The sickness that is my family

The sickness within

My family (not just my mother, but her mother and sister and probably other extended family members) believe in witchcraft and people putting spells and hexes on you. I shake my head as I am writing this, because it is just so insane.

When I was younger, my mother would take me to women who would get rid of the evil spell on me and also get rid of the demons inside me. I cannot even fathom how anyone could believe in such a thing.

So me, being the sensitive one, gets convinced by my mother, my aunt and also my late grandmother that I have to go see the exorcist to remove devils from inside me. You cannot imagine just how many nightmares this type of discussion gave me, how scared it made me feel, how deep the scars it left and how much it messed with my head.

The reason for me having to go to the exorcist? Because I wanted to go out at night with my friends instead of staying at home with my mother, doing needlework or other house-wifely things (of course my brother, albeit younger than me and not even legally allowed to enter nightclubs was allowed and even encouraged to go out at night and do what he wanted to do - his behaviour was considered absolutely normal). Or the fact that I liked a man who was from a different country to mine. Or that I talked back to my parents, telling them that they were wrong for hitting me all the time. These are the reasons why they believed I was possessed. Oh. My. God. It blows my mind to even think about it now, because it is just so ridiculous that any parents would subject their child to such further torture!

So one of the times I went to an exorcist, it was inside a really small room with all these religious images everywhere. It was really dark, I was in there with this woman I didnt know. It was stuffy (as there were no windows in there) with only candlelight to lighten the room. And this woman was yelling: "Devil begone from this girl", while putting this huge cross on my back, head and above my decolletage, dragging it on my skin (but thankfully not hurting me and not being sleazy as that would have made it even worse). Of course I started crying, because this was freaking scary to me! And of course, this made the crazy exorcist believe that the "Devil" was scared of her machinations and she was exorcising it from me.

OH. MY. GOD.

I realised after we went outside that the woman was full of shit. But that didnt mean the whole thing didnt freak me out and it did adversely affect me, because it was on top of all of my mother's superstitious beliefs that she put onto me, so everything together just totally messed with my head for years (and even to now).

For example, if someone she suspected of being a "witch" gave me a gift, she wouldnt let me have it because she believed that if I touched it, I would get sick or have an accident. And if someone ever said anything nice about me while she was there, she would always contradict them and tell them that, no, I wasnt pretty and no, I wasnt smart and all in front of me. Nice way to be totally embarrassed and put down by my mother. I had no idea she was doing this because she thought that if they were saying something nice about me, they would "curse" me and I would get sick or have an accident and if she contradicted them, she would short-circuit their curse. It's mind boggling that anyone could ever think anything like this in this day and age!

Physical abuse leaves permanent scars

Image Credit: Postmodern Woman - How to End Abuse

My parents used to physically abuse me when I was a child to young adult and my step-father would continue it even today, if he could.

This abuse would occur on almost a daily basis sometimes - mostly physical, but also emotional abuse and I would get abused more because I was the older child, so I was responsible for everything my brother did too (even though he wouldn't listen to me and would also tell me parents if I did anything they had forbade me to do, like read my many borrowed books or listen to music).

They would use my step-father's belt, with the buckle so that it would hurt more. They would make me kneel in a corner with my hands up for 20 minutes at a time, making me kneel on rock salt so that it would hurt more. They would laugh at me for everything and anything I did (and my brother would always join in with them). They would always tell me I would amount to nothing. They called me slut and whore, saying nasty things about me - none of which was true. If I talked to a guy, I was a whore, which is ridiculous.

So I would get hit by them if I didn't do wash the dishes the minute I was asked to do them (I had to help prepare the food with my mother, then I had to do the washing up while she did other household duties, meanwhile, my step-father and brother would just be sitting watching tv or playing or relaxing as it wasn't "men's work"). I would get hit if I didn't put my clothes away from my bed into my wardrobe. I would get hit if I didn't want to do embroidery on a Saturday, but rather wanted to go outside and play. I would get hit if I didn't do some minor thing that my parents considered to be the worst thing in the world.

