I think if we are going to attempt to put ourselves back together — we really need to start at the beginning. How did we get here? How does one continually self destruct by making others a priority over one self? Or why the hell do I need to sacrifice myself at all?
It would be an easy answer really. Growing up the priorities were never me, but rather those parent figures. The intensity of their lives and it’s impact on myself and my sister.
I think it is really important to note that as messed up as it all was – they were truly babies having babies at a time where the focus was about peace, love, drugs and rock and roll. Did they do their best? Yes. Would it stand up to what I would consider my best? No. But that isn’t really the point, is it? It was their best. What they were capable at a time where their lives were just beginning and their own scars were defining their own choices and so on and so fourth.
I owe them a lot. I know how to be a go0d parent because of them. I know what not to do and actually get to use some of what they did right in raising my two boys. And through the process of raising these boys – I got to raise my own inner child in a sound way.
That being said -parents had a very tumultuous relationship. Married young. Two catholic kids raised by die-hard Catholics. Mom was Irish Catholic which is essentially Catholic with a shot of hard core restraint. Or more whiskey? Dad says Mom was pregnant and that they married because of that. Mom denies it and claims she was a virgin. (I ordered their married certificate when I was 33) – Mom’s going to hell. 
The first four years of my life – Dad was in and out. My sister is a year younger than I am. I remeber lots of fighting. Mom partied a lot. Would leave us at home alone or drop us off at our grandparents house while she had a doctors appointment and come back days later to get us.
When I was about four Dad came for us and moved us North about 9 hours from where all our family and support systems were. From a city life to a small town existence. Their union barely lasted a year. He was never around and would leave us in the middle of the winter to fend for ourselves. I remember chopping wood at five and shoveling snow. The fighting continued and had gotten physical. Mom eventually left, taking us with her to the next “town” about an hour away. Much bigger than the population 300 town we had been in.
It had always been my role to take care of her and my sister. But now the role was even more defined. She was more out of control than ever and my desire to live with my Father grew stronger with each passing year. It literally took them years of fighting in court to finally divorce – but they continued years of fighting in court to determine custody of my sister and I.
And although to a large degree I was their trophy child that they used as a struggle between them – who would get me, own me, have me – I don’t really think either of them truly wanted me. Because once they did have me – it was like being sold into slavery. It didn’t matter the household – my role was:
cook his food
clean their home
do their laundry
raise their children
deal with their drunkenness
deal with their fucked up ideologies
deal with their fucked up spouses
their verbal abuse
her physical abuse
and the list goes on.
By the time I was old enough to finally choose what household I wanted to live in — it was more a matter of whose household was the lesser of two evils. Of course I say this in hindsight — because at the time — Dad’s house was super shiny. My hero. My dad. The irony was that in his household I just self destructed a whole lot faster as I was exposed to so many more things were harmful to a child. Sex, drugs, alcohol, pornography.
Where as with my Mom — her household was more controlled in her out of control life. i.e. I had to be in bed at a specific time each night, but she would be trashed and wanting to beat my sister and I – so I would have to barricade the door so that she couldn’t get to us. And when she was sober – the mind games. She would tell me my Dad was coming to visit, when he wasn’t and proceed to watch me sit in the windows waiting for hours for him to come. Head fuck.
My step father on the other hand was no better. He would hold me down to the floor and tell me how I was no one, and nothing and would never amount to anything. Lucky for him I never believed him or gave him much merit in anything he had to say. He wasn’t may Father – the great man himself.
At Dad’s – I had no rules. No curfew. No boundaries. I just had to keep the house clean. He was newly married and she worked an hour or two away so she only came home on weekends. That first summer was an awesome experience of freedom that I had never experienced before.
I had never really been allowed to be with my Father. Odd weekends here and there – but this was my first summer. It had been a long journey getting here. Lots of being dragged through the courts and I don’t even remember how it came to be. I think I was just doing my best to be a difficult child at Mom’s that she finally broke. Or perhaps the evil step father couldn’t bare it any longer. Oh how I hated him.
Anyway, freedom. Lots of it. We lived in a small town. Children and I mean children ran free without adult interest. My best friend was a 17 year old who worked for my father. He would let her and I take the truck and go anywhere we wanted. Lots of shenanigans to be had – parties and boys and drugs and FREEDOM.
Dad was always at the bar after work. He and his friends were very open about their own sexuality and drug use. I was in and out of the bar (not drinking) on a daily basis. Or at a party he was at (sometimes drinking). Or just full out exposed to all things that a kid who had been suffocated all her life by a controlling Mother felt like she had just been transplanted to another world.
But wait. Hold on for the kicker. I was twelve years old.
