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inversenova · 4 years

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Tales from the Cyrpt (3)

Growing up with Bob as a father was...difficult, to say the least. Having served in Vietnam, Bob was exposed to Agent Orange, not to mention the wide variety of traumas that accompany military action. As far as I know, Bob was in the air force; he does not often speak about his time in the military (at least, not to me; I have overheard a number of conversations between Bob and Soren, my ex-boyfriend still best-friend wherein Bob detailed some of his memories and time serving in the war). From what little I have been able to gather, Bob continues to struggle with memories of dropping bombs on civilians and targets and basically anyone and everyone the military told him to drop bombs on. Knowing this now as an adult, it is easy to see the effects that these traumas have had on him, not to mention the child abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother.

My grandma, his mother, was not a kind woman, even to my brother and I as children, and my memories of her are few and far between, intermixed with confusing instances of her watching us while my parents were gone. I still have strange memories of us being left in her care one evening while my parents went out gambling in Las Vegas, only to have her lock us in the bathroom, paranoid and raving about someone coming to get us. She was a thoroughly unpleasant woman who left a thoroughly unpleasant mark on Bob. I can only guess as to what she put Bob through based on how she treated my brother when he was sent there over the summers. I’m unsure why he was the only one sent; perhaps it was because, over time, she grew to care deeply for him in the twisted way she cared for people, Bob included, while my fear of her (and her intense dislike of me) only expanded over time to the point where the last time I saw her was when I was younger than 10 and, now, she is dead. My brother returned from his trips with a wild combination of stories. On at least some levels he seemed to enjoy being there, despite their lack of anything I would consider fun to do, and at least once he was returned home to us covered in bug bites with the explanation being that he “fell” into an anthill. Nevertheless, I was never upset not to be invited along on these yearly escapades. The grandparents that I was close to, and the grandmother I remain close to, are on my mother’s side.

Bob’s approach to child-rearing lay with the “spare the rod” mentality and I learned very quickly to avoid anything that upset him, no matter the apparent triviality of the action. Mostly I accomplished this by staying in my room, leaving the safety of its’ confined only when Bob was not around or if my mother was there. I tip-toed through the house, holding my breath when I thought he might be around, and generally did whatever I could to stay hidden. I feel that my need to shelter in place only grew when we moved to Texas or, at least, I do not have as strong of a memory of being as terrified to leave my room as I was after we moved. The move to Texas came shortly after my mom’s affair, although both of my parents point only to the rapidly increasing levels of debt that they were gathering that soon the business Bob owned could not compete with the monthly payments on the home in California.

Our time in California was, and is, a little difficult to pin down. I remember living in several houses in quick succession and, knowing that Bob is a perfectionist who will sit on the phone and speak to customer service regarding the TV he just purchased until he somehow manages to get a free set out of the conversation, this does not surprise me. Eventually we settled in a beautiful home where my brother and I had rooms that, if you were to hang a curtain, could have been two rooms. We shared a bathroom, which was...horrendous, as my brother’s level of cleanliness never compared to my own and although I’m uncertain if I have OCD, I know that things MUST be done in a certain way and he somehow managed to do them all in the exact wrong way, whether it was cleaning or decorating or even brushing his teeth. His side of the bathroom was like a science experiment, his sink filled with bowls and (at one point) urine that he sprayed with body spray in an attempt to hide the smell. When made the decision to move and had to spotlessly clean the home, I remember the horror that was the bathroom and the fury that was Bob as he screamed at us for losing the toilet paper roll dispenser and told us what terrible children we were for being so messy.

We lived in that home for several years; I’m fairly certain I went through 5th grade in that home but absolutely certain that we lived there during the years of junior high and half of freshman year of high school (which was when we moved to Texas). My time in California remains special to me, despite the trouble and pain of being there. Hopefully I will be able to talk more about some of the friends I made there, and some of the trouble I went through with school. But for now, I want to end this with one final, painful memory I started this post wanting to talk about.

