I will have a lot of my trauma to share, I had a really difficult upbringing, but when you look at the pictures of my childhood you would never know it. In fact if you spoke with me casually today, you may not pick it up
I was a cheerful child, I laughed, I played, I fought with my siblings. For all intents and purposes, I seemed like a normal child. We were fed, we weren’t dirty, we lived in a decent house which was clean and looked after. I’ve met children through my life whose outer appearance and mannerisms just screamed the deficits in their lives. Most people never would have known mine, unless they were told.
I had Grandparents who picked up the slack, and tried to relieve us as much as they could, but there were some things that we just couldn’t be relieved of. Growing up in the 1970’s and 1980’s, there were some things that were more common and accepted than others. There were things that you did not talk about, and people didn’t speak up and interfere when things were wrong, like they do in today’s society. The whole, a man’s home is his castle and children being seen and not heard, was alive and well in those days.
No matter what was going on in our home, when Christmas time came, we were back to good. When my parents were together the holidays were magical. Everyone got along, we visited all of the family, we were all happy, and there was Neil Diamond playing on the stereo.
When we were with our Grandparents, things felt normal. We went to camp, had family dinners, went to church on Sunday, it was all good.
Until we went home and it wasn’t.
I used to have nightmares when I was little, like four years old. There was always construction equipment chasing me. I spent nights just running and running in those dreams. I was jumping into trunks of cars to get away from the machines.
It was loud in our home, there was always fighting, my parents had me running back and forth with messages. You tell your Dad that he’s an asshole. You tell your mother that she’s a bitch. I remember her sticking knives in the door crack, to keep him out after work. I remember that he had a gun. She told me that she tried to leave him when she was pregnant with me, and he held his gun to her belly and told her that she could leave but she wasn’t taking his kid.
Back at my grandparent’s, it was quiet. It was a whole different world. I didn’t have nightmares when I was there. We went visiting to relatives houses, I played with my cousins.
Back at my parents he was losing his shit and beating her and my little brother. I stayed in the shadows when that happened, to stay under the radar. I never forgot the sound of his leather belt coming out of his belt loops, and the jingle of the buckle. I never forgot the sound of my little brother screaming as the belt slapped his little bottom. He was just little. We were all just little. I was only about 7 when they finally split up.
It’s funny, because I used to always see the TV shows where the kids were always trying to get their parents together. That wasn’t me. It was finally quiet, we didn’t want the war zone back.
We stayed with our grandparents for awhile after that. She wasn’t doing so good. On more than one occasion the principal had popped by, because we weren’t attending school. Our grandparents gave us stability when things were falling apart. Living there was probably one of the best times in school. I was the happiest when I was there.
I guess that it wasn’t all bad…
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