Past shit

It occurred to me that this would make more sense as one, living document. That way I can keep track of all my stories. I don't really have anyone to tell them to, so this is all the more important, especially with the way my memory is becoming. So I'll just add bits and pieces as they come to me. 

It wasn't always perfect... I was born to a 17 year old mother, who grew up immersed in abuse and neglect. She'd raised her brother in the best way that she knew how, though her knowledge was limited. She had no positive role models until after I was born.

Her mother was a manic depressive pill popper, swallowing every drug that came her way, save for the lithium she was prescribed, because it made her "fat". She never weighed more than 150 and was 5'6" with a thick frame... She was bulimic, she was abusive, she stole other people's pills, her depressive episodes left her lying in bed alone in the dark swilling Nyquil or nearly overdosing on barbiturates. Her manic episodes were punctuated by fits of rage that caused her to intentionally wreck cars... She constantly threw things... Her thought process was heavily skewed, and often literally psychotic. My mother was constantly taking care of her, performing CPR and first aid and making sure she was still breathing, and calling 911 when she was unresponsive... She was in a terrible marriage to my mother's father, who spent most nights wrapped up in the legs of other women. He was accused of molesting children repeatedly, and they often moved to avoid scrutiny, but the accusations persisted. Her friends would pass on information that she'd dissociate quickly... He was rarely home, and was a hardcore alcoholic.

My mother was abused for her entire life, until the last two years of it. She couldn't remember most of her life, likely because it was too hard to think about. She went to Catholic school in the 70s, when they still used corporal punishment... All she could remember If that was pain, suffering, and a lot of hail marys.

Her parents divorced for obvious reasons when she was relatively young. My uncle must've been about 6 or 7, so she'd have been 12 or 13, but I'm guessing... She was shuffled back and forth between the two homes, because neither parent wanted the responsibility of taking care of them. The only semblance of normalcy she ever saw was a long term relationship between my grandmother and a woman named Harriet. That was the only time she ever felt like she was part of a real family. They went on outings as a family, they ate dinners together, they got to be on swim teams and did all that other shit I'm not even familiar with... The catch was that Harriet hit my grandmother. She was terrible to her. So, it didn't last.

More shuffling... My grandmother went to Disneyland without her and brought her back a fucking pair of ears. And for some reason people don't understand why I don't visit her as often as I should. She was incredibly selfish, and now she might be in there somewhere, but she doesn't know who the hell I am, though that's probably a good thing. She hated me... Anyway...

Her father took her to Hawaii once, mainly to impress the woman he also took. She took amazing pictures of Maui sunsets and endless coastline... But the woman's daughter stole them, and left her with her crappy ones. That week was still one of the happiest she ever had. Maui was her favorite place on earth.

When she hit about 14 or 15, she got into drugs. Hard drugs. My mother was a meth addict by the time she was 16 years old. She met my father sometime around then... He was into heroin. He was an addict. He got her into heroin. She quickly fell into a deep addiction. And who can blame her? Or him? Heroin is the best feeling on earth... I don't know his back story, but I know that I was likely conceived without consent, and my only memory of him was watching him hit her so hard he knocked her into a wall. When I was shown a picture of him at age 3 I ran away screaming and crying. I remember it. I had no recollection of who he was but I was scared to death. I shouldn't let the Wilsons read this...

My mother moved back in with my grandmother when she found out she was pregnant, luckily sometime in the first trimester (or I would've really been a drug baby). She took care of herself, and took care to ensure that I'd be born healthy. She even quit smoking. After I was born, we moved somewhere in Portland with my dad. His house was the drug house of the area at the time. People would drop by just to shoot up and leave. He sold, he used, they sold, they used. Many drugs were involved. Mostly heroin and meth.

