WARNING
Read at your own risk!
My opinions are based on a true story
This is the story of the coming of age of a young girl growing up in violence;
set during the coming of age of America
The names are changed to protect the guilty
It is not for the easily offended, or those weak, weenies who are easily irritated.
First, I have to give Mom and Dad credit. They made me what I am today. Suicidal. Homicidal. Confused.
This book is dedicated to all the misfits in the world. The people who think they don't belong. It is important to know there are people in this world who support who you are, who encourage your dreams, and who cheer you on your destiny path. You don't have to mimic anyone in your family because you are not like anyone in your family. You are a separate being swimming in a sea of possibilities transporting you to who you were supposed to be, who you can be, who you should be. The world you came from does not define who you are. It may have started with them but it stops with you. There is freedom in knowing the time is now and the answer is you.
Our relatives are mere mirrors for us to look, notice, and observe what to refuse
for ourselves, and what we cherish and hold dear. I had to suffer until I started to take myself seriously, my life seriously, my decisions seriously, and started to do those things opposite of my upbringing, but things that brought joy in my life. I learned to listen to that small voice of instinct warning of harm. It became obvious to me those who were on my team playing on my side, from those who were playing for the other team. My path became clear. It also became clear who shouldn't be on my path. I became more for me than against me. I became comfortable in my misfit skin. That feeling of not belonging became only a memory, and was replaced with the knowledge that insanity made me feel a misfit and sanity was where I belonged. I became strong and powerful. And you can, too.
ONE
MOM AND DAD - TEENAGE YEARS
At one time Mom was a teenager, with all the insecurities of all teenagers throughout the
world. Five feet, four inches tall, she was a beauty with olive skin, warm chestnut brown hair and amber eyes. A replica of Meryl Streep if Meryl had brown hair. She was so shy that most of her teen years were spent reading in libraries. She was conceived in Russia and was the first child born in the USA because her pregnant mother boarded a ship to America in search of her husband who came here in search of work but "forgot" to send for her. Mom grew up in Harlem when it was a bustling village consisting of 40% Jewish, 30% Italian, 20% Irish, l0% blacks.
Mom and her future husband (my Dad) grew up blocks apart. They wouldn't meet until 1933, after the stock market crash. When people were jumping out of buildings, Mom decided to take her life in her hands and date Dad.
In l929 the stock market crashed. The crash was famous for sparking the Great
Depression, but nobody did depression greater than Mom. If the stock market crash was good enough to spark the Great Depression, it was good enough for Mom to take advantage of it. In 1929 people were jumping out of buildings to their death yet not one person in my family thought it was worth a try. Perhaps if they did I would have had more options in my life today. During The Depression, Chicago Mobster and known killer Al Capone sponsored soup kitchens which saved thousands of lives. Even a killer knew how to make friends.
Between l93l - l936 Thirty horror films were produced. People were selling apples on the street, and fighting over garbage left in barrels, Dracula was played by Bela Lugosi, and Metropolitan Life Insurance Company reported 20,000 persons committed suicide, far exceeding the crash of l929, In Lewiston, Maine, they voted to bar all welfare recipients from voting at polls, "The Mummy" came out starring Boris Karloff, silk neckties were 55 cents, silk stockings 69 cents, a dental filling $ 1.00, toothpaste 25 cents, cigarettes l5 cents, gasoline per gallon l8 cents, sirloin steak per lb. 29 cents, milk l0 cents, and you could buy a 7-room Spanish Stucco house in Beverly Hills for $5,000.
MOM MEETS DAD
1933 While the banking system in the United States collapsed and hourly wages dropped by 60% since l929, Mom first met her future husband as she walked down Osborne Street in Brooklyn to her Mother who cut fish for a living at Skonick's Fish Market. What started out as an ordinary sunny Brooklyn day, would turn out to be one of the most dangerous decisions of her life. As she walked she was spotted by a man who bore a striking resemblance to Clark Gable and just as snappy a dresser. He kept trying to get her attention but she kept her pace and walked on. The next day would have the same result when he tried to get her attention. "I'm gonna make you talk to me one day," this good-looking man promised.
If it wasn't for my maternal grandmother's determination to have her first child born in America and take the arduous trip to Ellis Island by ship in search of her husband who moved there the year before to escape the pogroms and look for work; and paternal grandparents living a few blocks away, there would not have been a marriage between their children because these children would not have met. There would not have been future generations of children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews. A single decision can change your world. Decisions are the most important things we do in our lives, and can haunt us, or make us smile. We ignore our decisions. We take them lightly. We don't spend time with decisions before we use them. Decisions are not taken as seriously as they should. Decisions need to be respected or they will come up to remind us what our life would have been like had we taken our decisions seriously. Decisions will haunt us if we don't pay attention to how dangerous they can be when we don't take our decisions
seriously. We end up turning our other cheek, and jump in where only fools would dare to go.
The third time Mom and Dad met brought a different result. Mom could no longer resist his smile. Dad offered to buy her an ice cream cone and she accepted. She was l7 years old. He was 19. At the same time Dad was flirting with Mom, he was dating Francis Levine and doing business with Francis' family selling bananas to them. Mom was jealous of Francis, but there was no need to be because Dad ended up choosing Mom. A memory that made her smile when she told me the story 50 years later. Mom and Dad dated for two years when they married. She was 19 years old. He 21. They honeymooned in Lakewood-Farmingdale, New Jersey.
It's eerie how similar my own story was to Mom, that 26 years after Mom and Dad married, and had me, I entered into my own dangerous relationship when I was 15 years old. It still sends chills through me to know that when I was 15 years old how close her story was to mine, but I ended up making a very different decision that saved my life, as you'll read in 1961 when you get to that year.
ONE SEXY MOMMA
1934 World War II was inevitable in direct contrast to America having Poverty, Growth and Prosperity, Jean Harlow showed us you can be sexy and intelligent. The l930's was the heyday of horror with Pretty Boy Floyd, Bonnie and Clyde, and bloodshed for strikers who developed unions, Dick Tracy came out on news stands, Shirley Temple was introduced, the first woman appointed to the Circuit Court of Appeals was Florence Ellinwood Allen in 1934 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Mom lost her virginity and became an "experienced" women in the arms of Dad before they were married. It wasn't really lost. Lost meant you misplaced it. Didn't know where it was. Mom knew where it was. It just wasn't anymore. Having sex was nothing new, but pairing up before marriage? In the l930s? They were out of their... don't pardon the expression... fucking minds.
In 2001 Mom confided in me she wasn't a virgin when she married, and had an orgasm almost right away. They had an active sex life. He always pleased her sexually. I found this particularly appealing on many levels. One, she was 86 years old before she admitted that. She told me because I had asked. Two, at that time women didn't have sex out of wedlock or they'd be called sluts. Tramps. Whores. Even boys were expected to be "clean" and not fool around. Married women can have sex, they're just not supposed to like it. If they did they'd be considered a slut. Who put a stick up their ass, or in another orifice, to make them so uncomfortable about sexual expression and communication?
