Pretty sure my parents hated spending money on me. Like, at all.
How else can you explain how sullen and cranky my father was whenever he had to take me shopping for a winter coat or boots or whatnot?
At the time, I just lumped it in with his general crankiness, but looking back, he wasn’t like that when we did the grocery shopping together. He wasn’t like that when I kept him company on the drive to Charlottetown to get new tires. He wasn’t like that those times I went to work with him.
He was only like that when he had to actually spend money on me.
And it’s not like I ever asked him for anything. God forbid. These were the completely predictable minimum expenses for raising a child on PEI.
It’s not my fault I was unplanned. But they never wanted to add me to the budget.They treated every time they had to spend money on me at the store or the dentist or whatever like I was personally attacking their pocketbooks.
And kids pick up on that kind of shit. It goes deep, and becomes part of who they are.
And they made it clear that I was not included in the family. I was not part of anyone’s plans. They just wanted to pretend I had never been born.
And I tried to disappear, thinking it would please them, or at least save me from always feeling like they didn’t want me and could reject me at any second.
Yes, I really did feel that way back then. It’s why I was anxious all the time. I wanted so badly to be loved and accepted and I tried my best to be easy to deal with and fun to be around, but most of the time I felt like I was barely being tolerated.
Most kids get raised by their parents.
Mine just let me stay. And only if I did my best to never remind them of my existence.
It’s not my fault I was a mistake. An oopsie. I didn’t decide to be born.
And I sure as hell did not deserve to be treated like yesterday’s dirt just for being alive at a time that was inconvenient to them.
Decent, human parents would have reacted to my arrival by shrugging and saying “I guess the money gets split four ways instead of three now. We will make do. “
But they never did that. They kept their previous budget and acted like a single penny spent on me was like pulling teeth.
Through their nose.
No wonder I have such a low self-worth despite my gifts.
And then there was their making me do my own clothes shopping from the time I entered school, or thereabouts. So from the age of 7 or 8.
And they didn’t even go out of pocket to do it. They just handed me the money from the monthly baby bonus check and then promptly forget all about me.
Clearly, they could not wait to shuck even the very minimal level of responsibility for their worthless and unwanted child.
And I mean….who the fuck does that? Makes a kid who isn’t even in the double digit age range yet do their own clothes shopping?
It’s monstrous. It’s inhuman. It’s insane.
It’s also neglect.
The ultimate (well, until college) betrayal was when our family dentist. Doctor McLeod, told my parents in no uncertain terms – as in, he made a Kirk level impassioned plea that did not spare the gruesome details – that I needed extensive dental work or I would have serious health complications later in life that might even kill me.
And in response, my dear sweet sainted mother, Snow White herself, who swears I am wanted (now), said “Well we can’t afford that!”
So they just…. didn’t. I never got the dental work done.
Again, who the fuck does that? Who gets told that their kid needs potentially life saving dental work and says “Nah, he’s honestly not worth that much to me. “
Sure it would have been hard to find the money. But normal families would find a way to do it. They would not decide that it was too much of a hassle and an expense to save their child’s life.
Had it been any of my three siblings,they wouldn’t have hesitated. I know…. because I was there when it happened. Whatever they needed to be healthy, they got.
But not me. I got next to nothing, and what I got, I got through gritted teeth. From the day I was born, the message was clear :
You never should have been born.
You never should have existed.
You deserve absolutely nothing.
You are worth a lot less than nothing.
And everyone wishes you would just go away and die so they didn’t ever have to think about me or spend one thin red dime on me ever again.
And you know what?
All they would have had to do is ask.
More after the break.
Talked about all that stuff above the line with my therapist today.
It was a pretty good session, mostly because I really got the emotions flowing and so I covered a whole lot of my bad stuff over the space of the session.
Liked I have been saying recently. sometimes I have to get the bad stuff out.
And I think that, now that I am working on letting my emotions guide me through “feeling my way” through my problems, I am more capable than ever of deliberately aiming for whatever will give me the biggest emotional release.
Into the darkness outside of reason I go
Hunting for things I feel but don’t know
Closing my eyes. Endure and persist
My guide is a sense that barely exists
Searching for demons. Hoping to cease them
Knowing they’ll disappear when I finally release them
Or something like that.
Point is, I am actively searching for blocks of unprocessed pain so I can express it and reduce my emotional burden. Melt some of the ice off my heart.
So things might get kind of dark here. Sorry.
But it truly does me a lot of good.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.