These responses have been extremely helpful to me. Thank you for helping me validate many things about my childhood, and also to remember some incidents I had forgotten since the time that they occurred.
:blowkiss:
I lived in a household where I was doted upon and overly protected by one parent, yet now that I think about it, my father's idea of parenting would probably be considered abusive or at least neglectful now.
I was whipped hard with my father's belt by my father from as early as I can remember. I can still remember the bruises and marks that his belts left, especially if the buckle made contact.
It was how my parents were taught to discipline as children in their homes, I guess.
The thing is, I know I was a very people pleasing child. I wanted to do everything perfectly so they would love me and approve of me. I never rebelled or acted out as a child. ( I did as an adult, because I wasn't allowed to as a child).
My father threw me off a pier into a deep lake to teach me how to swim. Yes, he was nearby on the pier, but I could have drowned in the deep murky, fast moving water anyway. It wasn't crystal clear water like a swimming pool has.
He took the training wheels off my bike when I was 5, ran and then pushed me hard out into the street on it.. I had to ride the bike or fall and maybe get run over. On the day I turned 15 years old, he put me behind the wheel of the large family car on backroads with other traffic and without any driver's ed to 'teach me' how to drive.
I was scared to death and had no idea how to brake, steer, or regulate the accelerator. He made me drive like this for over 20 miles, and repeated it almost every time we went somewhere. I tried to avoid getting in the car with them for close to a year. I signed up for Driver's Ed at school and fudged on my age by a few months so he would stop terrorizing me.
My mother, on the other hand, didn't allow me to ride my own beautiful horse- too dangerous. Didn't allow me to go on school trips- something might happen to me. ( I was healthy).
Didn't allow me to climb trees, play sports, or even wade in the creek with my friends. All too dangerous and
messy.
Neither one drank. My parents are extremely religious and don't think any alcoholic beverages are allowed. I used to have to hide the occasional beer in my fridge along with my birth control when I had my own career and own apartment in my 20's.
I grew up with my mother being the usually dominant parent except for the spankings and the things I have remembered where my father put me in jeopardy. She apparently wasn't around to witness these things. I know she didn't swim because her mother was afraid she would drown. She also never learned to ride a bike for the same reason.. her mother's fear.
She used to threaten me daily with " Just wait until your father gets home"- his belt whippings. I was a naturally well-behaved child who wanted to please them so much. She was overly fearful of some harm coming to me physically through illness, but has always been extremely naive when it comes to judging the good or bad intentions of someone she knows. She feels that because
she knows them, they are good people. Um, no.
Now, at her age, I worry that she will be robbed or otherwise attacked. She trusts way too much and in the wrong way.
As the dominant parent, she also did not respect personal boundaries at ALL with me, and probably doesn't have good judgment about personal boundaries with others. She acts like the people around her act.. but is it really the true " her"? I've never thought so. She was the only child of a couple where her father was extremely advanced in age and her mother was young and the dominant spouse and parent. She practiced what she learned.
I was never close to my father's family because I always thought they were cold and unloving towards me. They made a distinction because I was not born into the family. After I left home, I never visited them unless I was shamed and bullied by my parents to go with them to visit my grandparents. I didn't ever really love them.
As far as my mother goes- I was " hers", not my own self, in her eyes for all my life until I finally saw that her kind of love was toxic and put a great deal of physical distance between us.. A great deal of my Post Partum Depression was because I was so afraid that I would not be as 'good' a mother as I had always thought she was.
Sometimes, I wonder how our spirits survive warped 'love'.
Hugs to all who were hurt in ways that go so far beyond what I can remember. I admire and respect your strength and courage, and your willingness to reach out and share with me. :blowkiss:
Maria