It was quite a surprise that in 2001, having no difficulty or discomfort, this 85- year-old woman confessed to having sex, because all through my adolescence she had great difficulty discussing sex. She would talk about it, all right, but in the most vague terms. She hardly spoke to me about my menstrual cycle when it began at 11 years old. It made no sense. She wouldn't talk about it but was doing it with Dad several times a week? When I was 23 years old I had questions for her when I had sex for the first time (I'm not kidding. Told you times were changing) during my menstrual cycle with a guy I was seeing long distance whom I met in California (you'll read about it when you get to year 1968). It was thought awful if you had sex before marriage. Now it's thought awful if you don't. When I told Mom, she looked at me with disgust, not wanting to talk about sex. Not wanting to answer my questions. I believe if someone is having sex they should be able to speak about it, especially to their children. Lesson: If you can't speak of sex, you shouldn't be having sex. So it was amazing she spoke freely while we sat on a bench in June 2001, and I asked her where she first had sex. When she said she couldn't remember where, I asked if it could have been in an automobile? She looked me right in the eye and said "I know it wasn't in a car. I had to be comfortable." When Mom opened up about her sex life she not only appeared human to me, but a friend.
Familiarity does not breed contempt. Familiarity breeds intimacy. Bonding. I was real proud of this old broad admitting that to me, her daughter. Why does it take people
getting old to be who they should have been all their lives? On this day in 2001, Mom told me she had sex out of wedlock. I read that parents usually trust their children because the parents didn't do anything distrustful when they were young so it wouldn't be in their consciousness to distrust. Dad trusted me. Knowing Dad trusted me encouraged me to live up to that trust all my life.
l936 Mom and Dad celebrated their one year anniversary, bottle with a screw cap was first introduced, cellulose sponges were introduced for household use, a studio for mass production of comics was created by Will Eisner in New York who mentored artists such as satirist Jules Feiffer, Art Spiegelman the author of Maus, and Bob Kane the co-creator of Batman with Stan Lee, though Stan Lee hardly gave credit to Bob Kane, the favorite song was "It's A Sin To Tell A Lie." It was never a favorite song in my family. They believed it's a sin to tell the truth. I come from a long line of liars. My father was so good at lying, he could have been an attorney.
1937 saw the first animated feature-length cartoon in Technicolor with Walt Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," automatic washing machines, a birth control clinic opened in Raleigh, North Carolina when the state introduced a program for poor married women, Blood Bank introduced to preserve blood by refrigeration in Chicago's Cook County Hospital, license plates for vehicles, Marijuana ban enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, shopping carts invented by Sylvan N. Goldman owner Standard Food Stores chain in Oklahoma City for customers to buy larger quantities. Top songs were "You Can't Stop Me From Dreaming," and Mom and Dad's dream came true by giving birth to their first child – a son.
1938 Blood tests were required for marriage licenses, Swing was popular, and the Benny Goodman Radio show was big. People stayed home to listen to the radio with their family, "War Of The Worlds" was narrated on Halloween by Orson Wells, first comic book starring a superhero "Superman" published by Detective Comics, which was formerly known as National Periodical Publications but now known as DC Comics, and was the brainchild of Jerry Siegel, writer, and Joe Shuster, artist, who met at high school in Cleveland.
In the 1940s Joe DiMaggio hit safely in 56 consecutive games establishing a major league record, but was in the news in 1950s for repeatedly beating Marilyn Monroe and went annually to her grave with flowers in an attempt to soothe his guilt. Sugar and coffee were rationed, U.S. Supreme Court ruled Nevada divorces were valid in U.S., time capsule was sealed at the 1939 New York World's Fair to be opened in 6939, cost of living was raised to 30%, Southern California won Rose Bowl football game 29-0 against Washington. Over 165 were killed and 175 injured in Ringling Bros Barnum and Bailey Circus fire in Hartford, Conn., St. Louis won World Series. Women suffrage became law in France, Rocky Graziano became Boxer of the Year, Empire State Building struck at the 78-79 floors by B-25 bomber, women were insured their right to vote in Italy, flying saucers were reported in the U.S., Jackie Robinson became the first black to sign a contract with a major baseball club, federal rent control bill was passed in the U.S., M & M candies, nylon stockings, cars with an automatic transition were introduced, popular songs "God Bless America" and "When You Wish Upon A Star," Social Security monthly payments started with check number 00-000-001 for $22.54 to Ida May Fuller of Ludlow Vermont, helicopter was invented, the first woman boxing referee, and 1940 was the first time Dad hit Mom.
I found that out three decades later when I asked Mom when was the first time Dad had hit her. Whenever I broached the subject in the past she would scream for me to stop, claiming her husband loved her. Fearful the beatings meant he didn't love her. Always making excuses for Dad's behavior. Always scared to confront her pain, her anguish, her hurt, over his rage. But on that day, with the sun shining down on our faces, she answered as if we were discussing the weather. Simply. Without emotion. Matter of fact. "It was about five years after we were married, in l940, when he first hit me. I asked him for money. That's why he hit me." Though the sun was very warm that day, a cold chill entered my heart. I was hurting as if the blow targeted me. Hurting in knowing that 98% of females are in some type of an abusive relationship, whether abused by words or deeds. And that doesn't mean men are not abused. More and more men are being abused by women who were brought up in an abusive home. It's the same story, whether men or women. I was hurting, as everyone should hurt, for every person who was being abused by the person they loved. The very "love" they should have trusted. The very love who should have protected them from hurt, but who hurt them instead.
Listening to Mom that day, I was hurting as if Dad's fist was bearing down on my face, and knowing it should never have happened. If only Mom knew then what we all know now, would she have made a different choice? A lot of women know differently but they do not make a decision to leave. They are told they are unworthy. Told they couldn't afford to live on their own. Told they are stupid. Couldn't find jobs, who would hire them. Told they are worthless. All of which is absolutely, definitely, without a doubt not true. These are not weak people. They are only people who are afraid of leaving. They live with the abuse every single day. Knowing abuse is coming but not knowing when. Hoping abuse will stop, but not knowing how or when. All my life I felt guilty for having a better life than Mom. I ruined many an opportunity because I couldn't deal with success, and felt guilt over her suffering when I felt joy. When did I start feeling I was abandoning Mom and letting her down when I had success of my own. Why did I feel I was not entitled to my success or joy because Mom was suffering? I denied many a chance to succeed for fear Mom might compare the life she never had to mine. I denied myself happiness on a very primitive level because of Mom's sadness, depression, and disappointments.
How could I succeed and be happy in a family who only knew misery, despair and
anger? I felt any success would come across as being thrown in their face. There were times I knew Dad was proud of me. But it came at the price of him taking credit for it. Whenever I did good, at anything, he said "Of course you succeeded. You got it from me." When I failed, it was always my fault. As for Mom? I can hardly remember a time she felt joy for any of my achievements. I stopped trying and in the process I discounted myself. I had no idea my success, my success, had nothing to do with them and everything to do with my efforts. My dreams. My hopes. My desires. I wouldn't know that until I entered the Anonymous programs and learned that every person has a chance. They had their chance to grab the gold ring in life but for whatever reason made other choices. Did it mean I would have to be abused just because Mom accepted it? I would never accept that in my life. So why deny success? It's a shame to compare ourselves to our parents. What a waste of time and thought. Lesson: Always have your own. You'll be less dependent on anyone else for your salvation and well being. It's a powerful woman who has her own.