I remember crying and crying after each beating. Asking myself "why are they hitting me? What did I do that was so bad it warranted such a punishment?" And if I cried or said "please stop" when my step-father beat me, he'd get angrier and hit me harder until I stopped crying. And I did stop crying, basically out of fear that he would get so angry that he would hit me so hard all over my body, like he did one time, where he bruised my skin in so many places and I felt like I had to lie to my teachers and tell them I fell down the stairs.

My step-father's temper is so bad. So many times their friends (who actually got to see how they treated me when I was younger) would tell my parents they were too hard on me and should treat me better. And this is without them even knowing how much my parents hit me. I am sure if someone knew about it, if I told anyone, they would have charged my parents with child abuse and taken me away from them. I guess I never really told anyone because I didn't know if it would be better if I was in a children's home, given the many times my mother told me how awful it was there whenever she would tell me that she could have left us in a children's home after my father left her (mind you, I was 6 at the time) but she decided to keep us out of there and that we we so lucky she didn't just dump us in a children's home because we were really a burden.

My mother would advise my step-father to only hit my backside and the palms of my hands, because that way no-one could tell they were abusing me. She didn't want the neighbours and her friends and family (who were over our house constantly) to see how much I was being beaten up.

The household I lived in, therefore was completely chaotic and full of drama - which they caused and I got sucked up into it. And the ironic thing is that I was completely different to the three of them - I read books, I was good (and am) at mathematics and loved science and I loved writing stories. None of them is very educated and I think part of their issue with me is that they resent me for just being born with attributes and personal characteristics they don't have. My mother's aim was to make me a dutiful housewife who knew how to knit, sew, cook and take care of her husband's every need and I was not that girl and she couldn't deal with it, so she hit me to make me conform to what she wanted me to become. How grossly unfair!

Obviously they weren't nasty every single minute of every day, but it happened more predominantly than not and it affected my psyche, so much so that now I can't seem to have a normal relationship with a man that is healthy and positive. Only the other day I realised how much I crave drama in relationships because that is the only thing I know about in familial relationships and so it has pervaded into my subconsciousness and it makes me want that drama in my personal relationships.

When my father left my mother constantly told my brother and I, but mostly me that my own father left "me", that he never loved me. She would say to me, "your own father never loved you enough and left you because he didn't love you", over and over and over again. I basically figured out from those words that I was unlovable at the tender age of 6.

I have never felt like I deserved to be loved (hence the reason why I go for unavailable men) and needless to say, I haven't had many relationships because of this reason - I don't trust that someone who says they like me actually does like me.

This article from CBS News, "Spanking, physical punishment may raise risk for mental health woes in adult years" infers that studies show people that are abused as children don't do so well in their adult life because of the early abuse. I am yet further proof of this theory, unfortunately.

And as I read back all of this and re-live it in my mind, it really reiterates why I m so upset with them, as my parent behaviour is just awful and no-one should ever have been abused this way.

Now all of this former abuse is the basis of my gripe and resentment towards my disloyal family. I am sure you can understand why.

Finally Some Freedom, But Some Things Never Change

Cape Town Accommodation 2010 FIFA World Cup Soccer

I have been out of the crazy house for the past three years - living on my own in small apartments.

I moved three times in the past three years. Too much moving, but at least now I think I am quite settled in my house.

The LayZ  boy is still behaving the same way when I occasionally visit the parents house. The parents are a little better because LayZ boy behaves exactly the same way at their house now as he did when I was there, so my mother cannot deny any more that he is not the problem. She can no longer blame me for making him behave that way (especially since he used to convince her that I was the problem, not him and she believed him, as usual).

I see my mother and step-father a few days a week, but less when I have had an argument with my mother, which has been happening more frequently lately and that is because she is getting less respectful and reverting back to her usual rude habits, where I am concerned. Ironically, other people (who she is really nice to) think she is so wonderful, but those people who get to see her real side don't like her and don't like to be around her.

It's just tiring to have to deal with my mother's crap - I quite often feel like she is the child and I am the mother and I have to try to reason with an unreasonable two-year old. It is the same with my step-father, he is just as childish. So I guess, no wonder they are together - the are both the same in terms of their mental age.