My "stoic" upbringing

My "stoic" upbringing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism

Well thats what my parents called it anyway. A "stoic" upbringing apparently was the thing to do back in those days.

No feelings, no affection, and if you did something wrong the punishments were severe.

My parents who were alcholics treated us as nothing more then bar tenders and house keepers. Frequently sending us to get them "refills" and to toss the old cans/bottles out and to get them new ones and you better make sure you open the new ones for them too.

As the alcohol flowed the abuse from my father got much much worse. I have vivid memories of him first destroying all my brothers records all over the house. and then him jumping up and down on my brother's leg during one of his fits. This was the only time I ever saw my mother step in to stop him cause "she didnt want to take him to the hospital".

My brothers used to say I was lucky cause I was the only girl and he didnt seem to hit me as much. For a while they were right.

When school started I used to be the first one home from school and I would sometimes find that my father was also home and drinking. Since no one was around, and I was the first one home I was his first target to vent any of his frustrations after work. There were several times I would come home and he would just start beating the crap out of me. Many times with me shouting to him "why why why what did i do" usually he had no answer and would tell me to shut up.

One day after being his punching bag for the afternoon I snuck out of the house to get away for a bit. I came across one my neigbors (also my godfather as luck will have it) who was standing in his dog pen yelling at his dog. Curious I stopped to see what was going on and with horror I watched as he started to kick and beat this dog up. Picking him up a few times and throwing him against the dog house.

When he was done he just looked at me and said "damn dog" and went into the house. I went into the dog pen and hugged the poor thing and made sure it was alright. It was shivering and weakly wagging its tail at me. I had a good long cry then. As I left i whispered to the dog... "i know what you are going through".

After a while I went back home and from then on I leared to go "numb" whenever my father turned his rage on me. I would be scared when he turned it towards my brothers or when he and my mother had their nasty arguments.

To this day I still have that abilty to go numb. I dont cry for myself. I do however have lots of empathy for others and I will cry for others even complete strangers.

I don't truely wish for others to be worried about me or say "oh my gosh how horrible for you". I feel like the "stoic" upbringing has made me who I am today. I dont feel sorry for myself, I dont dwell on it cause I know I had to move past it, almost as if it never even happened. Cause if I let it back in I feel it will crush me.

Time for movin on.

Storm Front

As I sit here in NJ and wait for the reminants of the hurricane to hit us, I noticed havent written in a while, been kinda busy with summer events and whatnot. The most recent was a trip to GA to see my brother.

I traveled down to GA by car and offered to bring my mother along since with her being so old and having such bad eyesite, unless my father gets off his butt and brings her down she would have never seen the place.

My brother and I spent alot of time getting her to talk about the old days and us growing up. My childhood, as many of you who have seen my myspace blog know, was not all rosie and peachy so this was a very touchy subject.

I'll probably spend a bit of time exploring it here in the next few blogs. First I'll post what I have already posted on myspace then take it from there. It seems as tho we have opened pandora's box.