What makes us who we are part 3

I am now about 9 years old. At this point I was an extremely nervous child. My parents were constantly arguing and shouting at each other. My sisters, especially the older one, was always emotionally torturing me. We often ended up fighting.

My mother decided we needed to see our family doctor. We were supposed to talk about what was going on with us.  Each time we left the doctor’s office, my mother was getting angrier at us. We started to notice that during my mother’s ranting she was giving us grief about what was spoken to the doctor during the session. One day my sisters and I decided to test the doctor to see if he was revealing our conversations to our Mother. During the following session I complain about something to see if he was going to reveal our conversations to our Mother. After the session was finished we had to wait in the waiting room while my mother would have a quick one on one with him. Well God’s be hold, by the time we went to the car the ride back home was a full-blown ranting about what I said to him.
At that point we decided to not say anything to him. We didn’t trust him at all, we felt betrayed.

That same doctor decided to put me on a medication called Dipiperon. I had to take 10 drops a day. The meds were so bitter it was awful. I had to take it for the next 3 years. It made me so mellow.  A couple of years ago while I was Skyping my sister, I checked online to see exactly it was for. To my horror this medicine is used for schizophrenic individual who have extreme violent psychotic episodes. One of the side effects is brain damage. When I was done reading this I started to laugh, almost hysterically because I couldn’t believe in the 70’s a doctor would prescribe this on a child, knowing I wasn’t schizophrenic, neither did I have ADHD. The worst part is the side effects, I could have been brain damaged! Well like the mantras says what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

A few years later, my father decided to change jobs. He had a good job but somehow, he decided he wanted to have his own business. Starting his own business added more stress on my mother. At that point things were only getting worst. She had to learn to do bookkeeping. Since I loved to do new things I took over the bookkeeping and I was about 13 years old. I do recall that some of his employees double checked everything since I was the one doing it. To their surprise they found out I was indeed doing it correctly and in a timely manner. At least I learned a new skill set. I wasn’t getting paid to do that, but it was a good learning experience for me.

As the relationship between my parents was degrading so was our home life. It was so negative that on December 23 the “Little One”; the “Little One” is the nickname I gave to one of my sisters, who is one year older than me. The nickname came about one day because of her height she is about 5’4” and I am 5’9″.
Back to that infamous December 23. My sister took a bottle of Valium and swallowed about 10 pills. We shared the same bedroom, her bed was next to mine. She was starting to get delirious from the pills, talking to me, saying goodbye to me. At one point we were holding hands. I had no idea she took those pills. By the next morning she didn’t get up. I do not recall how my mother found out she tried to kill herself, but she did. My father took my sister off her bed. beat the crap out of her than made her walk around the truck all day long. As I was watching in horror the entire situation unfolding with my sister. I felt so bad watching her from inside of the house spending her day walking around the truck. I would always remember what my mother said that day. “She ruined Christmas” Nothing was done after that to help her. It was indeed a horrible Christmas.

One year my father decided to stop making the mortgage payments on our house. His reason, “he wanted to stick it to the bankers”. As can be expected in a situation like this, he defaulted on the mortgage and the house where I grew up went into foreclosure. I remembered I was not even a week from my exams, we needed to disassemble the furniture to move it out of our house. The “Little One”, who was an apprentice at that time decided to not help. I was by myself trying to study, at the same time I had to take the furniture apart. We were able to move the furniture into one of my aunt’s home. I barely passed that exam. My father at that point had 3 aneurysms, and after his convalescence, to top it all, he left us.

During his convalescence he meet a nurse. I recalled on day I went to visit him, we were playing chess. A nurse was coming towards us, as she approached my sixth sensory intuitiveness kicked in. I knew they were involved, I dismissed that thought thinking I was wrong. Unfortunately, I found out later I was correct the first time, they were having an affair. My Father, this nurse, another jab to my heart. I felt, this time it would be a full war between my parents. How much more can I endure?

The people my mother called friends turned their backs on us. The main reason was my father, he was an extremely bright individual but on the flip side he was a bonafide liar. He could make you believed anything he wanted. After he left us he told everyone my mother “kicked him out of the house” it was a lie.

Years later people that turned their backs on my mother realized my father lied to them. Some came to make amends to my mother. One thing I have learned there is always two sides to every story and somewhere in the middle is the truth.

My mother had to deal with everything on her own at this point.
When he asked for the divorce, we told my mother it was about time. She should have left him a long time ago. She was shocked by what we said, she agreed, but felt that she had to stay with him to try to keep us together. We replied to her that by doing this she was doing the exact opposite. She should have left him a long time before and maybe, we could have avoided all we had gone through.

The few years afterward was a war between my parents. My mother was bitter about how my father acted toward us. I got cut in a middle of that war.

The most traumatic event was the loss of my childhood home. We had no idea where we were going to live.
I felt at that point I was being ripped apart, I was scared and lost. That house was my anchor, my refuge and my sanctuary, I only knew that house. The day the house was auctioned by the court, we went to the auction, sitting in the back watching quietly while people were bidding on it. The price that it sold for, covered all the debts we had. It was a blessing, at least we didn’t owe anything to the bank they got their money back.

As we transitioned to our new displaced lives, my mother rented an apartment for the “little one” and me. While she was living somewhere else. We were going to school continuing to do the best that we could. My mother could barely make ends meet. One year we had to steal food to eat. She wasn’t making enough money to pay the bills and buy food.

Through these horrific times I learned to go beyond what I was living but keeping faith that everything was going be alright one way or another. I had faith I was being watched over. I was after all a survivor. At a young age we learned to count only on ourselves.

I had kept faith that I would leave that life that wasn’t mine. I had no idea how, but I knew I would, I could feel it deep in my soul