learned something from my aunt and later my cousin that I did not know. I have a Youtube channel, AwesomeForever where I show how my mom's apartment was when I went down to Macon GA where she lived next door to my aunt. It was my aunt's building and mom had lived there for many years. My mom was sick and in the hospital. My aunt and uncle must have had a serious discussion about how would my mom live in the apartment when released from the hospital. My aunt was sick with cancer again. She knew that she was not strong enough to care for my mom. I spent a good two hours talking to my aunt. I learned that my mom was a hoarder. Her apartment was covered with so much stuff that she would come out and meet my aunt instead of letting my aunt come up and see the apartment in it's disgraceful state.

Why did this happen? How was it that we were not told sooner? I was used to my mother's rationalizations. I could not sway her to do something that she did not want to do. She had often been sick and would not follow up with a doctor's visit until she was so sick she ended up being hospitalized. We had lost touch over the Internet when all the stuff encompassed the space where she would have sat down to the computer. It was hard to talk with mom because she had needed hearing aids for years and would not get them. She had barely any space to get around. Mom needed to see the phone light to know it was ringing.

I think my aunt believed my mom when she said she would sell some of her nice things. She would help pay her back for the car and all the utilities that my aunt had paid for mom over the years. My aunt was still working at the school where she had been a kindergarten teacher as a tutor and aid in the office. It was not a lot of money. She sacrificed to provide for my mom.






I am really not sure why I bring this up now. It is late on a Sunday so I am reflecting on what was said to me last week. We were talking of what we did back in the summer of 1963. One of the members of our Bible Study group was going to Washington DC for the March on Washington 50. I knew that I was too young to go to DC in 1963. I was too young. I knew that I had a lot of heartache that year. I spoke of my mother leaving home ten days before I turned sixteen. How I had to cook and carry on helping my six siblings. How my parents had constantly argued. How a discussion about what went on in DC on the national level sparked the reminder of the pain of that summer is beyond me. Did you forgive them, I was asked?

How can I answer this question quickly as I am more prone to long answers as I speak I hear what I say. I add to what I say as I remember. Let's just say that there are many memories of abuse from lack of care to out and out abuse. We were stood in a line and asked to admit to some misdemeanor. I remember feeling that I had no answer that would suffice to give my father. Who had done what he viewed as wrong? I am empathetic person and would suffer for my sister or brothers in the punishment that would be handed out. Did you ever stand in the corner? We had to stand in the corner with a leg up! Oh, I often had more punishments added to the original one. I fell asleep standing up. When we moved to Sudbury, we had arrived in the winter, one punishment was walking around the house in the winter until we could come back in.

Really trying to remember other punishments beyond being pushed into the ladder for the bunk bed marked by a dent on my eyebrow line or pushed down the cellar stairs. We knew the fear of getting up at night when there were angry confrontations in the hallway.

How did I develop a fear of heights, I remember asking my mother? I asked her many times about the time I was carried down the sidewalk to a waiting ambulance. She said it did not happen. This nightmare persisted for many years beyond the time of her leaving all of us. Why is it that I have insomnia? I could be awakened by my parents arguments.

Yes, I have been away from that situation for many years. I felt that the early years were gone. I was over the abuse of my childhood. How then did I become obese? How did the eating get out of hand? Was it part of my makeup to turn to food? Our childhood was not marked with abundance of food. It was a lack of care.