I always thought my family was pretty normal and that we don't have any "real" problems, but over time things have gotten worse and worse, and things from the past have been revealed to me. Well, here we go...
My brother was born when my mother was 19. His father abused both my brother and my mother and was out of the picture shortly after my brother's birth. My sister was born when my mother was 22, and I don't think she even knows her father's name. I was born when my mother was 25, and my dad is the only one in the picture. I suppose I always felt I was lucky, and perhaps I am.
When my brother was born, she got little if any support from her parents, because they wanted her to get an abortion. I think today they regret that decision. My mother, shortly after my brother was born, was violently raped. Like, alley-way raped. She was beaten half to death walking down the street at night, and was raped; the culprit got of free. She then gave up my brother for a year while she was dealing with depression and PTSD. I don't believe she was ever diagnosed with PTSD, but there's no doubt she's got it.
By the time I was born, my mother had had multiple abusive boyfriends, most of which likely hit my brother as well. When my brother was young, like 4-5, he was molested regularly in a scout camp for kids called "Beavers". This man, Doug, drove him to Beavers, and molested him for a very long time. It doesn't help that my brother has always had serious, serious ADHD and Tourette's. And honestly, today he'd probably be diagnosed with Asperger's. He was impossible to take care of, he'd get up at 5 am and scream at the top of his lungs, he'd get in trouble all the time at school, he got kicked out of Sunday School and pretty much everything he was ever involved with. He was the most impossible kid to bring up that I could ever imagine, and the molestation just made it worse.
When we were little, we were very poor, and lived in a poor black neighbourhood. I don't remember any of it, but I can tell you this...being the only white family in a poor black neighbourhood isn't easy, as you could imagine. My brother was beat on all of the time, and his only "friend" beat him up and told his father that my brother called him a ******. If you ever, ever met my brother, he doesn't have a racist bone in his body. I have many issues with my brother, but questionable morals is not one of them.
By the time I was in grade 1 or so, we lived in a decent home and had a decent amount of money coming in. But things around me started becoming more and more apparent. My sister, who was always a bit of a "rebel", has Cystic Fibrosis. She is going to die before she is supposed to. It's very sudden, CF. One day, she will go to the hospital. A month later, she will come out for a week. Then, she'll go to the hospital for a couple more days, and die. It regularly happens like that. They let them out and tell them they are better, but I think everyone including themselves knows that they aren't. It could happen today, tomorrow, maybe 10 years from now, but it's going to happen. She spent the first year of her life in the hospital. I've always lived with this fact, and it's eaten away at me little by little. Not a day goes by that I don't think about it, and as a result, I am extremely protective of my beautiful older sister.
After my parents' divorce, things got a little messy. My mother got laid off from her job, and it took her a lot of time to get back on her feet. She met another man, he is a nice guy but has a bit of a temper. But at the current moment, they are in insurmountable debt, and they never have food. I never know what to eat there, it's always a fend for yourself deal. I never go to my mom's anymore, I can't do it. It's gross. Everything's broken; it's never clean, and it's costly for me.
And my mother...she is a shell of herself. Prior to the divorce with my father, she stopped really talking to him. Eventually he couldn't handle it anymore so he asked for a divorce and she didn't really care. After she met my step dad, Mark, her life brightened up again, but now she's worse than ever. When I come home, she walks downstairs, gives me a hug, and goes back up, and then I won't see her for the rest of the time unless my nephew comes over. My own mother doesn't spend time with me, even though I've hardly seen her at all for 6 years due to boarding school and university. It's depressing to watch her. She eats one meal a day, and it's only because my step dad brings food to her. Ever since I can remember, my mother has been sick all of the time. Always vomiting. They recently found out she has a condition called "colitis", but that can't be the only thing. She had her uterus and ovaries removed, on separate occasions. Any bug going around, she gets it. I've never seen someone as illness prone as her. And to be honest, and I feel awful saying this, but she looks terrible. When she was young, she was a very very pretty lady, and I'm not saying this because she's my mother. She has let herself go, gained some weight, and just overall looks awful. It's all because of the rape...that's how I know it's PTSD. She always goes back to this, she can't get it out of her head and she refuses to see therapy.
I don't know whether to feel bad for my mother, or to be angry at her. She cheated on my father, and asked my brother to lie in court against him if it ever went to court (and as I said about my brother, he would never do anything like this). A lot of it is her own doing, but...she's my mother. I still love her and I want her to be happy, and it's painful to see this.
My brother now is probably 150 pounds overweight, lives with my mom at 25 (almost 26), and hasn't had a steady job...ever. My sister has two kids at 22(almost 23), and no foreseeable job opportunities. Luckily, she has an incredibly nice and hardworking boyfriend. And then there's me, the mentally ****ed kid of 19 (almost 20), who failed a bunch of classes because I was too depressed to get out of bed. I didn't even bother writing my exams this semester. I think everyone in my family aside from my dad (who suffers from severe anxiety issues) is currently severely depressed. What a mess.
There is kind of a moral here, and I guess it's that...we're all still here. My family is ****ed, and we're all still here. And I don't give a **** what anyone says, I am going to get through all of my issues, and I am going to live a good life. So yeah, that's my story, I suppose.
