The good ol days weren't always good...
I had no problems with my real parents except for them trying to make me eat brussels sprouts, asparagus and cauliflower in my pre-school days(I hate that crap to this day...the first two taste like barf and the last smells like baby shit).

Enter the stepmother at the tender age of 10 and over the next two years all hell breaks loose. First, it was my hair. I wasn't allowed to have it long because she thought I didn't brush it well enough. Puberty was a death sentence because all of a sudden I was the Scarlet Woman not allowed to wear makeup, tight clothes or go out with boys she didn't approve of...which usually meant anybody who wasn't the nice, boring guy next door, Beaver Cleaver types. Bed curfew till my mid teens was 8 pm on weekdays, 9 pm on weekends. She'd kick me under the table for even slightly clanging my teeth against my fork or spoon when I was eating. She'd forbid me to wear modern trendy hairstyles and try to do up my hair the way it was popular in the 60s, in her generation. This was in the 80s. No feathered hair or long sweeping waves for me. It was either macaroni rolls or a bouffant. Mind you, this wasn't an every day humiliation, but way too often for me to establish a reputation of coolness. Every time she'd finish came the warning, "don't touch that hair or I'll blister your butt!" Typical redneck woman trying to fit into our middle income, well educated family. Why my dad picked her I don't know. Funny how we actually get along now. In grade school, I'd be forced to spend days or a week with her slovenly redneck relatives with their fatass brats in small podunk towns , and then get my radio privilges taken away because I was uncommunicative and withdrawn while I was there. Well, I never asked to go there I was forced, so what did they expect? It was like going to visit the Beverly Hillbillies, which I was sure was some of their relatives. Ignorant, dirty arses, all of them. Same thing for Girl Scout camp between the ages of 10 and 12. I wasn't an outdoor girl till my late teens and I'd have to spend two weeks of torture being thrown in glacier cold lakes, forced days long hikes into the boonies with girls that hung my underwear on trees, and apathetic counselors who were only nice to their "favorites". Of course I love all that camping stuff now, but as a kid it was hell. Thank God we didn't have cell phones back then or my stepmom would have been constantly calling me whenever I left the house, and grill me when I got home if I didn't answer. Every time any of the three kids(usually me) did something she didn't like, we got swatted by a big board that always sat on the fridge. This thing was shiny with the sweat from our behinds, it was used so much. I once got spanked repeatedly(bent over grabbing my ankles for some reason, like that's supposed to hurt more...I think my stepmom was just a sadistic pervert) when she went into my room and saw a scrapbook I'd made with pictures of outfits I wanted to wear. This was a punishable crime to her, because the dresses and outfits were all sexy, stuff I wasn't allowed to wear under any circumstances except when snuck tube tops and tight jeans into school to change in secret. Oh yeah, and they didn't like my music because it wasn't country or easy listening, which was all they listened to. My life was threatened on almost a daily basis. I had no privacy and had to get creative to get it. I never smoked, drank or did drugs or got pregnant yet she still thought I was the devil's daughter because of my "wordly" music, spending too much time alone in my room and sneaking away from the house. My dad was mostly easygoing and only disiplined me when it was called for, in other words, when it made sense. When I actually did something WRONG. Even then, he never hit me like stepmom did. He really pissed me off sometimes, because he only stood up to her sporadically. I moved out when I was 16 and went to live with one of my brothers. Wish I'd done it sooner...
(moonfire38, Sat 10 Mar 2007, 19:06, Reply)