The List

Since my run with R, my head has been swimming. She said that I needed to list the offenses, so that I could move beyond them. I have a feeling that this is going to be a really long and ongoing list. And, I'm not sure how to move beyond them. In fact, I'm not even sure how to write them. But, here goes.

1. My father hitting me with the belt, up until the time I left home at 18. I was going to write "over the smallest thing", but as a mother, I can't fathom anything that could have warranted being hit with a belt. C exasperates me but the thought of hitting him in anger and/or with a belt? It makes me want to vomit.
2. The one time, in particular, when he hit me with the belt and chased me up the stairs. After barricading my door with my dresser, he broke through the door and continued to hit me as I tried to climb under the bed.
3. The other memorable time where he kept hitting me in the study, as I told him that I was not afraid of him and to hit me if it made him feel like a man. This is the only time that I remember my mother stepping in to stop the violence.
4. Raising me in fear of the belt. Backtalk was handled with the belt. Disobeying was handled with the belt. Getting angry about a situation was handled with the belt.
5. The fact that my mother never protected me, though she swears that she did. If she had, then the violence should have stopped. I think she was in fear that it would be turned on her.
6. Speaking of, I remember when I had stitches in my knee and my parents were fighting over something. My father grabbed my mother by the neck and cornered her in between the sink & butcher block. I punched him in the arm and pushed him, telling him to get off of her. He kicked me in the knee with the stitches.
7. The horrible way that he treated me when we went on the vacation to Virginia (15 years old?) and I had bronchitis. I couldn't stop coughing, which pissed him off. Then, when I would take the cough medicine, it would make me vomit. (I later found out that codeine makes me vomit and this was why) He swore that I was throwing up for attention (because everyone likes to puke, right?) We were in the hotel room, I started coughing and realized that I was going to throw up, so I jumped up and ran to the bathroom. As I came out, my brother saw me and asked me if I had just thrown up. Petrified, I asked him not to tell Dad. He heard the conversation and threw a shoe at me from across the room, which hit the wall and put a hole in the hotel room wall.
8. The incident with the black eye from my mother. I left in the late morning on the day before my junior year of high school to go to lunch with friends and didn't call all day. I came home by curfew at 10:00 pm and my parents were worried sick and angry about it. I caught a teenage attitude because I was home in time and was still in trouble, not understanding their concern from not checking in. We verbally argued and my mother jumped up and came after me. I stood up to defend myself, my father stood in between us. My mother reached over him and punched me in the face. I fell back in the chair and my father pushed my mother back across the room. As soon as she was sitting, I got up and looked at my eye in the bathroom. It was already purple within those short minutes and swollen shut. I went to the fridge, got ice and sat back down. My mother sneered that I was a faker and wanted to see my eye. I lowered the ice and she began to bawl that she was so sorry and crawled across the room to me. I didn't even know what I was supposed to do with that. We then had to sit and discuss the lie that I was going to tell about my eye. I was humiliated at starting my junior year with a black eye from my mother, and supposed to tell a lie that I walked into a door. I told a close friend and she went to my principal. I was called into the office, asked to tell the story (and had to tell the lie). My parents were called into the school and they, too, told the lie. Because it was more than 20 years ago and they didn't do the research that they do now, it was let go. To this day, my mother has convinced herself that she caught me with her ring (when she wore no rings on her right hand) and that I just bruise easily.
9. The withholding of love as a punishment. When they were angry with me, they wouldn't talk to me for days other than things like, "Pick up your backpack" or "We're taking your brother to soccer". I remember my 17th birthday like it happened yesterday. They wanted to have a family dinner. I wanted to go with a friend to the dance marathon. I was allowed to go, but was punished for it by returning home to silence. There was a card and a present on the counter for me when I walked in the door. They did not get up from the living room. I opened the present and it was a camera. I thanked them for the present and my mother looked up from her magazine and said, "Well, you're spending so much time with your friends, we figured that you'd want to take pictures of them." That was it for a birthday acknowledgment of my 17th.
10. The time I was caught sneaking alcohol out of the house for a birthday party. They decided to "teach me a lesson" by making me drink to get drunk and sick. The three of us sat at the table and they goaded me in between the times that they would tell me when to take a drink. After two drinks like this (an old fashioned and a gin and tonic), my father said sing-songy, "Let's see. I think I'll make you a manhattan now." He placed it in front of me and told me to take a drink. I was already tired of the dysfunctional punishment and downed the drink in one gulp. As I put the drink down, my father backhanded me across the face. I laughed because the entire thing was insane. They then sent me to my room. I was 17.
11. After I was sent to my room, they came barging in about 20 minutes later and "tossed" my room as if I was a jail prisoner. I'm not sure what they were looking for, since I had already given them the alcohol. My mother found my diary. She stood there and read parts of it out loud, mocking me. I stood there in silence. She then confiscated it for a week. When she gave it back, she apologized that she never should have taken it or read it. Not sure how that was supposed to change anything. I never wrote it my diary again. I wasn't going to take a chance that she would look for it and read it.
12. I was dating a guy who was bad news at the end of my senior year. He lived 30 minutes away. I had never been allowed to get my license, though my parents will swear that I showed no interest. In reality, they took me out for one lesson. If I had no interest, I suppose that I wouldn't have gotten it on my own two weeks after I left home. How did I leave home? Because I had no license, I got stranded at my boyfriend's house when his father had to work late. I called to tell my father that I had no way to get home. He scoffed, "Have fun." and hung up on me. When I finally got a ride home the next day, my parents gave me an ultimatum to break up with him or to get out by noon in two days. I was a teenager, so I just couldn't imagine breaking up with him. Besides, home wasn't exactly a pleasant place to be and I tried to be away from it as much as possible. On the day that I was supposed to be out, I asked if I could stay until 3:00, when I could get a ride. My mother said no. So, I had to walk on the highway. After 2 miles in, I was asked if I needed a ride. I accepted it and, fortunately, arrived unscathed. I still struggle with the fact that, due to my parents' mentality of "tough love", I could be dead because of my naivety.
13. I don't remember particular arguments, but my mother's mo was to slap across the face and yank my hair by the scalp. This, of course, came back into play in the argument on Thanksgiving 2008 when she didn't like that I confronted her about kicking both of her kids out of the house and she ran after me and grabbed my entire head of hair... at 38 years old.

That's all I'm going to write for now.