Just sitting here looking back.

I have been listening to some really good songs on YouTube that I used to listed to and loved very much as a child. As I sit here and listed to them it makes me think about what my mind was like back then and how I felt. It feels a lot how I am feeling right now, pitted in my stomach and down. I remember now being depressed when I was young, feeling alone and unnoticed. I am sitting here thinking about little things, things that today I feel are kind of stupid but back then really meant a whole lot to me and really hurt.

One of the biggest that comes to mind is the court picnic where the kids would put on shows for everyone. I remember telling everyone I wanted to sing also and in fact mother saying that she would make sure I was aloud to sing. Well I never got that chance, I remember sitting in the middle of the field on a stool just sitting there singing to myself feeling very hurt. I know when I was finished singing I went into the house and went to my room. I know I spent a lot of time in my room when I was home. I never really sat around the house like in the living room with the family. I remember I spent a lot of my time listening to my record player to a lot of the very songs that I was just listening to like Beth by Kiss, Objects look closer then they look by Meatloaf. Songs now that as I listen to them are by their own accounts are very depressing. It makes me wonder if as a child I was depressed almost as much as I am now or was this the period where I started to become depressed and feeling alone. I also remember this is about the time I can remember looking back that I started to withdrawal from the world.

There was a lot of rejection by my parents because they spent a lot of time with friends and neighbors. We would always be sent to our rooms with a bowl of snacks and not allowed out for any reason. I understand that this was time for my parents but on the same token it was also being locked away. There were so many times growing up where I felt alone, almost cast aside by family and friends around the court. I was never taken seriously for any reason and I remember always if I said something it was like “okay now go away”. I often noticed that this was not really the case with other kids in the court. My parents always seemed to treat others better then how I was treated. I believe now that this is one reason that clinging to my brother and his friends when they came around helped with the sexual abuse because I was being recognized as a person. I know it sounds crazy and this is one part of me that has a problem with feeling abused and where I seem to have wanted it. I was almost drawn into it by his desire to be satisfied and my desire to be someone. This is something that I carried all the way up to the death of both my parents, acceptance.

Acceptance was something that I was never really given by my parents and even into my forties I did things to try and obtain this knowing deep inside that I would never get this. I remember that my mother would tell me when she was growing up, her parents had a “Children should be seen not heard” attitude and that we should be lucky however I don’t remember why we should have been lucky. Many times we would go places such as polish events, CB events, and other events and I can vividly remember see my self sitting off in a corner table away from my parents. I never really was a part and as I sit here and think about it I can see now that the way I was treated as an adult and did not understand I was treated as a child. I remember when we went places I seemed to be the one who always lagged behind, kind of walking slower then the rest of the family. I never really walked with them, I never really felt apart of them and this goes way back to NJ where I was at least under 12 years old.

I remember feeling lost in my mentality like I walked the whole neighborhood asking people if I could pick up trash in their yard for 25 cents. I never got anyone to say yes and I walked the whole place. You know, not even my parents would say yes. Kind of like, if you start a business family comes and supports you and buys from you just because. I remember feeling so down and withdrawn from this and having my father laugh at me when I returned with no money. I remember them sitting on the front porch with my parents and their friends and all them laughing, or more chuckling at my attempt to make some money. I guess looking back now I never got any support from my parents like my brother and sister got. My biggest thing I owned was my record player where in the same room shared by my brother he had a drum set, big ham radio set and his own stereo. We both had a bed and dresser and looking at how I was treated in the will when my mother passed away and what was left for me, nothing.

I think now that as a child, I may have allowed the sexual abuse to happen because my need for attention no matter what it was. I really did not have the friends like everyone had and the one real friend I had really was like me, not liked by everyone or anyone. People picked on him all the time and I became friends with him because I felt so alone as well. This may also contribute to my need to explain myself, which is my inner child looking for a friend or acknowledgment from someone older or more powerful then I am. This could also contribute to why I was fondled by two other people and don’t really bring them up a whole lot. In fact, the only real thing I bring up and the one thing that seems to bother me was the rape when I was fifteen. I think it was because I had said no and it still happened. I don't remember what I had said prior except the one time I was trying to stop my sister from being abused. I think this could contribute to a lot of my depression because my inner child is now letting me know that this all really happened and almost putting into some context of how things came about. It was more a survive type of life I lived created by my parents, used by others and kept quiet by me, hidden all these years until the volcano in February released in a fury of memories and feelings. Until Next Time...