Definitions at the bottom of the page and are color-coded
I remember why I wanted to leave now.
Oh my gosh, the family drama! We look like a pretty normal family on the outside. Minus my dad being pretty much a ghost. More on that later...
My sister has Celiac disease
*. Which means she can't eat gluten. Which is in
everything. Having Celiac, which actually isn't a disease but an autoimmune deficiency
*, means that she has a bunch of other health problems. Among those problems is anemia
*. So she has cold hands a lot. Plus she's a 17 year old girl. Cue hormonal drama, I know because I just passed that stage.
In our messed up family, where ignoring someone is a good form of problem-solving, repressing feelings is normal. I'm the only one who's blunt enough to talk about everything and I get shushed because my behavior is "inappropriate". Okay maybe I'm not the most delicate person but at least I want to address things. My family used to "lovingly" call me the bull-in-a-china-shop when it came to emotional things.. I'll admit, when it comes to discussing feelings I charge head on. I hate avoiding things; makes me feel weighed down.
Back to my sister... She gets all stressed about things and doesn't talk about what's bothering and she just gets more and more snappy until all I want to do is scream. I mean really, yelling at a nine-month old baby for laughing and smiling at you to cheer you up? Telling her to stop laughing at you because it's not funny? And then when I go to defend my baby and explain my mom steps in and yells at me for that. I understand that my sister is upset but Chickie doesn't understand and she was just trying to make her happy. There was no malice in her laughter and babbling, it was innocent.
Next there's my brother, the formerly sweet kid. He is now, for lack of a better word, a douche. I love my brother, I do. Just his sarcastic, cutting comments about my decisions and his assumptions on how I feel about my child are inappropriate and rude. But God forbid I stand up for myself! I'm told to just keep quiet. My brother has zero respect for me and all I've been is polite and respectful.
I've been home almost a year and I can't believe I thought it was a good idea to come back. To put my child in a house full of disrespect and shouting and rudeness. There is no love here, no kindness. There's just selfish, disrespectful, cruel people.
My mom...... let's not even go there. I love her to pieces but I just can't even begin with... I can't. My mom doesn't stand up for her own children to her husband. If my dad says no then she doesn't do anything.
My dad. My lovely father. He's sick okay. Let's just get that out there. My dad is mentally ill. He hasn't been diagnosed because he insists there's nothing wrong with him and that he's perfectly normal. But he's not. My dad hasn't slept in the same bed as my mom for ten years. I know that because my room is in the basement and I slept there until I left and now I sleep in my mom's bed because it's big enough to co-sleep with the baby. Ten years.... And it's not because my mom kicked him out of the bed.. He took over our playroom/game room with all his garbage. And I'm not saying that to be mean, I literally mean it's full of garbage. Like empty wrappers and chip bags and broken bits of wood and plastic bags and tools and other bits of junk. He keeps the curtains on the windows closed and he lives down there. He only comes upstairs for food. If he's not going to work then he won't shower or change his clothes. The bathroom he uses in the basement is molding and falling in.. But apparently he's fine. You can't try to talk to him because he gets offended and angry and reacts in a completely disproportionate way to the situation. It took him a month to get the safety gate up at the top of the stairs.. I couldn't do it myself because it took some customizing and I can't use his power tools. My Chickie almost fell down the stairs and I had to flip out before he made any progress and it still took him a whole week before it was finished.
And then there's me..... I feel like the only normal one but I'm not. I'm a diagnosed sociopath
* and agoraphobic
*. But I'm more normal than the rest of my family. My sister is a diagnosed extreme codependent
*, my mother suffers from battered-woman syndrome (psychological abuse)
* and my brother I don't even know. But I'm the normal one. I can function in the real world... Well as long as I'm not having an agoraphobia swing (complete with anxiety attacks) or an extreme sociopath attack.
I guess I should define all these lovely medical terms aha...
Okay
So...
*Celiac disease: a disease in which the small intestine is hypersensitive to gluten, leading to difficulty in digesting food
*Autoimmune deficiency: a disease in which the body produces antibodies that attack its own tissues, leading to the deterioration and in some cases to the destruction of such tissues
*Anemia: a condition marked by a deficiency of red blood cells or of hemoglobin in the blood, resulting in pallor and weariness
*Sociopath: a person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience
*Agoraphobic: a type of anxiety disorder in which you fear and often avoid places or situations that might cause you to panic and make you feel trapped, helpless or embarrassed
*Codependent: a psychological condition or relationship in which a person is controlled or manipulated by another with a pathological condition (as an addiction to alcohol or heroin), broadly: dependence on the needs of or control by another (we're using the broad term here: dependence on the control of another)
*Battered-woman syndrome: the set of symptoms, injuries, and signs of mistreatment seen in a woman who has been repeatedly abused by a spouse, partner, or relative