When I was about a year and a half, my mother looked around one day and thought she didn't want this for her child. Later that night, my father beat her ass again. She waited until he fell into a heroin induced slumber and took off with me. She ran to my great grandmother and great grandfather's house. They took good care of us, but my mother was having trouble detoxing and kept going back to it, stealing from her family to support her habit. When the cops showed up one day, she knew... So she dropped my little baby ass off at the neighbor's house and was arrested, tried and convicted of larceny. She spent only one night in jail, while I was at the neighbor's house. I don't know who posted bail. Probably my great grandmother. She was sentenced with community service and probation because she'd never been in trouble before. The scheme that landed her there was cooked up by my father and his sister. It was for writing bad checks, mostly from her own account. They convinced her to do this herself because she'd get in less trouble.

Eventually, we moved in with my grandmother, psychotic as ever... My mother cleaned up, for a while. My grandmother did not. Eventually, they were sharing pills. She'd get pissed about something stupid and start hitting my mother. Eventually, she'd get sick of it and we'd move out, but she couldn't make enough to scrape by, and she was in and out of drugs for the entirety of my childhood (i was on the streets at 14, as far as I'm concerned, my childhood ended there).

I remember being about 5 when I woke up in the middle of the night and went to the bathroom and found a line of coke with a razor blade on a small mirror waiting for someone... It was loud, but when I was discovered, I was quickly ushered back to bed. I don't think I even had a chance to wash my hands.

There were times that she was clean and available, and it was wonderful... She was a fantastic mom when she was there. She really struggled with drugs though. She'd be clean for a couple years, and then she'd meet some stupid boy and it would start all over again.

When I was 8, my mother got pregnant with my sister. Her father was arrested for driving drunk on a suspended license for the umpteenth time, so he was in a while. While he was gone, I caught her crying over a teddy bear he'd given her that sang "you are my sunshine". She didn't see me. I still cry whenever I hear that song. I couldn't stand to see her in so much pain. We were on welfare and food stamps for all of my childhood.

After my sister was born, my mother took a little bit of time off to breastfeed, but didn't get long. She went back to work, and picked up a second job to pay the bills, since it was just us again. She'd often be so tired that I'd wake up to my sister's crying before she did. Knowing how tired she was, I'd get up, change her, make a bottle, and take her to bed with me. Her diary says that I always wanted her to sleep in my bed. I don't think she realized why.

Something would always happen though. My sister's dad was released, and we got a bigger apartment, and he promised that this time, things would be different. We lived there for three weeks before he was arrested again. We moved. I don't remember where. A lot of it is a blur. I remember always hating when she had a boyfriend. At the time, I thought I was just being selfish and not wanting to share her, but now I realize it likely had more to do with feeling abandoned because she was either partying with him (whoever he was) or working. I didn't see her much when there was a guy around. We moved roughly every six months.

When I was 11, we lived in burien and I finally had something set up for myself. I had a great teacher, I was playing soccer at school every day, and really wanted to get on a team. I was a seriously fucked up kid though. When I first started at that school, I was bullied for cross dressing, but that didn't last long.  We lived in the same building as my mother's best friend and her child and then boyfriend. I loved that girl, but one day I played too rough and got too mean and she never looked at me the same way again. She still doesn't seem to like me. One day when I was watching my sister, she wanted to pick cherries off the tree above mom's car. I put her up there and then got distracted by the boyfriend's niece, who I thought was cool. My sister fell off the roof of the car and had a huge gash going all the way up her thigh. I sent someone to get my mother while I checked her out. My mom was pissed.

We moved again. This time back to Kent. Goddamn I hate that place still. I would burn it to the ground if I could. I started drinking, smoking cigarettes and weed. I was 12 the first time I tried meth (in Kent), 13 when I started having sex (we lived in federal way in a townhouse with bullet holes in the door), and 14 when I started doing heroin. My mother had gotten married to a man who had gotten her pregnant again by this point. Wait, I think I was 13 when that happened... I don't remember. Anyway...

