the_white_heath_incident daf When my brother, sister and I were little (3, 2 & 1 years of age), our mother went to prison and sent us to live with her mother. Unfortunately, "grandma" was with a pretty raging and abusive alcoholic named Charlie. I remember his boot well. His face, not so much..I didn't dare look him in the eye for fear of being beaten. We spent something like 4 or 5 years in that place, living like dogs in the front yard, a bunk bed our only shelter from the weather until snow fell. I remember one year, they had a puppy or something(?) and it got to live in the house while we lived in the yard. We ate once a week if we were lucky. Twice a week if we were REALLY lucky. The only thing I ever remember eating there was bread, warm, crappy koolaid, and donuts, which Charlie would bring home in a big black trash bag. We were so grateful for every morsel. We weren't allowed to leave the yard, and if we did, we were beaten...badly. (So we wouldn't do it again.) I remember the beating I got for going out on Mother's Day to get Betty(our grandmother) a rabbit to eat so she could stop being sad. Needless to say, 5 year olds aren't very good at catching rabbits. When I came home, I was beaten so badly that I had to crawl to the bunk bed on my belly. I was beaten pretty severely every day for that 4 or 5 years. Went to the hospital; at least once. They said it was because of a bee sting that my face swelled up. It wasn't. It was because Charlie had beaten me half to death. I thought the nurses were angels..and that I was in heaven for that short time. I didn't know what else it could be. My sister was sexually molested by two or three different men. I know this, because, like kids will..I got jealous of the "extra special attention" she was getting and decided to see how I could get that attention too. I hid under a bed and saw Charlie start touching her and telling her he was checking to see if she was clean. Some other guy had her do things to him too. She was 3, 4, 5 & 6 (maybe 7 too) when these abuses happened. My brother was really little, and he didn't get beaten as much..but the psychological abuse he endured was such, that many years later, he still has some triggers that cause him to act out violently. And everyone that knows him...knows that he is NOT EVEN CLOSE to being that kind of man. When we would come back crying from a beating, he would always try to make us laugh, to cheer us up. 40 years later..he's still making people laugh. He's still trying to ease the suffering of others..despite his own internal suffering. Daily beatings, rape, battery acid, lamp cords, ropes around the neck, boots to the face, cigarette burns. The horror of that place haunted me for years after we left. I remember that, until I was 14, I was afraid to go to sleep, because I was afraid I would wake up in that place again. I didn't tell all of this to tell my story. I told it because it relates to an event that I believe has a lot to do with my issues with dealing with groups of people on a personal level. I can stand on a stage and perform, but have a hard time dealing with the audience chat afterward. That goes for any "interpersonal" dealings I have with groups of about 5 or more people. I'm VERY uncomfortable in those situations, and usually have to leave. I think it all might have started with a really bizarre event that took place at a school whose name I remember as being "White Heath Elementary" in a place called Monticello. We had been taken out of Charlie's place when I was 7 or 8. MY brother and sister went one way..I was sent another. I didn't see my sister again (other than a half dozen visits arranged by my adoptive father when I was 10 or 11) for 20 years. It would be 30 before I finally saw my brother again. I was sent to an orphanage called "Adler Zone Center" where they tried to find me a foster home. At one of the foster homes, I remember they had a strawberry patch and would put me to work at the ripe old age of 8, filling 5 gallon buckets with rocks from the strawberry patch and carrying them to the house. I ate a strawberry once after a hot day of that and got punished. The natural children of this foster family were constantly blaming everything on me, when all I wanted was to please these people because, hard as it was there..it seemed like paradise compared to Charlie's house..and I desperately wanted to belong somewhere. That family was the first I remember seeing the inside of a school. I might have gone earlier but don't remember. I didn't fit in very well. While the rest of the kids had 8 years of learning to socialize with others, I'd been completely isolated socially for my entire life up to that time. No friends other than my brother and sister. No relatives other than those that showed up here and there at Charlie's. I had no social skills whatsoever. You think school can be difficult and children can be cruel? Imagine being Mowgli the Dog Boy at an elementary school full of normally raised children. I really wanted to fit in. I really wanted to. But I simply didn't have the ability to. No one had ever taught me how. So I was at the social level of a 3 year old while everyone else was acting like 8 year olds. This didn't serve me very well in school, but I couldn't tell that yet. It was one day out on the playground at recess that what I feel was a defining moment in my PTSD took place: Here I was out of the hell hole, thinking I was in a better place when.. Some kids decided to start teasing me after acting like they were my friends. I tried to get away from them, but they started chasing me. And then it happened...something I have YET to see again in my 44 