I’ve tried for years and years to get over some of the really bad things that have happened to me. And everyone has had bad things. There are probably 5 million people who have had worse things happen to them. So, I get it, but all that really means is all of those people deserve a chance to talk about it, not stop people if their story isn’t bad enough. It’s clearly already bad enough.
I was watching Brooklyn 99 and they stuck in a trigger. A speech about how the character’s parents abandoned her when she made a mistake and that all she really wanted was for them to hug her and tell her it’s okay and they loved her. Instead she was kicked out of their home and uncared for.
Needless to say, it was like hearing my own truth. My experience was not like the character’s, but the results were the same painful and unbelievably real as mine.
“You’re a disgrace to the concept of family…And I’ll stand up and scream if the mourning remains quiet, you can deck out a lie in a suite but I won’t buy it. I won’t join in the procession that’s speaking their piece using five-dollar words while praising his integrity, and just cause he’s gone it doesn’t change the fact he was a bastard in life this a bastard in death.”- Death Cab
So here is what makes my brain hurt—why did they do horrible things to me? If you asked my father right now if he would die to save my life, I’m 99% sure he would say yes. Well that’s very weird considering years ago you sat me down at the kitchen table, then currently suicidal, and told me in no certain terms that you would not help me. Nor would you ever give me money (I have never asked for in my life and was hanging on to life by a thread at the time). I had wanted to stab myself in the heart but was too motionless on my bedroom floor from depression, I couldn’t. Then I was sent back to school having my rent and food money taken away. I spent a few months working at Subway to pay for those things as well as therapy from the wellness center where a grad-student was my therapist.
“They say you’re sick and there’s a name and a phrase, to apply and help explain, still having trouble trying to separate, how you started a new family.”- Honorary Title
As a child I was told I was hated, have my head smashed through a wall, have my skull crushed, killed…indeed I was spanked and none of the other things…but a 5 year old will remain scared of the threats for many years, maybe even 30. So now it’s been years of me putting on a face and going to that same house for dinners, holidays, to help explain technology. But I do it because I’m scared to hurt their feelings? Wow, that is weird. Very weird.
“Your mother said, your mother said, like I couldn’t hear her she said, get the fuck away from me, why don’t you ever shut up? Get the fuck away from me. Well I just want to say that it happened, and one day when you ask yourself did it really happen? You won’t believe it but yes it did, and I’m sorry. They won’t believe you when you tell them my mother she did not love me…some days you’ll feel like a cartoon, and people will rush to make excuses for you…but don’t you ever shut up please kid have your say…”- Neko Case
“You have no idea how it feels to be on your own, in your own home, with the fucking phone and the mother of gloom in your bedroom standing over your head…I will not pretend I will not put on a smile I will not say I’m alright for you when all I wanted was to be good…oh I wish I was born a man, so I could learn how to stand, up for myself…oh you bloody mother fucking asshole.”- Martha Wainwright