As I have mentioned, Bob’s idea of child rearing often referred back to the “spare the rod” mentality. It did not take long for me to learn that being spanked was not something I liked, especially when we were told to find a switch or when Bob threatened to get the belt. I remember being swatted with a bare hand once or twice, and switched at least twice and that was enough for me to have a healthy, solid fear of Bob and his idea of punishment. I have always been physically sensitive; it does not take much to make me cry or incapacitate me (especially now with the Mystery Spot), and so these short instances remained burned in my memory, rearing up to remind me of the consequences should I choose to disobey. Aaron and I were often threatened with soap in the mouth if we talked back or used foul language and though I never experienced this myself, I remember at least twice walking past the room where my brother and parents were as they held him down, screaming and crying, to force different types of soap into his mouth. Secondhand pain worked well enough for me, and continues to do so now even as an adult.

I’m unsure of what trespass Aaron was guilty of one sunny day in our beautiful California home in the suburbs, although there is no possible thing Aaron could have done to have warranted his punishment that day (as well as others later on), but I think it was probably the first time, and definitely the last time, that I had tried to stop it. I was led out of the house, my mother holding my hand in an effort to guide me outside both as a comfort and as a statement: Not only was there nothing I could do to stop this, but she would not stop it either. Bob took off his belt, the favorite of his punishment tools, and I started to cry and scream, begging for him to stop, to leave Aaron alone, to not hurt him. I’m sure he must have told him to get me out of there because the next thing I knew I was sitting on the front porch step with my mother as she wrapped her arm around me, rocking us both, while my brother screamed and the sounds of a belt making contact with flesh echoed out through closed doors and over the sound of my own wailing. I’m unsure how long the event lasted, although it couldn’t have been more than five or ten minutes at most, but it felt like eons, my mother and I huddled together on the porch, her softly crying and me sobbing and having what I would guess now was a panic attack while Bob beat my brother.

I had never before felt so helpless. I’d never tried to stop Bob before, and sadly, I never did again. I regret that. I regret not doing more. I regret not somehow freeing myself from my mother and bursting through the door and rescuing him. And while it may not be entirely correct, I feel like there was a part of Aaron that may have blamed me too. Although he was my half-brother, both of us sharing a mother, I feel like when we moved from California it broke what bonds we may have tried to create. We were violent towards each other, Aaron and I, but when the violence comes from the person meant to protect you it is unsurprising that it is perpetuated amongst those who receive it. I will deal more with this, the fear I also held for Aaron, later.

For now, it is enough to reflect on my regret. I understand, because I have been told by people who are far wiser than me, that it was not my duty to protect my brother. It was not my responsibility to keep him somewhere safe, and it was not my duty to be a parent to my mother. It was not my fault that Bob hit his child enough that Sam, my biological father, warned my mother to keep Bob’s hands off of me, serving in whatever capacity he was able to as a distanced protector. And it was not my fault that Aaron begged my mother for Sam to be his father, too.

#TW: child abuse #TW: physical punishment #TW: violence #TW: trauma #I haven't cried this hard in a while #I hope that this will help down the path of healing #Tales from the Cyrpt

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inversenova · 4 years

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Tales from the Cyrpt (2)

It is unsurprising that, when recalling memories of my past, the memories filled with the most unease, the most fear, and the most helplessness are the ones I remember most vividly. Although I am only just beginning my foray into the study of traumatic memories, I know enough from my very recent time in school that this is a relatively normal experience for those who experienced trauma, whether as a child or as an adult. Perhaps the hardest part of all of this, even just the idea of cataloguing and sharing my experiences seems...silly? Pointless? Was my childhood really that bad? There are others, people even that I know, who have been through events similar to my own, and even more who have gone through worse things, harder things, and yet they appear to have processed their traumas more effectively, more wholly, than I have. It is something that I continue to struggle with, these feelings that “It wasn’t THAT bad” or “There are people who are living in war zones and who don’t have any food to eat and here you are complaining because of bullshit!”

