What part does my Mother play in this? (Part 1)

What part does my Mother play in this? (Part 1)

My Mother does play and important role in my story…although not the SAME role that has been experienced by many others.

My Mother was born into extremely poor circumstances…to an alcoholic Father (who was, by accounts, a giant of a man with a brutal tongue in his youth). He, and his brothers were known, collectively, as the “terror of Calhoun County”. Her Mother made attempts to leave him at one point but ended up returning and becoming pregnant again. She died, in childbirth, when my Mother was 8 years old. She deeply loved her Mother and FEARED her Father and at 8…had to face life in this situation without her Mother’s support. The baby was quickly adopted away. He was verbally and emotionally abusive to my Mother…constantly downgrading her and telling her she was substandard. He was emotionally and verbally (and possibly physically) abusive to HER Mother who was a sweet and gentle woman who did not fight back.

Luckily for my Mother, he soon remarried to a Woman who was only 10 years her senior. This is the only “Grandma” I ever knew. She was ALSO a sweet, kind, giving, Godly woman…but was possessed of a temper and a modicum of self-worth. My Mother spoke of how well she was treated by her step-mother and how she defended her when necessary. I have heard stories, all my life, of her tenacity. Once, my Grandfather got drunk and locked her out of the house. Her reaction was to go to the tool shed, obtain an axe, and proceed to chop down the door!

She did not leave him but she stood her ground as needed!

My Mother grew into a beautiful young woman with no self-esteem. She briefly married a sailor at a very young age and that marriage, although brief (less than a year I think) resulted in the birth of my oldest sister. After that she married my Father, who she always said was the “Love of her life”.

My Father had been an abused child and lived in a home full of every manner of abuse possible….physical, emotional, mental, sexual and spiritual. His parents were, by all accounts, mentally ill and terribly abusive. He was a WW2 vet and was in EVERY major campaign in the Pacific theatre…including Pearl Harbor and Midway. My Mother also stated he was an “Alamo Scout”. They were a group of highly covert men who specialized in sneaking behind enemy lines to carry out “operations”…often assassinations. This was never able to be confirmed because my Fathers ENTIRE military record was “destroyed by a fire” according to the military (when I requested said records). He returned with stories of brainwashing by the military and methods of abuse designed to create a killing machine out of this 5-6, slight man. However it happened, whether you choose to believe it was an act of the government or not…that is EXACTLY what he became.

He was “held” after discharge and kept confined for quite a while…he stated…because the military KNEW he would be a danger to the public and they were trying to “de-program” him. When he returned, he displayed many signs of PTSD (even though that diagnosis did NOT exist at the time) and they had diagnosed him with Paranoid Schizophrenia. I heard stories of him having to be PHYSICALLY restrained because he once attempted to KILL a man for scuffing his shoe while walking down the street.

This marriage produced 8 additional children. I am the youngest, by far, the oldest being 18 when I was born and the youngest, next to me, 7.

Whatever the reason…the childhood abuse, the military, genetics or a combination…he WAS a dangerous man when he returned and suffered from DANGEROUS delusions. He lived, for many years, in a world in his own mind, with its own rules and a hell for him….not to mention a hell for my Mother and Siblings. The abuses of his youth were revisited upon my family to every degree.

Times were different then and welfare was nearly non-existent. He was not able to work so my Mother always worked 2-3 jobs in order to feed her children. He, eventually, moved into a shack on the top of a mountain and wrote poetry. In his poetry you can hear his torment and suffering. Unlike the N’s he KNEW he was not behaving appropriately but was UNABLE to control himself. In one poem he described it as …

“The tide comes it, the veil falls and I be swept away”

But oh how he suffered over it!

Still, he committed many heinous acts against my Mother and ESPECIALLY his children. They feared him every moment of every day. I was not around for most of this so I was not affected as deeply. At one point, not knowing what else to do, my Mother decided to poison him because she was trying to protect her children…but she did not because she feared he would taste the poison and kill her leaving the children uncared for. She actually baked the poison cake but then tasted it and became afraid…so she threw it away. At LEAST one of my sister’s was brought into the scheme as a child.

When I was born, my Mother was failing in all her attempts to feed her children and made the brutal decision to have him committed to an institution. That was the ONLY way she could obtain any help to take care of her children. She lived in guilt for this the remainder of her life. She knew he needed to be there but it broke her heart to do it. She KNEW how betrayed he would feel. She divorced him but stated she continued to love him always. He was taken away and his system flooded with ECT and strong medications and he lived out his life as a shell of a man, thankfully, and supposedly, without any memory of the things that he had done. He died when I was 11, at the age of 52….of “natural causes”.