Mom left him many times. She took me and ran to Florida. Years later I learned about the "Honeymoon Cycle." When the abuser apologizes. Woos the victim back with his charm. There were no shelters then.
Society then blamed the woman for the abuse. Convinced the victim to return to the man
she married. The man who didn't mean it. The man who apologized. I didn't believe the
apologies. I don't think Mom did either. But she kept wishing it to be true. For her own sake. For the sake of her children. She needed desperately to believe the man she married was not the monster she was looking at. Or I was looking at. But just because she wished his apologies were true, and the abuse would stop, did not make it so.
In the l940's (Dec 7, 1941) United States of America entered World War II after Japan attacked our Hawaiian territory at Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt refuses to accept refugee Jews in the United States of America claiming "It's not our war," while knowing his decision would send Jews back to die in gas chambers. America was known as an isolationist country who did not get involved in world affairs except when it benefited the USA, yet antisemitism was spreading everywhere, including the America. It took a tremendous rally among Jewish people to show strength to come out in huge voter numbers against President Roosevelt. This extraordinary Jewish voter turnout changed history by forcing President Roosevelt to get involved, which started the end of World War II, and Mom and Dad decided to have another child, and hoped for a daughter. What is it with people who want one of each? Can't they be happy with having a healthy anything? But a daughter is exactly what they had. And the egg turned out to be me. I was born during the worst New York snow storm in years. Dad was playing cards. And winning. He put down his cards and drove Mom through the storm to the hospital, and four hours later I was born.
Mom bragged about my birth and how easy it was. When did four hours become quick? I can't even have a headache for five minutes, yet Mom pushed and screamed and ripped her insides for four hours and called that quick? There's nothing quick about your uterus exploding. I'm gonna go through that push-push, breathe-breathe bullshit for four hours? And after I finally pushed the little bugger out it thinks it will grow up and leave me? At the very time in my life I could use some help? Not on your life, and not on the kid's life either. Having a kid to me means I gave birth to a slave. No dating. No other life than lifting, shopping, cleaning for me. A body the size of a basketball is going to come out a hole the size of a golf ball and I'm going to allow it to grow up and leave me? No fucking way. I'm not going to go through that for nothing. The day I decide to give birth will be the day I see the head of a human come out the hole in a penis. I love when pregnant women say they have a glow. That isn't a glow. That's constipation.
For six months I was breast fed. Born with light blonde hair, my hair got darker as
I grew older. The Jewish religion honors its dead to live on by using the first letter of their name for a newborn, hence the letter "G" for Grandmother Golda. The story goes: Mom lifted me up the day I was born, looked me straight in the eye and asked me if I looked like a Gertie? Or a Gloria. Or a Gwen for Gwendolyn? How about Gayle? I only wish the same care and concern they had in naming me, they would have had about my feeling safe in the environment they raised me.
I don't remember too much about my childhood from age one to ten. Perhaps I don't want to remember. My brain wants to protect me. When someone tells me they remember things that happened when they were 4 years old, I try even harder than I did before to remember those years. I don't know if what they remembered was true or if they want it to be true, or they wished it was true or someone told them it was true. I envied the possibility that someone could remember their childhood. They probably had loads of things to remember that made them feel good when they remembered. That is certainly not the case with me.
TWO
MY BIRTHDAY PARTY FILLED MY LITTLE HEART WITH FEAR
1949 The first birthday party I remember was when we played "Pin The Tail On The Donkey," and we had loads of games, kids, hats, noise makers, and I was scared out of my mind that I'd make a mistake doing something wrong and get yelled at, hit, punished by Mom or Dad in front of all my friends. I never knew what rules were because they changed all the time. I was brought up not to hit, yet all my life Dad used Mom as a punching bag. I was taught not to yell, yet Dad yelled every day. When Dad huffed and puffed he could have blown the house down. They told me not to walk on a red signal, yet Mom and Dad walked on red signals all the time, and on and on into insanity I'd go, feeling terror, and being traumatized of making mistakes.
That's why I didn't try to get anything I wanted. I was terrified of being hurt should I make a mistake. I only went for a sure thing. Something that could never fail.
At an early age I figured out how to feel safe in my home was to be cheerful, not voice an opinion, and be funny so they'd leave me alone. Even as I grew, I never told anyone what I felt for fear I'd upset that person, and I'd be punished and hurt. I pretended my life away. A child shouldn't have to experience terror just to be part of a family. Nobody should.
Lesson: If you don't try, you won't make a mistake. If you don't make a mistake you won't get hurt. And you will never experience the adventure of finding out who you really are. However, if you try and do succeed you won't end up throwing your life away.
THREE
BROWNSVILLE BANANA COMPANY
1949 Dad and his brother in law (my Uncle) owned a banana business called "Brownsville Banana Company" located on Osborne Avenue in Brooklyn, New York. The bananas were imported from Panama and Brazil, and other parts around the world, and stored until ripe in our cool, dark cellars. Tarantulas hid in the stalks of bananas. Dad displayed awesome fearlessness in grabbing the huge spiders, throwing them on the ground and stomping them to death. This was way before people cared about animal rights. This was way before people were aware that all living creatures had a soul, and ever care about gently flicking a fly off their skin, or not using a fly swatter.
Dad was a snappy dresser. As a young man his dream was to become a haberdasher (an expert in men clothing), or an actor. Those ideas were squashed when fruits and vegetables got in the way, because his father wanted him in the same business, and Dad never said no to his father. So Dad went down another path, a path of his dad's making, and changed his own destiny of following his dream, by doing what his father demanded. Lord help the person who didn't. Even at my young age I never understood why anyone had to fight to defend what they wanted to do, what they dreamed of doing, in their life. After all, it was their life, wasn't it? Or was it? Do parents have you in order to control you and tell you all your life what they want you to do? That seems what parents think their job is. In my family I never understood why a fight would start simply because someone had an idea. Why someone caved in and gave in to anyone's demands of who they should be. I had so many ideas of what I wanted to do, yet never mentioned any of them because I was always told what I should do. Yet, I kept dreaming and thinking. It was the start of being a misfit. Someone who just didn't belong. Someone who saw things others did not see. It was a quiet voice in my soul, but it was there. Even if it took 20 years to develop and grow stronger. At that time I thought I was crazy. This was my life? Why didn't they see what I saw? How could I be the only one who wanted the fights to stop? Now I know the answer. It's called denial. I wasn't crazy. I just wasn't in denial. I saw what I saw and I knew I saw it. Of course I was the misfit in the family: I was the one who called it like it was, and was called crazy because of it. They had to call me crazy. If I wasn't called crazy they'd have to look at themselves for what they were. If I was crazy they could go on doing what they did, and get away with it.
