I was taken from my mother because she was proven
to be an unfit mother..and my father's mother adopted me..so I was raised
by my grandmother and her second husband...John...who I called daddy. I
grew up thinking my father was my older brother...and my real brother Richard
, who was raised by my grandmother's mother "Toots"(a real character) ,I
thought was a cousin.
So I grew up in total confusion and didn't even
know it.What a mess..My dad was a jazz musician,a drummer..who played for
the likes of Johnny "Scat"Davis,Sammy Davis Jr. Al Hirt, Benny Goodman
,Jimmy Buffet ,and many others,
I only have a few scattered memories of being a
baby...one in particular..I remembered laying in a bed..looking around
a room ..just observing things....the one thing I vividly remember was
this vent...like they had in the "old" days for a furnace...it was a piece
of metal shaped like a paper plate...and I remember thinking ..I sure hope
that paper plate will keep bats out...then nothing...I asked daddy about
it later..I described the room..and he looked at me so weird...and told
me I wasn't in a bed I was in a crib and I was only 9 months old..that
that was right after mama got custody of me.
I even remember my potty..a little brown chair with
arms..and it had bears on the back.
My next memory as a child was an out of body experience...I
came out of my room down the stairs...to the right through the living room
into the dining room..where mama and daddy were sitting with company...I
tried to talk to them ...they ignored me...then I went to touch mama and
my hand went right through her...I was so upset...then suddenly I was back
in my body.
I had many strange memories too numerous to go into...but
I always had nightmares..horrible ..horrible nightmares...I was terrified
of the dark....so many shadows ready to take me away and hurt me...things
under the bed....things in my bed...snakes along the walls...and so sad...I
look at pictures of me now as a little girl..and the first thing that hits
me is the sadness in my eyes..pain...a tortured spirit at so young an age.
I grew up in a large house on lots of land...and
had many pets..I remember my two ducks most of all..."Milk and Quackers."..we
ended up giving them to the zoo..and a little German Shepherd type dog
named "Happy" who I saw get run over...and a little blue parakeet named
"PrettyBoy".
And I remember once mama on my birthday made me
the neatest cake..I must have been about 3..it was a dollcake..a doll with
blonde hair and a blue dress with white lace of icing...I found pictures
of it recently.
Funny..how with all the abuse you can still remember
the good things..which when you come from such a background you have to
do...ask any abused child about their abuser..and they will tell you the
good things...children want to think the best of the ones they love and
those who are supposed to love them.
I was baptized Catholic though no one else in my
family was Catholic...the reason being that in the South of the 50"s ,the
best education came from the Catholic schools...plus they were segregated...a
big plus back then to mama who came from Vicksburg , Mississippi...coming
from a plantation where she grew up on in early 1900's
As I said my physical being was much better taken
care of...mama took me to doctors and got me healthy...and gave me everything
a little girl could possibly want...but here is where the years of emotional
abuse began...she was a cold woman...she didn't like me to touch her....and
little children should be seen but not heard...she was a cold woman...she
equated material things with love...so by her standards she loved me a
lot.I remember wanting to be held,trying to hug her,and being pushed away.It
would crush me.
I grew into a very angry child an anger that grew
into a rage that almost destroyed me,because I didn't know how to deal
with it later in life.It was like there was a conspiracy to keep me from
having any love,some big cosmic joke...Mama and I grew further and further
apart..I just learned to stay out of her way...daddy wasn't around much
as he was in the Navy..always out to sea or somewhere...so he wasn't much
of a force in our home...and when I started school as I said I went to
Catholic school...mostly shipped off to boarding schools from 2nd grade
on...
Going to Catholic school brought a whole new dimension
to the abuse I suffered as a child...I was left-handed(shudder)...a real
no-no back in the 50's Catholic schools...they were very superstitious...to
be left-handed meant to be a child of the devil..so they proceeded to try
to force me to write right-handed..I just couldn't do it..to this day I
am still very left-handed...well they would beat my hands with ruler...tie
my left hand behind me..so I could.nt use it..I remember being so frustrated
and crying a lot and being made fun of in front of the class because I
was left-handed.It was like I was an idiot,who couldn't do anything right(Giggle).This
lasted most of my school years...I just don't get the big thing of forcing
someone to use one hand over another..it gave me a complex to say the least.Mama
just thought I was being rebellious so in her eyes I was trying to make
her look bad.So I would be punished at home for not cooperating and disobediance.The
rejection was almost to much to bear....I remember crying a lot and being
sad most of the time..I couldn't seem to get along with other kids...it
is like I was marked...it seemed everybody hated me...major inferiority
complex set in and deeply rooted.It colored my world grey.
I thought being sent to boarding school was because
I was bad..the nuns were cold untouchable women...why was I being punished
for being born I would ask myself.
I retreated further and further into my own little
world.I had nightmares every night.It seemed I couldn't do anything right...when
I was bad the nuns would lock me in the basement...a very dark scary place...I
would sit by the door and cry and beg for them to let me out...but I needed
to learn my lesson...I found out later on mama told them to break my spirit..that
I was to rebellious...it seemed my life was hell.
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Page created 5/1/97
Page updated 9/30/97