Despite these feelings, at the very least I know that I need to get these things OUT, even if they turn out to be “not that bad.”

It has been years since I’ve needed to recall anything and, as such, I find it difficult to remember if my parents fought often amongst themselves. Eventually, perhaps when I’ve worked on processing these things a little more, I’ll be able to speak to my mom about some of it, if only to try and clear up a little bit of the fog, although even she may struggle with remembering some of it. I say that because last year she commented on how, when I was in high school, she was worried I might have an eating disorder. I asked her why she had thought that, and she recalled that I used to worry about every bite of food, every sip of soda, that I would ingest to the point where she worried I might be anorexic. This came as a shock to me and resulted in confusion; I have no recollection of acting in this manner and, when I asked Leigh, a friend I was close with in high school if this sounded familiar to her, my friend Leigh was equally confused, as she did not remember this at all. I wonder, now, if my mother confused my fear of existing in the kitchen or around the rest of the family as me being “peckish” about my food? I used to have a large Ziploc bag with dry ramen and other canned foods that I would take from the pantry at night or when my parents weren’t around (at least, when we moved to Texas I did). What I do remember, however, was how much my mother HATED Bob.

Bob had always been possessive and over bearing towards my mother; I see it more now, as an adult, than I did when we were kids. My hatred of Bob came from the things he did to Aaron and me and the vitriolic, often infuriated, words from my mother who would often confide in me as one would a friend, despite me being her child and often too young to fully understand what was happening. I loved my mother fiercely and tried to be as protective of her as I could, even when all I could do was listen to her tell me what Bob was like and try to make her feel better. As an adult and interacting with a Bob who fought in Vietnam and who has been to, and continues to go to, therapy on a weekly basis I am able to gather more about what he was like when I was younger. My mother has always been, and probably always will be, the most important person in his life. He tries, now, to engage with me and be more open and welcoming when I am around, but even now I find it difficult to get alone time with my mother or to interact with him without her there as a “buffer.”

When we lived in California, Bob worried constantly about my mother cheating on him. He would stalk her, dragging me and my friend or my brother to sit in the van parked outside of where she worked (once she found a job outside of their joint business), where we would sit for hours upon hours so that he could watch the entrance and see if she went straight to her car or not. My mother, a strong woman who, much like myself, did not like to be blamed for things she was not doing, and who had not been cheating on him when she started her new job, eventually did, although I’m unsure of where she met the man she had an affair with. She told me, once she was in the thick of it, that she hadn’t even truly felt anything for the man, but that she’d been so tired of being accused of cheating that she decided that if she was going to be accused of it she may as well do it. I can recall, with a twisting sensation in my stomach, how she described her final meeting with him when he “asked to make love with her one more time” and how he cried or teared up and how...derisive my mom seemed about it all. Her words were contemptuous and she seemed to be making fun of him, but this was likely sometime in junior high and I was the opposite of knowledgeable about sex and love and so her words just confused me.

I’m not entirely sure how long her affair lasted, or when it really began, but I remember the man. I remember how kind he was, how generous and giving towards me and (I think?) my brother. I remember that he found out I was obsessed with Legolas from The Lord of the Rings films and promptly bought and framed a photo of him as a gift to me. I spent at least one weekend or one evening having a sleepover with this two daughters, both of whom were sweet and took to me quickly, playing with me even though we had never met before. This was significant to me, as I’d already begun having trouble with bullies, something that would get worse until my trouble with them peaked in junior high. I also remember strange things about the man and her affair, like that he once drove up to my grandparents house when my mother and I were visiting them so that he could see her, and I think he may have come to the hotel room on the night Bob found out about him; I remember all three of us curled up on a bed while he whispered encouraging and thoughtful things to my mother while we cried. Of course, this may have just been my imagination because my mother had supposedly ended things with him shortly before Bob found out.

