It's all my fault....
My mother likes to proudly tell me that she gave up smoking the day I was born. Never mind the previous 9 months, eh?

When I was about 3, my Mum was so busy talking to someone whilst shopping she walked off and left me in a busy city centre. I had those hideous reins to stop me running off as well, she just let go of them to do something and forgot to pick them up again. Luckily the person who found me crying at a kerb because I'd been told not to cross the road alone wasn't a peado and took me to the police station where I was found and severely berated for 'running off' by my mother several hours later.

A few years later she didn't come to collect me from Brownies. After waiting until everyone else had been gone for ages I decided to walk home (it was only about 10 minutes) I was told off for being very naughty and walking on my own, despite the fact my mother had forgotten to collect me and I was scared standing outside the school on my own.

I was shut in the back garden one afternoon and evening when I was about 7 for not wanting to play with my 3 year old cousin who was visiting, thus embarrassing my mother in front of my Auntie. I went back inside the house at one point only to be physically picked up and dropped back on the lawn, and the door locked. I was let back in after everyone else had had tea, and was then smacked and sent to bed for not apologising to my mother for my behaviour.

From the age of about 16, I suffered from vertigo, excessive tiredness, dizzy spells and nausea. I was told it was all in my head and I was attention seeking, and that the doctor would tell me off for wasting his time. Turns out I have Multiple Sclerosis.

My mother is also very manipulative (even for a mother) and her favourite form of punishment when I was a teenager would be to complain that I spent more time with my friends than I did at home, wonder aloud why I treated her so badly, tell me that the way I dressed embarrassed her as I was so unladylike and then cry hysterically for hours after I'd gone to bed at night.

I still love her though, despite the many emotional issues she's lumbered me with. Probably because I never spend more than a few hours at a time with her any more, and recognise her guilt trips and manipulative behaviour for what they are.

My father on the other hand is a well balanced person whom I admire greatly. Pity he spent a lot of my childhood working out of the country. How the hell he's put up with my mother's behaviour all these years still escapes me.
(VestanPance, Fri 17 Aug 2007, 17:10, Reply)