Her husband hated me. Sometime in 7th grade back in Kent I managed to score so high on my academic tests that they decided to test my iq. Then I didn't have to attend any classes but math. The rest of the time, I graded papers for upper classes. It was fucking boring, and I did it in 7th and 8th grade. I was expelled from both schools for things like selling drugs, setting shit on fire, egging people's offices... Etc. I was fucking bored. I got caught shoplifting a few times on purpose, because I didn't care.

Back to 1996. He *hated* me. He was a long haul truck driver, so it worked for a little while. My mother suffered from extreme post partum depression, so when my brother woke up at night, I took care of him without her ever knowing. I started sleeping through math class (8th grade). I felt like I couldn't take it anymore. Her husband came home and told me to get the Fuck out for some reason or another, so I left. When he left, I came back. My mother asked him to start doing in town trips - whatever the fuck that's called... I'm tired and I don't remember. He stopped doing long haul and I was fucked. He was beating my sister and I couldn't do anything. I stuck up for her, but he kept kicking me out. The only other place I could go was my psychotic grandmother's house. She broke a chair over my back when I was 12 and that was not an isolated incident. So I crashed at a friend's for a while. I did a lot of drugs, particularly heroin.

I almost overdosed one day. I think that was the first time, because someone else shot me up. My mom carried me home while pregnant somehow. She put me in a cold ass shower and said don't you fucking fall asleep. She seemed terrified I'd die. I remember her calling someone while I laid there, fully clothed under icy water. Then I remember nothing until the next day.

I wasn't supposed to stay there, and the friend's house wanted rent?? Wtf?? From a 14 year old?? Anyway... I took a bus to Seattle and hung out, strung out on the ave. I didn't ask for money, at least not without a knife, but people willingly gave it to me. I can't remember what I did with it. I was cute, so drugs were usually free, and I sure as shit wasn't eating. Probably cigarettes. I lived on the streets of Seattle for a year before finally giving up and moving back in with my grandmother.

As I expected, she was HORRIBLY abusive. I walked 10 miles a day just to be out of her house. Then she started working 16 hour days, so I was only gone half the time. If I forgot to do the dishes, I'd come home to find my shit all over the grass outside her 2nd floor apartment.

Ah jesus this is long and I'm tired.

Growing up

As I was growing up, I lived in a gang ridden cesspool... Several, actually... We moved a lot. Being tough was the most important thing in the world.

As a small child, I always dreamt of going to college in the big city and making a real life for myself... Doing something positive for the world. I had no idea what I wanted to study, or any concept of what happens after college, I just knew I wanted to go. I wanted to learn something, and I wasn't learning anything at school.

As my teen years came screeching into the picture, I lost sight of those goals. I was disillusioned with the pathetic offerings of the local public schools, and too bored by the curriculum to bother attending. I got in trouble. I got expelled a few times. I remember playing a game with friends as a teen where we'd punch each other or do other intimidating things to one another and whoever flinched lost the game.

By the time I was 16, I was a junior high dropout. But I no longer wanted to live that rough lifestyle. I was in the city (a small city, disappointing eventually) and working around 60 hours a week to support myself. I was a good kid, and a good assistant manager of the restaurant I worked at. At least mostly. I made some ghetto kid mistakes, but overall, my intentions were good.

I have animals all over me demanding my undivided attention RIGHT NOW. Maybe a little bit of the story will come later.

3/16/15

I've decided to start writing my story. I think it's important to get it out there, especially since at some point, I will likely forget it. Dementia runs in my family, and probably skips generations.

My mother had me when she was 17 years old. She had been living in Sheridan with my great grandmother when she met my father, who was a heroin addict. As soon as she found out she was pregnant with me, she quit everything, including smoking. I don't even think she drank coffee. She was very careful while she was pregnant with me. She always was a worrier. After a long pregnancy, she gave birth to me in Seattle, on capitol hill, during a freak snowstorm in March.