There's generally one misfit in every family who sees that family for what it is, but is mocked and called names because they see what others deny, and is ridiculed, mocked in order to be driven insane to stop them from speaking up. That person grows up never getting their needs met, needing to be medicated by drugs, alcohol, food, sex, gambling, in order to distract their emotions away from the pain. If they are lucky, they end up in the Anonymous programs and learn they were blessed to be a misfit and are not like anyone in the family. The misfit is destined to have a glorious, fun loving, adventurous life, and learns the impossibility of getting support from people who don't have it to give because they never got it when they were young. You can't go to an empty well and expect to find water to nourish you. I realized I was going to grow up having to find my own path. It was lonely, but it lead to happiness. I found when dreams are taken away, it's no surprise to grow up angry. There is nothing wrong with anger, it's an emotion we all have. People get angry. It's part of being a human being to feel emotions, all emotions, good and not so good. But when people feel they are not entitled to their anger, or were not taught how to express it, they lash out, batter anyone who makes them angry. They use force so often it becomes routine. They have not learned how to channel it in a positive way. And, like a disease, is spread to generation after generation after generation, into infinity and beyond, making excuses why they batter.
The problem with excuses like "My dad did it and I know no other way," is the batterer still remembers how it felt when they saw it growing up, and still decides to continue it? Knowing the children are watching and see the violence, just as the batterer did when he grew up? They try to forget, but they never do. It would turn out differently if every child was asked at six years old "What kind of person do you want to be?" And the parents listen, and talk to the child. You learn a lot about the child. Even at age three the child may not communicate everything but it already knows violence. It recognizes harsh tones. Sad tones. "Bad" tones. Fear will grow in the child's heart, and stay there for the rest of its life.
But there were good times for me, too.
RUFUS
I loved going to the cellar. It was an exhilarating adventure. In Brooklyn the weather could get over l00 degrees, with not a hint of a breeze. So going down to a cool cellar and eating all the bananas I wanted, was heaven. What helped make it heaven was Rufus. He was my favorite. He was the first black person I had ever met in my whole, entire five years of life. He was 6" and a big black man. He had smiling brown eyes, and dark hair. He had the body of a football player, but the heart of an angel. He was also Dad's favorite employee. Rufus was a pal to Dad and a pal to me. Dad never saw the color of someone's skin. To Dad, you were either an asshole or you weren't. Color had nothing to do with it. I never saw someone's color, ether. I can attest to knowing assholes of every color.
Dad relied on Rufus. Rufus was in charge. I adored him. He was my big teddy bear. He was the only one who protected me and made me feel like an adult. If the cellar rooms were too cold, or the bananas were rotten, he was be there to tell me. He educated me on the storing of bananas. Imagine educating a five-year-old about bananas? He was so lovable. He taught me to always buy bananas that were still green. They take longer to ripen and you can keep them longer. You store bananas at the bottom of the refrigerator. It's less cold there so the bananas wouldn't burn and turn brown, and last longer. Dad always trusted him with me. I still think of Rufus. I miss him. I get impatient when people talk about black and white. That kind of talk breeds separation of human beings, and both black and white do it and are to blame. To this day, I am grateful to Dad for thinking that way. Bigotry thinking stinks. To hear people in both groups perpetuate it, stinks even more.
PROSPECT PLACE PUSHCART
Mom and Dad owned and operated a pushcart on Prospect Avenue between Howard and Sarotoga Avenues in Brooklyn and sold fruits and vegetables, specializing in bananas. Dad's nickname was "The Banana Man." Anyone could go to Prospect Avenue and ask where the Banana Man was. They worked very hard. Twelve hours a day standing on their feet, sometimes leaving Mom alone under the beating sun when he made deliveries. Whenever we visited someone's home, Dad brought a whole stalk of bananas. A stalk has about 80 bananas. Bananas are sold after being ripped from the stalk and grouped 10 bananas to a bunch. They sold these bananas only three blocks from our tenement. A pushcart is simply a cart they could push, except my parents never pushed their cart. They paid for a spot on Prospect Avenue to sell their produce. Known today as "Farmer's Market" where "vendors" set up their "stands." One hundred stands on one side of the street, one hundred on the opposite side, and it afforded Mom and Dad a good income. Such a good income that Mom and Dad were able to buy a car. In my neighborhood cars were not easily available on most people's salary. We were one of the few families in our tenement to have the first television. It was very important for Dad to show he could provide. I wish it was very important for him to prove he was safe.
FOUR
THE YEARS AHEAD ARE TOUGH
There were a lot of secrets and lies in my family. Everyone always covered up
something.
The years pass but violence did not pass, and continued to enter our home. Not by a home invasion. Not by a stranger. By someone we should have been able to trust. His wife should have been able to trust. His children should have trusted him. But we never had the opportunity to trust our own father. My Dad.
I don't remember a day when Dad didn't express his anger through violence. Neighbors were quick to complain. To each other and to the police. I knew the neighbors pitied us, but I was determined to show them it didn't bother me. I was determined to live that lie. If I couldn't get the affection and love and respect from the people I lived with, then sure as hell I would get it from the world outside. The world became safe to me. I believed it was loaded with possibilities, and only violent possibilities existed in my home. The only hope I had existed in the outside world. If someone liked me I felt I was of value.
All I wanted was to feel secure. To feel wanted. To feel what it's like to love.
WAR
In the l950s a disc jockey named Alan Freed invented and coined the phrase "Rock 'n' Roll." Freed became the scapegoat for payola. He was singled out because other D J's were jealous of him and the attention he got. He was known for having a terrific personality and made stars of up and comers, like Johnny Cash, Elvis, and Patsy Cline (my favorite female singer), and Buddy Holly, who would always be Mr Rock 'n' Roll to me for inventing music techniques and overlaying sounds, production changes, and taking control of his career by becoming the first white group performing at the Apollo Theatre. Freed should have been an historical treasure by putting rock 'n' roll on the map and opening up a new generation for music, but died a penniless man because of people's jealousy. Other people accepted payola for playing records, but Freed paid the price for it. The 1950s also produced big cars, baby boomers, The Berlin Wall, the Cold War, and the continued war of Dad toward Mom. When Dad entered our home and the front door closed, he couldn't care less what his wife or children felt about his behavior. He ignored his children when they cried of anguish and fear, and the neighbors' complaints. It's not the kind of environment where children grow up and believe in love. Respect. Honor. Trust. The cops were at our house so often we should have been honorary guests at the policeman's ball. They came so often they should have charged mileage. But they didn't. Guess they knew how profitable crime was. If it wasn't for crime we would be in a depression. Court personnel, judges, police, lawyers, only earn a living because of crime. You don't want them on the streets. They are bad enough in the courts. Our neighbors invented Neighborhood Watch so they could watch everything we did. When our neighbors wanted to see a realty show on violence, screaming, blood, they didn't need a television. All they had to do was open up their windows facing our home.
My family didn't take care of themselves. Cigar smoking, pot belly and bald, and that was just the women. Fat people are a major source of our economic growth in the world. If it wasn't for fat people, billions of people would be out of work in the health industry. Eat. Eat. Eat. Billboards shout at]; us. Commercials tempt us. Holidays make us feel lonely for family and food is supposed to represent good times. But it also represents heartbreak. Women brought up using food to drown heartbreak, and men brought up to get drunk. Times are changing. Now women get drunk and men get fat. Everything is centered around food and alcohol. We date at restaurants. Prepare meals at home to show off our cooking and to get attention for love. We use food and alcohol to celebrate. Every year I celebrated with friends on July Fourth with a pot luck. Some people take pot lucks real seriously and bring enough food to feed a small country. I'm still on a cholesterol high. Hamburgers. Cheese. Hot dogs. Relish. Sauerkraut. Potato Salad. Breads. Desserts. I had so much gas coming out of my ass I was able to start my car with it, and didn't need vehicle gas for a month. When I got home I put the keys in the door and just rolled myself in. Years later I went to Overeater's Anonymous because of my struggle with food to satiate me, comfort me, calm me. Since I no longer had that much gas entering my body I no longer had it coming out of my body. Though it's real expensive to pay for gas now.