The night that Bob found out has haunted me for a long time. My timeline is still off but I feel that this happened at some point during my time in junior high but I’m unsure of what year. I am also aware that all of this happened in the same day, but the order in which it happened is fuzzy at best. The screaming began before sundown, perhaps a couple hours of sunlight were left at most. Doors were slammed and I could tell that, while my parents had had blowouts before, this was something...new, something different. Mostly I knew this because, hours and hours before, sometime in the early afternoon, my father found out. I’m not entirely sure how, whether he’d done his own detective work or if someone else had told him

When he found out, Bob stumbled through the house, wailing and sobbing, louder and more emotional than I had ever seen him before in my life. Crying was not something men did, as far I had learned and been taught and told, and so to see my father in that state set me and my brother off quickly. To this day, I struggle with seeing men be openly emotional, not because “only GIRLS cry!” or anything so pedantic, but because the only time I ever saw a man cry was in my childhood and it was...bad. I only remember feeling fear, although I’m sure I cried, but I can remember my brother, Aaron, two and a half years younger than me, quickly caught up in Bob’s breakdown and sobbing along with him although he didn’t quite understand what was happening. At some point during this, Bob curled up in his closet in the master bedroom, holding a gun and cradling Aaron to him, inconsolable and unreachable no matter how much I screamed or cried for him to stop. Eventually, I found the phone number for some of the other employees that he had working in their store who I knew my dad felt close to and called them. I know that they must have come, and maybe even they took us all away so we could all collectively try and calm down, but I have no memory of anything else in that day until my mother came home that evening. This was when the screaming, as mentioned above, really started.

Knowing that whatever was going to happen was going to be bad, and I mean BAD, I quickly gathered my brother and our dog (a beautiful German Shepard mix), threw some snacks and water into a small backpack, and set out, leaving behind the fight that was only just beginning. This, of course, was before cell phones were common place and I certainly didn’t have one until high school, after we had moved to Texas. While it may have made more sense for me to have called for help as I’d done before, I don’t remember if that thought ever crossed my mind. At the time, I only remember knowing with absolute certainty that I didn’t want to be there, and that I didn’t want my brother or our dog to be there either. I don’t remember having a destination in mind, but eventually we found our way to a parking lot a couple blocks from my school where some construction company had started to dig a large pit for some reason. I set my brother and the dog free at the pit and watched them, chewing on my lip and pulling out my eyebrows and eyelashes, until the sun had gone down and what meager food and water supplies I had grabbed were gone. Nobody had come looking for us, or at least nobody had found us yet, but knowing that there was nothing else I could do, no one else I could turn to in that moment (stranger danger was always a worry and none of my friends lived within walking distance of my house or where we were at the time), I knew we had to go home.

We returned to our house amidst a few departing police cars and it did not take long for my mother to scoop me up and drive us to a motel. She left Aaron, I think because Bob would not let her take him (although at the time I was upset and did not want to leave him or the dog behind), and I still feel anger over that decision. How could she leave him there? Surely she’d known of the frightening display earlier that very day where Bob had held a gun so close to Aaron’s face? Didn’t she love Aaron?

She explained in the car that we couldn’t take Aaron for the aforementioned Bob reasons but that continues to not sit right with me, even years later. She went on to say that, yes, Bob had found out about the other man. When he had, and when she’d come home, he’d screamed and screamed and screamed and demanded that she tell him who the man was. Before that, however, Bob had tossed our rooms, both Aaron’s and mine, where he found a small cream my mother had given me that was supposed to encourage breast growth (I’d been super small, skinny, slim and without any curves or breasts which had caused a wide variety of bullying which I’ll talk about later), and he’d freaked out, thinking she’d given me some kind of “sex thing.” I’m not sure if he ever found out who the other man was, or that I had been as involved with him as I had been, but at some point my mother had locked herself in the guest bedroom and Bob had taken an electric drill to the door, destroying the lock to get inside. At the time I’d never really been worried that he would hurt her, which I think was why I’d mostly been concerned with getting us out. I’d never seen him hit my mother but I’d seen him hit my brother enough to be more scared for Aaron than for my mom. Eventually, at some point during their fight, Bob had called the police and tried to “turn her in” for the small amount of weed that she’d had stored. One way or another the cops had come out and left without arresting or citing anyone for anything, although my mother was furious that the dogs had been set loose in their bedroom where both the dogs and officers went through her clothing and tossed the room, leaving everything disheveled and some things broken in the mess. I remember going to the motel, and then little else beyond the other man maybe coming over to comfort my mother.