After I was born, she somehow ended up in Portland with my father again. We lived in a drug house until I was a year and a half, when she fled late one night because my father was abusive and she didn't want me exposed to him or his drug problems. She quit everything again... She tried to live a better life for me. Between there and five or six, I really have no idea. I wish I could ask her. I do know, however, that she was loving and attentive. Somehow, she still had a great deal of regrets about my childhood. I always knew she loved me. There are lot of chunks of my childhood that I can't remember. I remember being 3 or 4 when she taught me how to read. I read everything I could find. I was a gifted child.

I remember watching Bob Ross with my mother, and trying to paint alongside him. I remember playing with that weird bubble stuff that was around in the 80s. I wonder what happened to that stuff... It came with a straw, and you'd blow bubbles in it.

Anyway... I remember being in kindergarten. I was friends with this boy, he was the only black boy in my school, now that I think of it. We got along really well for the first half of the year. We lived in Kent at the time. Then one day, I was playing with him with scissors in class and I accidentally cut the sleeve of his shirt, just a little cut... He was so angry with me that he started yelling at me in the middle of class. I felt so bad that I cried in front of everyone. He stopped being my friend after that. I was also friends with a girl who was in girl scouts with me. Her name was Jessica. Her mother was very strict, and used to hit her with a paddle. My mother and I felt terrible for her. This was in 1987. We moved once or twice that year, I don't remember... Jessica and I were fast friends. We mostly got along, but we had terrible fights, and often wouldn't speak for days. Nevertheless, I remained friends with her for much of my childhood, even through MANY moves. My mother couldn't stay in one place long. She was restless.

I remember one guy she dated who was completely psycho. I woke up to the sound of her screaming one night and found him trying to rape her in the living room. I hit him. I don't remember how or where, I think maybe with a pan? but he didn't dare hit me back. After that, my mother for rid of him, and then we moved. It was harder to keep Jessica around then because we had been living in the same apartments as her. I remember playing in the sandbox with her, and finding cat poop a lot. Before we moved, we fed all the neighborhood cats. My mother was always an animal person. Anyway, I can't remember where we moved after that, but Jessica and I were in girl scouts together, so I still saw her. My mother would often transport us both to scout meetings. Jessica's mother was strange. I remember she made the starchiest tasting macaroni and cheese, and made Jessica clean her plate. I had a major appetite, so I never had any problems with that while I was there. One night during a sleepover, Jessica got in trouble for being too loud or something and got paddled. When I saw what was going on, her mother threatened, " you're next". She didn't hit me, but after that, I didn't stay over there anymore. I told my mother everything, at least almost.

Another set of people my mother knew... Laurie and her crazy husband... They had a son named Ryan who wet the bed. He would talk me into playing Dr during the night. I was not comfortable with what was happening at ALL, but I didn't think I could stop him. So I let it continue. I'm not sure when I told my mother what was happening, but we stopped hanging out with them when I did. Before we stopped hanging out with them, they would take us camping. I always had problems around smoke, and would cough so bad I threw up. I now realize this was asthma. We would make smores and hot dogs, which was awesome. I actually had fun, other than the coughing. My mother did not remember these trips when I asked her about them last year.

When I was 7 or 8, my mother started dating my sister's father. He is crazy, or at least a sociopath. We lived with him at this place in Kent for a few months (that apartment later fell down the side of the hill it was on in a landslide), but he got arrested, leaving my mother all alone to pay the bills. She worked two jobs. One of my clearest memories from that time was this: she had a bear that he bought her that sang "you are my sunshine". She was sitting on her bed holding it one night, and bawling her eyes out. I was crushed to see her so sad, and I still cry for her every time I hear that song, even more so now that she's gone. I never did find out why she was crying, or even tell her that I saw her. I just remember crying for hours because she was so sad... All I ever wanted was for her to be happy.

This is making me cry and I have to wake up soon, so I'm going to stop now. But I will write more memories soon.