Minor Stories

I am a male, going to be 30 in a few months.

So my main stories:

1) I grew up in a Conservative, fundamentalist Christian home. My mom was dealing with the revelation that my dad was cheating on her since their marriage (10-15 years). My dad couldn't connect with his children, and I was the worst one to connect with due to my disdain for sports. He can only connect with us via sports or math. He loves his kids, but that is easy. It's harder to actually show love. My mom showed us love, but she also showed us hatred. I was the only kid of hers that was homeschooled up until highschool. All the other kids never did homeschooling or had gaps. I was taught creationism, Jesus is best, and general cirriculum. My mom likes to tell people how I thought if I did something wrong on my paper, I would say it's all bad. She conveniently leaves out how she's a perfectionist and demanded excellence from all her children. Why wouldn't I think that? Oh, and if I couldn't comprehend something, a good strategy of hers was to scream in my face and scream at me to think. That was where I learned to disassociate.

2) Getting into the teen years, I became worried about many things. For one, I was worried that I wasn't a Christian because I saw all my friends speaking in tongues, dancing and all that crap. And they all talked about how God would talk to them, or the Spirit would talk to them. I felt nothing. Nada. I didn't hear a single voice or felt a single movement. This tormented me, especially since I found out when I was in the 8th grade that I was a Satanist after looking them up and what they believe in. I repressed it and hid it because I didn't want to admit I agreed with the "bad guys" more than God. Instead I would read the bible and take a cerebral approach, to the dismay of my parents and older teachers. They said I was wrong in my interpretations. My mom would just flat out say I'm wrong. My pastors would tell me I'm wrong. I was just wrong, all the time. So pretty much at that point it was solidified that I was dumb so I may as well learn as much as possible so I can just pass my tests so I can get a degree because I am so dumb that I won't get ahead in life.

3) My mom took away my music around the same time my parents almost got a divorce because my dad was still cheating on my mom, even after her finding out more than ten years ago that he is a cheater. It was Christian music, and she took it away because it was music she didn't like. It was metal and rock, primarily from Tooth and Nail Records and Solid State records.She said it was making me disobedient and rebellious, which made my friends laugh since I was the most opposite of rebel they could think of. I can't really blame her for taking my music away though. If it wasn't for her taking away my music I would not have found Nine Inch Nails, Tool, A Perfect Circle, Primus, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Slipknot...basically the music my mom thought I was already listening to. To this day, my parents are still married.

4) I can't seem to keep friends. I only have a good friend or a close couple of friends for about 1-2 years, and then, poof, gone. I am quite untrusting of people, mainly cause friends tend to backstab, and I had plenty of it in my teen years. Plenty of people telling me one thing only to find out something else. When I have a friend, I expect them to leave me or backstab me soon. I will not tell my friends this, but it's in my head that, at some point, eventually, my friends will betray me or leave me because of distance or whatever other possible reason. I really don't value friendships as most people do, I was treated as expendable, so I only open up enough to where we have a friendship, but don't expect me to take a bullet for you.

5) I cannot remember much of my childhood. I especially cannot remember interactions with my mom's family. She grew up in a house with 8 other siblings, my mom being the 3rd oldest. My mom was treated like a total waste of space by her family, and in turn, we were treated like that by some level. Apparently, my cousins would beat me up and torture me, and I don't remember this. My grandpa would apparently say horrible things to me and my older brother but I have no memory of these things happening. I don't doubt they didn't happen, I just cannot remember.

That's it for now. I have been diagnosed with PTSD several months ago, but my therapist believes I have C-PTSD but it's not a diagnosis in the DSM-V, and PTSD is like, the only mental illness that qualifies for medical marijuana in Illinois, and it truly is the only medicine that has actually treated me fully. No lie, it's a conundrum for me to say this stuff in these forums because everyone else seems to have intense trauma and suffering, and compared to others, I feel like I don't have much if anything to complain about, especially since I can't remember some of the events. I can only talk about them because my mom finally told me when we were at one of her family functions that I was forced to go to because my wife wouldn't stop pestering me and apparently 200 No's wasn't enough of a clue for her.

That's it. I'm done. Thanks for reading this essay.