In the Anonymous programs I got in touch with hidden feelings and gained courage to admit out loud my father beat my mother. I rehearsed saying it so often to myself out loud, that finally at an ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) meeting, I unexpectedly stood up and the words poured out. I didn't expect the pain to be so deep and severe, that I doubled up in agony. I had no idea that saying that out loud for me to hear it and feel it, the pain of it paralyzed me because it was coming from the very core of my existence. From the furthest place deep down in my belly. My words sounded so sharp, so penetrating, I thought my insides would tear apart. I felt like I was bleeding internally, as if an artery had been sliced by the words I uttered. I felt a ripping of my soul colliding with my heart under pressure of my brain. It took a year in the Anonymous programs to be able to stand up and finally say my father beat my mother. That one sentence caused so much pain inside of me, was buried so deep into the very core of my being and so severe I thought my heart would burst through my chest. But, in realty, it was the best thing I had ever done for my health. The pain I experienced was actually a healing taking place, and all the suffering and pain I had experienced, was being eliminated. My pain was being pulled out of me because it no longer had a place in me. I recognized it, experienced it, and let it go. I learned to feel my pain and not bury it and to stop pretending it isn't there, and pretend I am fine. I was not fine. I am now. I learned to honor my pain. It was the start of healing. It is not for the weak. It is for the selfish. It is for those who want to live, to be free of blame, shame, fear and guilt. The self that brings you back to you: Self-ish. People blame being selfish is wrong. It is those people who attack you for being it because you are not doing what they want you to do. But Selfish is what you need to be in order to become the You you left behind many years ago. Those who want to live their life in joy and happiness. Who want to heal. To get better. To live a
better life than what they knew. It is for the courageous and brave. It is for You. Long before the Anonymous programs, my young life only knew growing up in a war zone. Mom and Dad were always in combat. I went to a psychologist to deal with the emotional pain inflicted to my body. Hearing the screams in my home were like bullets to my heart. I never had a moment of peace against their attacks. Screams for mercy and help were a daily occurrence. I sought professional help. I was the only one who did. Mom and Dad didn't believe in going to "an outsider" for help. But I knew I would never get help inside. I kept seeing and hearing my parents in mortal combat. Mom being used by Dad as a punching bag. Mom thought Dad was all she had. That she couldn't make it without him. That's how the abusive relationship exists. When the abuser keeps repeating to her that she can't make it without him.
Someone, somewhere had to help me. Someone, somewhere had to know what to do. To be there for me. No wonder I fell in love and got engaged to men who rescued me. I was a sucker for the hero-maiden myth. You know the lie we women hear all our lives. At that time I didn't know it was only a myth. I still believed the lies in the propaganda books designed for girls in fairy tales that my prince will come. I needed desperately for a prince to come to love me. It didn't matter if I didn't love him. His love for me would save the day. Or so I thought. It's a dangerous myth and message to give girls, telling this fairy tale over and over as if it were true. Forcing these lies on young hearts, into their subconscious, so their dream only becomes "being a princess and getting married to their prince" will save the day for them. Females are brought up to believe we need a prince to save the day because we were brought up to believe the lie that females are not equipped to save it ourselves. Females are brought up to be weak. To be dependent. Not venture out too far or they will be called a Bitch. A Cunt. Strong words to describe strong women. I love when someone calls me a Bitch. Cunt. My only reply is: "So." It stops them right in their tracks. There is no where else for them to go because I refuse to defend myself. I will not get crazy over any word. I may not like it, they don't have to be my friend, but I will not allow any word to define who I am in their eyes.
What is wrong with being called a Bitch or Cunt. Capital letters please! It only means someone else is not getting what they want from you and calling you a name because of that. A Bitch or Cunt is a good thing and that's why I capitalized it. Men are brought up to believe they can do anything they want. If they are good-looking enough, successful enough, they can get away with anything. And some women still think that's enough. It isn't. No wonder I was conditioned to believe the hero-maiden myth. I fell for it many times. Whenever I got a flat tire I called my current boyfriend, who would come and save the day. Making calls for rescue became a habit of mine. One day I had no boyfriend to call because I was "between boyfriends," and had to figure it out myself. So guess what? I called road service. I joined the Auto Club. I began counting on me.
FIVE
WHO'S A WHORE?
1951 I was called a strange name in school. I was seven years old. Mom was washing vegetables in the kitchen sink and I asked her what a horse or something like that meant. She knew I understood what a horse meant. As she washed the vegetables she kept asking me to sound out the word. She kept repeating names until she hit the mark. "Was it whore?" she asked. "Yes, that's it" I said. "Who called you whore?" she asked. It was someone at school but I didn't know why. He just shouted the name at me. I didn't answer because I didn't know what it was and I didn't want to seem stupid for not knowing. Mom explained to me it was a woman who went to bed with a man and they weren't married. It was that simple. No yelling. No screaming. She didn't even miss a beat as she washed those vegetables. It was one of the nicest memories of childhood. I could come home and ask questions and there is no hitting or screaming about it and I am not made to feel foolish or stupid. I just wished it could always be like that.
Remember this was the l950's. Now its almost illegal if you didn't go to bed before you were married. So I got my answer. I didn't know why that schoolmate called me that name. I didn't know why people shout names at people they knew nothing about. I knew that even at seven years old. On the one hand Mom and Dad would kick the shit out of me emotionally if I even asked a question they didn't want to hear. On the other hand they were my heroes. Their unpredictable behavior made me crazy, insecure, mistrusting, and nervous. Starting at fourteen years old food would be the only thing I could depend on. That would comfort me.