Unlike other things I’ll write about, I did not feel that this was my fault, or that I could have stopped it. Yes, I’d known that what my mother was doing was inherently wrong but... I had felt that this other man might grow to love me and, if he had, maybe he could be my father instead. Among the array of gifts he’d given me, the other man also found out that I loved to write and he’d purchased a small, faux-leather bound journal... Not once, even now, has Bob ever expressed such an interest in my hobbies or what I love. My mother tries, and usually she’s pretty aware, but the subtle encouragement that came with the gift of a notebook was something else entirely, something new and sweet and something I hadn’t even realized I’d been missing until I’d experienced it.

I still sometimes remember the sound of Bob’s wailing, his heart-wrenching cries of despair in our beautiful California home, and I shudder and clench my teeth and wait for the sound and all that it is connected to, to pass.

#TW: Trauma #TW: gun mention #TW: violence #jesus that was hard #and we've only just begun

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inversenova · 4 years

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Personal Log 7.15.20

I got back from my visit with the sleep doctor feeling...less than positive about the experience. The doctor was a nice enough man, but he took one look at my current set of prescriptions and seemed skeptical, to say the least, that narcolepsy was to blame. The only reason I had said or thought narcolepsy in the first place was after my primary care, clearly worried over the results of my sleep study, told me I needed to meet with this sleep doctor. But almost $200 dollars and a short visit later and I can still feel his eyebrow raising in disinterest.

Obviously I have done a bit of research myself into narcolepsy, as I know someone close to me who has the condition (aka, Excessive Daytime Sleepiness). What I’ve found suggests to me that this may be something I have and have struggled with; the nap attacks, especially while driving or in the middle of the day or...right after breakfast in particular struck a chord with me. The fact that my mother has also struggled with sleeping poorly and napping constantly. And even the weird and disturbing instances where I thought maybe I was having an extremely lucid dream or something could, possibly, be hallucinations. It’s been some time since I’ve had one, but I used to be certain, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that a spider was descending from my vent onto my face or pillow; this would cause me to leap forth from bed and bolt to my light, only to reveal a clean pillow and empty bed. I’ve also seen things that may once have been spiders, but were now too bulbous and in possession of too many legs, crawling into my room over the top of my door jamb.

I didn’t even bring those up to the doctor because I felt....like I was wasting his time? I worry consistently that I’m showing signs of being a hypochondriac and, to be sure, I fear death and disease in a way that is unhealthy. However.... this exhaustion, this never feeling awake... it feels debilitating sometimes. Everything is so cyclical; is the depression causing the extreme exhaustion or is the exhaustion exacerbating the depression? Am I dissociating because of stress or am I so tired that nothing feels real? This visit has me doubting everything and I’m left feeling somewhat adrift.

Despite the lackluster appointment, where the doctor said it was very likely that it was the anxiety or depression or the meds I take for them that was causing the sleepiness, I will be receiving a call to participate in a narcolepsy study (which he explained is like the opposite of a sleep study where the goal is to stay awake). Hopefully the at home sleep study I did will work for the insurance....if not, I’ll have to do a study in the sleep lab and I shudder to think of how much that will cost. It’s all so frustrating; is it so much to want to feel and be normal? He even went so far as to suggest that my ADHD could just be because I’m not sleeping well. I didn’t say anything but I felt, somehow, humiliated and furious and so upset. My psychological disorders, the GAD and depression and ADHD, are apart of who I am and while I could see how they might affect my ability to feel rested, it seems excessive to blame lack of sleep on my “hyperactivity”, as he suggested. I may have a degree in psychology but I am by no means a therapist; it’s very possible that he’s right, he is a doctor after all. But it doesn’t FEEL right.