years: every kid on the playground saw what was happening and decided to join in. EVERY SINGLE KID ON THAT PLAYGROUND CHASED ME, LAUGHING AND JEERING. There must have been a couple of hundred at least, maybe more. I didn't know what to do. I was so scared. I just ran and the blacktop emptied as everyone followed me. Next thing I know, I'm climbing the backstop of the school's little baseball diamond, growling and snarling at everyone..which just made them laugh and tease even more. I know the playground was empty, because I could see it from my spot 12 or so feet up..with all of the kids down below the backstop laughing and teasing. I don't know if I ever recovered from that day. It may have been the most traumatic day of my life..including the beatings and my ex-wife's bloody attempt to kill herself by hacking off part of her arm. Those were bad, but somehow, I feel like this was much worse. That's all. I'm hoping that sharing this will help me somehow. I don't know if it will, I just hope it does. daf P.S. 4 Days without pot and I'm doing ok..sort of. 130530 ... Death of a Rose I am with you brother. That was hell and you climbed out by your will. I'm glad and sad for you. . 130530 ... epitome of incomprehensibility I didn't know things like this had happened to you. I could tell miserable stories about being rejected and teased. They'd be true, mostly. But I grew up in a fairly cohesive and loving family, so those incidents didn't leave as much of a mark. Writing things down helps me put them behind me. Or in front of me, or whatever. But even if you're a good writer (as YOU are - hey, I wanted to write something serious (about our respective democracies both being less democratic than they could be) in one of your political threads, but your bit about Stephen Harper not taking your fucking toaster made me laugh too hard to continue; silly example, but trust me, you write better than I can with all my convoluted sentences)... where was I? Yeah. Even if you're a good writer, and you are, it takes guts to put stuff like this down. That's all. Stay strong, . 130530 ... dafremen Our willingness to gleefully inflict suffering on other living things, is a testament to the unconvicted evil which lies within us all. 141116 ... flowerock I find that it helps to share such stories and feelings. I th ink it is healthy to share and good for everyone to know that these things do happen. I often. Wonder where the line is with things like this, people must have noticed that you are your siblings were battered and malnourished and emotionally troubled... but did they move to help at all? I wonder how many times I could have helped someone, a child or an abused man or woman had I been bolder and better at taking action. My mom abused me, verbally and physically, not on th e level that you described but enough that I wish someone had had me removed from her home, that I had gone to live with my dad instead, that I had a restraining order on her where. She tried to stuff me in her car digging her nails into my arm when. I was 22. In school kids picked on me too. I had two or three friends b it they got picked on for being my friends. Teachers sent me on "errands" to scold the whole class for being so mean to me. I listened outside the door. Years later as an adult I got an email from the boy who started the teasing, he was muslim.and going on his religious journey but had to be forgiven for all his wrongs first. I was amazed that he th ought back so far to the way he treated me in grade school. I forgave hime, I said he helped build the person I am today and that I am kinder and warmer for it and that I understood that he was just a child then. When I was married to my ex husband he changed a little ate th e marriage, sexually got weirder and then it began to be more like rape than love making most of th e time, didn't matter where I was or what I was doing if I was near I was his to use and it didn't matter if I hated the disgusting things he wanted because he was stronger and no one seems to th ink much of loud desperate screams coming from a house or truck these days. I went to th e hospital once bcause my urethra was torn and i was peeing straight blood and fire, th e nurse blamed me for it and scolded me when I told her how it happened, irresponsible. But i let it happen, I stuck around for as long as I could, maybe this is what love is I thought. We tried an "open relationships" which really meant he could fuck whoever would let him and if I so much as spoke a man I was cheating on him. I finally left. Between the apologies, the healing realizations, and finally making the choice to leave I feel much better these days. I still have some feelings about people and sexually to work through and grow out of. I have a hard to me connecting and making driends, I feel awkward and unwanted most of the time, I am afraid of sexual things that I haven't done or have experienced pain from or been forced to do in the past, I am growing though, little by little and I have friends to help me, I have an amazing partner now who loves and respects me and th at helps me grow too. 141116 ... () () 141118 ... dafremen A very late response to flower rock. I'm glad no one saved me from those 5 years. I would not be who I am today, had those years not been a part of my conditioning (and lack thereof.) I get to have a very unique view of the world from my recovering dogboy perspective. I wouldn't give that up for anything. The universe spared us being saved right away for a reason. But, yea..save that kid if you see him/her. It might be time for that bread to come out of the oven. 190416 what's it to you? who go blather from