SIX
FLY WITH DAD
1951 My hero is Margaret Sanger. She pioneered birth control, and thereby gave women power to choose their future of birth control for the first time. The first general purpose electronic computer was dedicated at the Census Bureau in Philadelphia, CBS introduced color television on the Ed Sullivan Show, New York Yankees Joe DiMaggio who was known for beating and abusing Marilyn Monroe, retired with a lifetime batting average of .325 and a total of 36l home runs, fluoridation (a poison) in the water was forced on the public for the first time in an attempt to reduce tooth decay. The dangers of swallowing fluoride, even in small amounts into the body, caused gastric problems and yet the government refused to discontinue, and still refuses to discontinue, it's use. Lacoste tennis shirts with alligator symbol was introduced in US by French manufacturer Izod, Earl Tuper introduced home sales parties to market his plastic containers named Tuperware. New on television: Search For Tomorrow, Love Of Life, Red Skelton Show, I Love Lucy, Edward R. Murrow interviewed celebrities on his TV Show. New products: power steering in automobiles, sugarless chewing gum. The top grossing movie: The Fly. It was one of the most terrifying events in my young life, that at seven years old I went to the movies for the first time. I sat with Dad in the first row. The movie started. And then it happened. Not terror from Dad. But terror on the screen. Chills run up my spine even now, decades later, when I remember seeing The Fly for the first time. Believe me, I tried to sit still. I tried really, really hard not to anger Dad. But I couldn't help it. Brought up in a home of terror, I recognized terror immediately. Even if it was on a screen. The story began with a male doctor, his wife and their young son. This doctor was a scientist. (So far, so good.) In one of his experi-
ments, he transported his body from one machine to another without knowing a fly was inside with him. When he transported his body the fly intermingled with his body. He ended up with a human body, and the head and hand of a fly. (Okay, not so good, but bearable to my young heart.) He needed the fly to transport back again for the man to regain his human parts. When his wife found out what happened they set out to find the fly with the human head. Their search led them into their garden where they spotted the fly with the human head. (My heart started beating so fast, I thought Dad could hear it. The Fly was not the kind of movie I experienced when I went to the movies. Beat. Beat. Beat. Went my heart.) As they approached the fly, a spider moved closer to it. The spider moved closer and closer, and the fly's human head filled the screen, and opened its mouth to scream: "Help me. Please. Help me. Help me. Please help."
My little heart burst. I put my hands to my ears to stop the screams. I didn't care if I was beaten by Dad. I could never, ever stay still and listen to those screams. I was so terrified for the fly, I started crying. Unbelievable chills went up my tiny spine, and I asked Dad to leave. He wanted to see more of the movie. I couldn't stand the screams for help so I insisted on going. I was so scared. He wanted to stay. I was desperate to leave. Without even knowing I was doing it, I suddenly stood up and ran all the way up the isle to the lobby of the theatre. Dad followed me. He didn't want to but he did. It was one of the few times I wasn't afraid of the consequences. Staying in that theater was the worse consequence. If it meant I would be hit for doing it, then so be it. It was the first time I assured my own safety. It was the first time I stepped out of the box my family had created. But, surprise, I wasn't hit. Sure, he was upset, but it wasn't bad. I knew I couldn't do that again. I didn't come from a family who thought kindly of those who took care of themselves. To this day when I see the original "Fly," or the one with Jeff Goldblum, I think of Dad. It was one of the few times in my youth that I didn't care. I needed to run and take care of myself, and I did. The sight of that spider on the fly, with its wings fluttering, and its human head with its eyes, ears and mouth screaming "Help me," I thought I would die from all the pain I felt about it. I knew it was a movie, but I thought it was a movie about a real story. Nowadays no one gets scared unless there's blood. As an adult, I tried to sit through the original movie. I couldn't. It's as terrifying as it was then. It's one of the great movies that stands the test of time.
SEVEN
BEAT UP AT P. S. 144
1952 I was eight years old and going to Public School 144 when a schoolmate hit me in the mouth and I bled. I ran home and cried. Dad asked me to show him the boy and took me by the hand, walked across the street to the boy's tenement, and knocked on his door. He spoke to the parents of the boy. They weren't very nice. Dad confronted them. Dad had me look the boy directly in the eye and warn him not to hurt me again. Talk about humiliation. I was afraid of Dad so I did it. I was scared out of my mind but I did it. I didn't want to go near that boy. I felt humiliated that Dad forced me. Humiliated, he would make it worse for me. I hated Dad for that. Embarrassing me. Humiliating me. In front of the boy and in front of the boy's parents. I even hated that Dad had to do it because it could happen again.
But the boy ended up apologizing to me. Apologized to me? I felt humiliated, embarrassed but extremely proud. My daddy came to help me. I was scared he would blame me but he didn't. The very things that scared me about Dad were the very things I appreciated when Dad talked to this family. As embarrassed and afraid as I was, Dad turned out to also be my hero. He came to my rescue. He was my tormentor but he stopped this tormenting boy by confronting this boy and his family. Everyone knew my parents fought. It was a Brooklyn New York street but it was still a small town neighborhood. No one had ever apologized to me and here my father came to my rescue and the kid apologized to me. I thought I was going crazy. Again. Dad advised me to "Try not to fight but if there is no alternative then protect yourself and make sure you hit the hardest first punch to knock the wind out of your opponent which would probably end the fight."
Was Dad my hero or my monster? Hero? Monster? I wished he'd take a stand. Take a position and stay there. Be my hero and love or a monster and my hate. But no. He would go back and forth between hero and monster all my life. Dad created fear in my little heart, but on this day he planted a seed overcoming my growing fears. Not all fear. He certainly created a lot of fears. Even if it took Dad to teach it, a lesson was taught. You don't run from a bully. Dad was what he was. That was the shame of it. He was violent but he was brave. He also taught me to be brave. He was happy and joke telling but he was angry and demeaning. Not all of him was abusive. Just most. It's the unpredictability that made me scared of men. It's a rare man who makes a woman feel safe. It's a rare man whom I feel safe with. I think the sexiest trait a man could have is when he makes a woman feel safe.
EIGHT
MODERN MOTHERS AND FATHERS ARE THE NEW DRUG PUSHERS FORCING KIDS ON DRUGS
1952 When I was 8 years old Mom took me to a counselor because of problems I had at school. Kids were fighting with me. And I was fighting with them. Of course I had behavior problems. All the behavior I saw was violent. When the adults got angry they hit. That was their first and only impulse. I didn't hit. I just got upset. Maybe if my home wasn't a war zone I wouldn't be so hurt and have to act out. I never understood how Mom could handle getting hit. And so often. Whenever I got into a fight it hurt. I didn't want to fight. I loved school but I had difficulty paying attention. There was too much pain at home for me to care about school. Nowadays Parents, teachers, counselors end up victimizing the kids by giving them Ritalin and label them autistic. It's the parents who need to be drugged. To get calm so they can respect their kids. They hand out labels of autism as if it were true. Parents and doctors are now handing out drugs like Ritalin to kids as if they were candy. If I were a kid now I would probably be labeled autistic. Doctors who know nothing about it, do not have a way to accurately determine by giving a positive test, and yet children are labeled what "doctor's believe" to be a disease because of signs they "imagine" to resemble autism, or any other disease. I would have been given these drugs to calm down from being expressive, questioning, curious. That's the job of the kid, to be all that. Just like a kid should be.
Problem is these mothers and fathers know shit about being parents and rather keep their kids sedated with drugs than allow them to act like kids. I'm not condoning kids being out of control. We've all seen that behavior at restaurants and movie theaters. You see kids running around and screaming and bumping into anyone with no apology from child or parent. That's how some parents raise their kids. That's how these kids will grow up and treat the world. That's why there are more bullies in school than ever before. They are raised by bullies and idiots, taking what they learned at home to school and end up raging against schoolmates and bully these innocent kids because these bullies can not confront the bullies at home.