I’d like to start trying to stop taking so many medications. I’m going to try first to stop the birth control; I started it nearly 15 years ago because of bad periods but now that I’m starting to see hair loss I’m going to try getting off of it and see if my skin explodes and my periods get bad again. I’ve got an appointment to see a new gynecologist in about a month so that will give my body time (I hope, based off of what I’ve been reading) to try and get back to where its normal is. Honestly, though, if this new sleep study guys says I need to stop everything and work my way back I’ll... do what I have to. I don’t like the idea of not having my antidepressants, but I’m about at the end of my ropes when it comes to being tired all the time. The only thing that helps, especially at work, is the Adderall, which I know has an issue with tolerance and addictions. I feel like I’m starting to experience the tolerance already; the amount per dose isn’t quite waking me up or helping me to focus like it did when I first started taking it, so I would be MORE than happy to try what my friend has suggested he takes for his narcolepsy....assuming I have that.

Honestly, today just felt...like a waste. I have a few more hours before I have to go into work so I might...watch a movie or something until then. I’m...really sad right now. Mostly frustrated but...sad. Hopefully I’ll hear a call about the narcolepsy study soon and I can at least finish out that possible path. Is it...is it really so weird to have so many issues? Is it impossible that I could have anxiety and depression and ADHD and maybe PTSD AND narcolepsy??? Personally, I think that if I do have narcolepsy that would be a huge aspect of the depression; it’s hard to not be depressed when you’re tired all the time.

#personal log second entry #personal log #sleep doctor first visit #narcolepsy???#am I making it up????#why does it feel like people think I make everything up?#I don't want to be tired anymore

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inversenova · 4 years

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Personal Log 7-9-20

This account will also be used for brief diary like interludes where I can talk about things that are upsetting or difficult or stressful or whatever. Anyone I speak about will also have their names changed.

I have an appointment with my primary care doctor tomorrow do discuss the sleep study that I completed a couple of weeks back. I’m worried that he may tell me that the study was corrupted or something because I did something wrong...but I’m also worried he will tell me that nothing was found...and I’m worried he will tell me that something WAS found. My issues with sleep and exhaustion have become worse over the last several months and I feel like a frayed rope, coming apart no matter how many times I desperately try and twist the pieces back together. I napped today for roughly 2 hours because I was so tired after I woke up that I couldn’t keep my eyes open; when I did wake up, it took all of my strength to get me out of bed again. I’ve tried napping on the couch and while that usually will wake me up after an hour or so it’s just to turn over because my hips hurt when I sleep on it.

I’m so tired all the time. The only time I feel vaguely awake or energetic is when I take my ADHD medication, which doesn’t completely solve the problem but it helps me get through the day. I only want to use it when I have several things planned for the day (like errands, driving, or multiple tasks I need done) or when I work, which overall still seems like it’s too much. I don’t like needing to rely on something else to make me feel awake and alert, but honestly I’m at my wits end. Since it isn’t my thyroid, according to the doctor, then I fear I have something like chronic fatigue syndrome or something along those lines. I don’t know what it feels like to wake up from bed feeling refreshed or ready to go. The best way I can describe it is like.....a constant fog? I don’t feel lost or disoriented as a lot of mental fogs are often described as, it’s more like.... a fog of exhaustion? Even with the ADHD medication I still feel that tiredness, hovering in the background and waiting for the stimulant to wear off so it can seep back in.

