Life Like

In high school I really felt the need to please people. I would cry at home about it because I wasn't liked by the kids I wanted to hang with. They seemed to have a better life than me and their parties seemed fun. I didn't really feel included. In fact I remember looking at my reflection on the bus sometimes, cause I could see my face on the bus mirror if I was sitting in the first 3 seats by the front and think about how alien I looked. Some how everyone else looked like a normal person to me and to myself I looked so different.

I use to be scared to read out loud in class because since I would feel nervous I would read faster or trip over the words, making me sound dumb or like I couldn't read well. The teacher would make it worse of course by saying "read slower it's not a race" or "speak up I can't hear you", that or the girl behind me whisper the word I was stumbling over as she chuckled.

I use to walk down the halls of Albany High in fear of being tripped or of having a "kick me" sign placed on my back. If anyone touched my back I would put my hand back there to check. I lived in fear of confrontation.

Male teachers intimidated me, males in general did, even now..I am over all the rest that I listed above, but males upset me. Well not gay ones, but the rest do. I feel less male than them, I don't think they understand me or me them. Sometimes I have the urge to attack them when they are talking down to me or not understanding. I find them more often than not lacking compassion. I had a male therapist once. That lasted one session.

I think for myself I have a very hard time with males because my father never did anything with me. He yelled at me a lot, but it was my mom who taught me how to play baseball and to ride my bike. My father was emotionally absent and still is. I know very little about him. I had no other males in my life growing up, so I don't think I ever learned how to be and what to talk about.

I can't cry in front of str8 guys because my body goes on lock down with it because in my mind all I hear in their mind is "sissy", "faggot", "suck it up", "weak".

An other thing that is the same now, as it was for me back then, is I feel to most people my thoughts and ideas are seen as "silly", "weird" (not the good weird), "neurotic", "stupid". I feel people (people being almost everyone, doctors and family included) listen to me, but don't really hear me. I don't even feel that most of the things I say are that hard to understand, apparently it is for them.

Like my parents still have no clue what the dose of xanax was and I told them so many times, esp. when I was suffering in case something happened and I couldn't speak for myself. They don't know and my mom said "It's all too much to remember. I mean you say so much."

Truth is, all these years with my anxiety issues, depressions, the lung issues and even melting away before their eyes in benzo withdrawal, everything I said, everything I told them and neither of them ever cracked a book or looked anything up to help me.

The truth is does my father love me? I am sure in his own way. Do I think my father likes me? No I don't. Do I love my father? Yea because I have too. Do I like him? No.

I know my mom both loves and likes me. I love and like her too. She however has done just as much damage to me growing up as he did. My whole childhood was fear based. "Sit down you will pass out", "Don't stand that way" "What will people think" "You don't want it to break do you" "If you lose it think of how sad you will be" "say goodbye to your father cause if he dies in a car crash you will never forgive yourself" "I heard the car accident out front and I though you were trapped under the car" "what will your girlfriends parents think of how you eat", "don't fight back", "so and so is dead they bled out all over the bathroom", "so and so's baby drown in the tub" "girls will try to trap you into getting them pregnant so they can take all your money" (my mom said that one and most of them to be honest) (mind you I was like 5 to 6 years old for some of it). It goes on and on.

My father hordes mail. Our basement has boxes to the ceiling of mail and old newspapers. He doesn't comb is own hair...every day my mom combed it before he went to work. He would sit on the bed and she would spray it with water and comb his hair. He doesn't take a shower or its rare because sometimes I would lay little traps to see if the shower moved. My mother cleans herself out if the bathroom sink only and her hair in the kitchen sink. She also shampoos my fathers hair for him as well.

My father when he was not yelling at me or my mother sat in a chair and just read. Sometimes when watching tv, because he was laying on the floor and I was sitting on a couch behind him, I would watch him pick his ass and smell it.