NINE
IF YOU CAN'T DO THE TIME DON'T DO THE CONCEPTION
It's easy to spread your legs and have a kid. The hard part is preparing not to and to take appropriate measures not to have one. The only thing I wanted and needed was Mom and Dad to act like parents. Every day. For as long as we both shall live. Why would anyone have a child if all they showed that child was hostility, abuse, fear? If they couldn't put in the time, they shouldn't put in the conception. There's a certain kind of moron who forgets what it was like when they were a kid. They say "I never knew it would be like this when I had kids." How the hell did they not know? Are people now living on other planets? It's really the parents who should be forced to take Ritalin. To calm down. To stop bullying their kids.
These morons tell me I don't know anything about having children since I don't have children. When I hear this nonsense it is apparent these people forgot they were children once. They should know better. Particularly the ones whose needs weren't met when they were young and how they felt about that. Dad was a child once. He witnessed beatings in his home. He remembered how he felt. You never forget how you felt when you repeatedly witness your own father beating your own mother. The people that should have been trusted. The people who should have protected the child from harm and not caused terror. Not caused trauma to linger in that child all the days of their life, making it near impossible to have any nurturing relationship without having to go through intensive counseling to recover from all the neglect, abuse, hurt, terror and trauma. You may try to forget it, but you never do. Dad never did. No one ever does. Memories flood your system the rest of your life. Even if you don't remember all of it, the computer in your brain has it all. Behavior you may not know it's origin, comes up and makes itself known. All of a sudden you do something, act upon something, feel something, smell something you may have no idea where it came from. That reaction came from somewhere, deep down, far far away. At another time, you saw it, you felt it, even if you don't remember your brain remembers. Dad knew the legacy he was passing down to his children. He heard Mom's screams. He saw Mom's blood. The neighbors down the block heard the screams even if they didn't see blood, they probably knew blood was involved and present at the time of the screams.
We were all children once. Dad didn't remember seeing it? He didn't remember
seeing the blood he caused? Doesn't want to remember is more like it. If remembered he would have to change. And change isn't easy. We are reluctant to change. I speak to parents who brag about the way their parents raised them but they will not do that with their children and therefore do not guide their children at all and want these kids to "be free to do what they want." That's not parenting. That's having a child, but not wanting to take responsibility for raising that child, for putting in the effort required. That's like eating an entire cake believing you won't gain weight, or having unprotected sex then screaming "Why me?" when you end up pregnant, shouting you don't understand how it happened because you only went to bed with him once. Since I was a child once, I remember what it was like being a child, and remember how horrible, uncompromising, and controlling my parents were. But they were never drug pushers. They took me to a counselor to work through my behavior problems, never admitting they were the cause of those problems. But drugs? Never. Everyone knew no reasonable person would ever give drugs to kids. No wonder kids grow up wanting more drugs. They were raised on them.
When I was taken to a counselor in 1952, I was a scared, angry, hurt little girl. Nothing more, nothing less. Generations pass down violence to each generation, but I was determined it was going to stop with me. My niece is a frightened, hurt, angry little girl. She is not autistic. Her school should have called for a thorough examination of the parents but did not and acted recklessly to label the child. A label she did not deserve. She should have been protected but is now labeled for the rest of her life by a school system that gets away with it and parents who do nothing to insure the safety of their child.
At first glance a lot of people you'd never suspect of wrongdoing can and do fool you. They lead you to believe by their appearance and possessions they are successful and therefore good people. Nothing could be more dangerous thinking. We never know what goes on behind closed doors. We can all look to history when good-looking, successful people fooled the public.
Lesson: Niece probably thought no one cares. She learned to keep the secret of violence in the home. She doesn't know whom she can trust. She was never taught trust. She was taught secrets. Violence. Fear. Anger. Who can she admit that to? She doesn't even want to admit it to herself. She doesn't want to admit she comes from a long line of monsters. It's not like living with Tyrants. It is living with Tyrants. She will grow up either continuing the abuse, or feeling she doesn't deserve anything other than abuse. I know. I came from a violent home.
No wonder kids grow up and need drugs. They believe drugs are their salvation. They use drugs, as I did, to bury the hurt and betrayal, of coming from a family where blood is almost an everyday occurrence. Where if you have a bad day, then someone in your family is going to pay for it. Looking for anything to bury the pain is a lifetime goal. That the ultimate fear is not becoming a drug addict, but frightened over the fact you might run out of the drug you need to bury the pain, because you know you can't go through a day without it.
It becomes impossible to get through a day. Today, drugs are shoved on kids just as they are developing. They were never taught how to deal with their emotions or feelings, because they are given drugs to hush them up. It comes from parents who were never taught how to deal with their own feelings much less the feelings of their children. It's today's mothers and fathers answer to parenting "Here, shut up, take this drug." "Quit asking questions - take this drug." "Before you go to school take this drug." With this lack of parenting society is going to deal with the future drug addict when he/she grows up since they didn't learn how to deal with human feelings, with questions they asked but were never answered, with the attention they craved but never got, with mothers and fathers forcing drugs down their throats. Doctors are drug pushers. They only know the drug by what the salesperson tells them about it. Yet parents give them to their kids? These parents should be arrested for attempted murder.
Drugs are the biggest industry in this country. If people stopped taking drugs our
economy would collapse. Legal or illegal drugs support our economy. People who supply, buy, sell drugs circulate that money back into society's economic growth. If people really wanted to stop drugs, to stop the need for drugs, it's simple. Stop bringing up children who will seek them out to fill the pain inflicted by parents who have ignored them, or hurt them, or emotionally, mentally, or physically abused them. Every word against the child whether to their face or behind their back, breeds pain. But positive words are not enough either. A child could hear so many positive words about them that they grow to believe they are gods gift and can do anything they want because their parents will save them so they will get away with it. Kids have to learn the consequences of behavior. Stop being drug pushers to your kids, forcing them to become addicts. Teach consequences. Consequences matter. It's the difference between a child growing up to be safe and care about the safety of others, and a child who knows nothing about consequences and experiments to his/her death or others.
Everyone is taking some kind of a drug, either by prescription or over the counter. Why? Parents. Betrayal. Disappointment. That's why. I might have a cold next week so I'd better get a drug today. A cold is just an excuse to use a drug to rid our emotions, to sedate us away from life.
ADD. ADHD. VIP. ABC. XYZ. A drug for any cause. Diseases are invented to give kids drugs to quiet them down. To stop them from asking questions. From being inquisitive. Curious. From stopping mothers and fathers from being parents and parenting their children. A kid asks too many questions it's drug time. A kid jumps and plays it's drug time. This is abuse. These disgraceful, abusive mothers and fathers start kids on a path of drugs instead of being a parent and guiding, aiding, helping, encouraging, raising their children with kindness, affection and devotion, and taking the time to answer every one of their kid's questions. If you don't have the time then don't have the kid.