I feel, too, like it’s starting to affect my mood or....perhaps the mood is affecting my sleep? It’s hard to tell. I’m feeling more sad lately, frustrated when I end up wasting a chunk of my day just sleeping. Bob suggested that it was because I had been pushing myself so hard from school (which I graduated from in May), but that doesn’t seem quite right? If only because I feel like I should have at least balanced out somewhat since then; I took two months away from work both in an effort to quarantine and self-isolate but also as a way of relaxing and taking time for myself. I watched so many shows and just enjoyed myself...but I also took so, so many naps. I dunno. I may end up doing a follow up post tomorrow after I see the doctor; maybe he will have some suggestions for me? My boss worries that me being on the ADHD meds may leave me feeling...addicted if I’m not careful, so I’m also going to bring that up. I feel...physically exhausted and also mentally exhausted at this point; I keep trying to do research to help myself and I end up overwhelmed and confused and frustrated when I’m told that the reason I’m sick all the time is because my diet is bad. Not to say that isn’t true, but it is SO HARD to eat better. I feel nauseous sometimes if I try to eat things that I’m not comfortable with and I struggle eating healthy a lot of the time so I know that could be true but... how do I fix that? It’s like I have a toddler living inside of me who says, oh no we will NOT eat this salad and we CERTAINLY will not prepare any dishes you had better make another burrito.

In any case, I must prepare for work now.

#personal log first entry #personal log #diary #entry one #why is sleep so frustrating

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inversenova · 4 years

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Tales from the Cyrpt (I)

A long time ago (or what feels like a long time ago), I read Stephen King’s “On Writing”, a memoir he published that details both his experiences with writing and advice for aspiring writers. He said something that has always stuck with me; King compared his past, and the memory of it, to a patchwork quilt, with certain memories standing out in stark contrast and vivid detail and others fuzzy or not remembered at all. This is, perhaps, the most apt way I can think of in describing my memories of the past. Something to keep in mind here is that many of the things I will write about will be as I can best remember them, as I have shied away from getting the “truth” from my mother and step-father (with whom the majority of my time was spent with and who I will refer to in here as my father or “Bob”, while my biological father I will call my bio dad). My mother will be mom or “Sandra”, and my brother will be referred to as “Aaron”. As I move forward, any possible trigger warnings with TW followed by what I am warning about.

Timelines are difficult to nail down and details of memories slip and slide through them, changing, distorting, becoming lucid and then fuzzy from one moment to the next. I’ve heard tale that this is the trauma, that childhood trouble disturbs the memory. As such, each entry will be numbered from when I write them but they may be out of order with regards to the age at which they occurred. What’s more important, is my attempt to recall and transcribe what I can as I remember it.

So... let’s begin.

I was born in Southern California, where I lived until roughly halfway through freshman year of high school when we moved to middle of nowhere Texas, a decision it was explained to me later that was based on the crippling debt and house payments my parents could no longer afford. At the time, I believed it to be a “fresh start” for my parents who had run into some.....trouble. My brother, two and a half years younger than me, had an even harder time with the move than I did. My life in California was fraught with a jumble of extreme and excessive badness and the positivity that I think many adults try to pull from their childhoods. My mother and bio dad were separated (I am unsure if they were officially married) when I was roughly a year old and sometime in my toddlerhood my mom remarried my step-father, Bob, with whom they had my brother, Aaron.

Aaron and I...did not get along well. As children we were relatively close, united in our hatred against Bob and the love of my mom (whose hatred of Bob seeped into our psyches early), but Aaron was...violent and frightening, difficult for me to be comfortable around. I remember often being chided and told to be nicer, to share my toys and my time with him, despite knowing or feeling that Aaron would break my toys or ruin my things if I did. Sure, he was fine sharing, but I was careful with his belongings in much the same way he was not careful with me or mine. We fought like cats and dogs more often than not, and to say that he scared me, even as a child, is an understatement. His violent outbursts and inability to learn from his actions, to grasp the consequences of his choices, made him volatile and difficult for me to feel comfortable around. Fear was, perhaps, the defining feature and the most encompassing emotion and sensation that I have of my childhood and throughout my years as an adolescent.

All of this was, of course, exacerbated by Bob.

#Tales from the Cyrpt part one #I have so so so much more to say but I don't want to write anymore right now #I don't think there are any TWs here #I'm so anxious and scared for work tomorrow #I don't think I have the patience for more tonight though

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