My aunt, Dad's sister, took Valium for years. She couldn't live without it. I recognized a problem when I saw it and asked her about it. She believed Valium was not a drug. She said she got it from a doctor who prescribed it and therefore was not a drug. Since a doctor gave it to her it must be okay. It was not okay. Far from okay. Not even in the ballpark near the neighborhood of okay. She was a drug addict. She was addicted to a drug called Valium. All because she was led to believe when a doctor gave it to her it must be okay? How many doctors must it take to realize it is not okay. It was not okay for Elvis Presley, for Michael Jackson, for Keith Ledger, and scores of people we've heard of, or not heard of. I'm told some schools even demand children take certain drugs before they come to class. Stop being the drug dealer to your kids. Teaching it's okay to drug your body. It's okay to use drugs at any sign of a cold. It's amazing people have children but refuse to take responsibility for the behavior of that child. You don't even need a prescription to get high. I had a cold last month and couldn't get rid of it. No matter what I did, it lingered on every single night for weeks. I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and headed for the drug store. Stores that actually advertise where to buy drugs. I walked up and down the "medicine?" isle looking at all the drugs. I had no idea how many drugs you could buy without a prescription. I got dizzy just looking at all the selections. I finally settled on NyQuil. I came home and lucky I was standing next to my bed when I took it because as soon as I drank it I fell onto the mattress and didn't see daylight for 24 hours. I was knocked out so quickly I felt drunk. No wonder. When I felt better I read the label - 30% alcohol. No wonder it comes in a shot glass. One drink from that and you'd need AA to recover. But Ritalin? Parents call it Autistic. Schools call it autistic. Doctors call it autistic. It's big business. Without any test, and based on a guess. Kids who are Autistic need to be respected. I am sure some are autistic. But autism is based on a guess by a doctor who has no clue other than symptoms. When kids stop feeling pressure to do or be what they are not at the moment, they withdraw, go inside themselves, just as I did most of my life until I found people outside my family who allowed me to develop in my own time. Symptoms most of us had when we grew up years ago. Symptoms I had and friends had who came from a violent upbringing, or parents that did not know how to guide us, support us, encourage us for the individuals we were. Everyone has individual needs. This is not to blame the parents. The parents are doing what the doctors instruct. Parents need to find other solutions other than handing out drugs like candy as doctors do when they are at a loss in every disease. I am not a doctor but have experienced many doctors supplying drugs to myself and others in order to quiet us down, just as they do in adult communities. That started my research into how many drugs are unnecessary. Just like the dangers of Statin, and doctors still, negligently, hand that out when the dangerous side effects outweigh the malady. But according to statistics, almost every child nowadays is labeled autistic. My niece was labeled autistic by a doctor because she acted out, she couldn't concentrate, she couldn't sit still, she was moody, withdrawn, depressed. Of course she is, look at her upbringing. She is not autistic but now she is labeled that for life, when in fact, she is an angry, hurt little girl surrounded by violent family members. No wonder she acts out. It's the people around her who should be on Ritalin. I've noticed the parents who introduce animals into the home bring out the inner child of the parents, and their child. The person who withdrew is now challenged by an animal who searches for affection. Doctors are drug dealers. Drugs are big business. I only report what I've learned, and for you not to rely on information by one doctor, and I share this in my hope to help wherever I can to whomever I can. In the spirit of my niece and all the others who are misdiagnosed.
Anyone could be a mother and father. All you have to do is look around and see how horrible these people treat their kids. But. To be a parent, now that takes devotion, patience, personal time and understanding. Too bad you don't need a license to have children the way you do to get married. You need a license to have a dog. The growing population treats their animals with more respect and adoration than they do any human. We live in an excuse making, quick fix society. An excuse for anything. There is a pill for everything. A doctor for everything. There's a doctor for every hole in your body. If you have a problem and there is no hole, there is a doctor who will drill one for you. We make our society. It says a lot about us. No disrespect intended to the people who do have autism but it's reckless and dangerous to label people who can't communicate what they feel because they're hurting and frightened, for whatever reason. Not everyone is cheery or happy and able to communicate. It's a learned process that takes time. Nowadays a lot of teachers, counselors, principals, workers at schools across America tell students how to get their doctor to prescribe a prescription for drugs. Drugs to make you depressed, to calm down, study, focus. Pressure on kids never to make a mistake. Pressure from their parents to make them proud. Feeling pressure never to disappoint their mothers and fathers for fear of losing their love. Drugs to stimulant then depress then stimulate. Drugs like Provisal, Ritalin. Drugs allegedly used for autism when they are no accurate tests, or A.D.D. because children are excited and adventurous. Drugs to keep you up so you can study so you can get approval so you can get love, but end up creating such trauma in your body you are unable to sleep, unable to control your outlook and mental status, ending up questioning your role in life.
Kids and the elderly have a lot in common. The same way kids are given drugs to
shut them up, is the same method people past 70 are given drugs to quiet them down in their assisted living residences. When the facilities were investigated it was revealed drugs were given to residents who should never have received them but drugged residents made it easier for worker's to cope with their jobs. Elder abuse. It's no different at any age.
As Mom grew older she kept telling everyone she could act and do whatever she liked. She was so mean, she could have been a nun. She felt her age had given her permission to act out. Her behavior proved that. Drugs warn they produce hostility,
depression, diarrhea, heart loss. Hell, Mom had these symptoms when she didn't take a single pill. There is a war on drugs. We lost. Now it's time to get over it and move on. There wasn't a day I didn't pay for how she was brought up. For how Dad treated her. I not only hurt because of Dad and the way he treated Mom, but I felt guilty and responsible for the life she had as a child. I had to enter the Anonymous programs to realize my responsibility in enabling Dad/Mom to treat me with abuse. All my life I felt sorry for her. Guilty how she was treated even though I had nothing to do with it. Repeatedly I ignored her behavior because of that guilt. All that changed when I entered the Anonymous programs. The next time she tried that I told her I was sorry for the way she was brought up. I was sorry for the way she was treated by my father. I was sorry her life didn't turn out the way she would have liked, but I was not going to allow her to abuse me. Yes, she can do and say what she wanted. No one can change anyone. All anyone can do is look for a change in oneself. I told Mom I agreed she had the right to do and say what she liked but I had the right not to put up with it. I had the right not to have her in my life.
Lesson: Yes, she can act out all she wants. She can do whatever she wants. She can exhibit all kinds of abusive behavior if she wants. But. As she has a choice, so do I. So.. No. She doesn't get to do that with me. Not in my life. Not on my time.
TEN
IT'S MY DREAM I HUNGER FOR AND NOT FOOD
I envy people who take drugs. Innocent of their lives going to shit. It doesn't matter what people do to them, what people say to them, they are so drugged they don't react or feel the pain. If more people used drugs the world would be a happier place. I know. I tried them for years. I thought I was a hell of a lot happier. My life went to shit. I had no motivation except to escape realty. Drugs, food took away my pain. I used anything I could so I didn't have to feel. When a feeling came up I panicked. I wanted to be numb. People in the Anonymous meetings spoke of things I never had the courage to even think. I felt like Alice dropping down the hole into a brand new world of discovery only to discover myself. My life is a hell of a lot better without drugs but now I see the morons, and realize how overcrowded the world is with morons. I used to be suicidal, now I'm feeling homicidal.
We have hunger. We're brought up to believe it's for food. Our hunger has nothing to do with food. Or drugs. Or alcohol. Or gambling. Or sex. It's not about being hungry. It's having a hunger, a need, to be filled. To fulfill that dream, that desire, for that something or someone that's special to us, but we don't believe we can get. Don't believe we deserve to get so we take it out on food. Our favorite substance is easier to get than our dream. My favorite was food. Food would...