Black And Gray..With Red-Hot Pain
by Melissa Fields on Saturday, October 16, 2010 at 7:40pm
Depressed...i hurt from all sides tonight..i am in this house all alone....
the air outside is cold and gray...it was a gloomy day today
and the street monsters were all here in the cage across the street
screaming in and out like demon banshees again......i just want to
roll up in a tight ball and fade into the corner and go far away
from here to somewhere where i will feel and have peace...where i can
hear and see water, green lush grass and trees, and hear the birds
singing in those trees..real birds....not the awful sharp hostile
loud crows that come onto this street...i wish i had someone here tonight
to physically talk to and who would take me out of this pit...i wish i could go
somewhere where i could be healed and healthy again....
i so wish my family would see my plight and how deeply they
hurt me by the way they always snub me and turn their backs on me
I just feel so numb with the pain tonight.....
How much longer, Father God, must i endure this?
Please......i want to dream again...please God...take me where i
will shine again!!!!!!!! Primally i scream this to Your very
Throne Of Grace......
God....please, oh, please, make this STOP!!!!!!!!!
In Jesus' awesome name...amen.
·
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Ever Since
Ever since i was a little girl
I have always longed to see
so many far-off places, so many new
fresh vistas.....
Though i don't believe in reincarnation
for some strange reason whenever i
have watched TV and seen places like
New York State,
New York City, New England, Michigan,
Wisconsin, the Great Lakes, Ohio,
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia,
and Washington DC....i have always
had the strange feeling that i lived
in these places in other times....
And so it is my fervent dream today
that i will get to someday soon
be able to have the freedom to go
visit these beautiful lands, where they get
to experience all four seasons,
where the food and architecture is even different
Dear God, i know You hear my daily cries
and that someday soon, i will have these dreams
fulfilled, in Jesus name i pray, amen. <3<3<3<3
·
I have always longed to see
so many far-off places, so many new
fresh vistas.....
Though i don't believe in reincarnation
for some strange reason whenever i
have watched TV and seen places like
New York State,
New York City, New England, Michigan,
Wisconsin, the Great Lakes, Ohio,
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia,
and Washington DC....i have always
had the strange feeling that i lived
in these places in other times....
And so it is my fervent dream today
that i will get to someday soon
be able to have the freedom to go
visit these beautiful lands, where they get
to experience all four seasons,
where the food and architecture is even different
Dear God, i know You hear my daily cries
and that someday soon, i will have these dreams
fulfilled, in Jesus name i pray, amen. <3<3<3<3
·
My Father's Love That I Did Not Have
A Father's Love Is So Important--But I Didn't Have My Father's Love & Approval--I Had His Rod!!
by Melissa Fields on Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 7:59pm
Today i had a bad nightmare about my strict, stern father. Well, let's put it this way, it wasn't a pleasant dream, but i think i had it for a reason, because my Higher Power, whom i refer to as God, wants me to make peace with my past, once and for all.
When i sleep deeply, i have lots and lots of really vivid dreams..most of them are really pleasant dreams where i am able to escape into them and be somewhere else where i am happy; i even get to travel in alot of these dreams, to places where i have never been, that, in real life, i absolutely dream about visiting.
But sometimes my dreams are not pleasant..like the dream i had today. Sometimes i dream about the very unpleasant things in my life that have happened to me, either in my past, or things that haunt me now.
As most of my friends know, i grew up in an era, the '60's, where not alot was known about high-functioning autism, or that autism is a spectrum of different levels of a very complex disorder.
Because i was highly intelligent from the get-go, my quirks and meltdowns always came as a total shock to all of my family, and i often got misinterpreted and misunderstood as being spoiled and selfish and lazy--and as just a brat.
I was always close to my mother..and my grandmother was very nice too, to a point, but she, also, could never seem to wrap herself around the fact that i was "differently-abled". Neither could my father..and this is why i am writing this note.
My father was a hard-working and very strait-laced Catholic, who came from a family who also had very high standards and ultra-strict morals. He was honest and loyal to his family and wife....in that he treated my mom like gold, provided all of us 7 children with all that we needed..and some of our wants too, and would take us for Sunday drives and picnics every Sunday afternoon/evening.
~~~~ <3<3<3 I always wanted to love my father. <3<3<3 ~~~~
But he was very harsh and had a quick temper and very little tolerance and patience for anything out of the norm. His children were always expected to behave and mind him, but there was little in the way of affection and warm and fuzzyness from this man..or tolerance for anything that he deemed nonesense.
He did have that nice side, but it was only sometimes seen.
We children could never talk or converse at the dinner table, because that seemed to really irritate him.
Too much horseplay, giggling, and running around also irritated him.
When he watched his baseball, football, basketball, auto races, and nightly boxing and wrestling matches...we children had to keep quiet for those too. He had Master Control over the family TV, and we could only watch things that my mom would talk him into letting us watch. He also never believed that we should ever have a color TV, so we never had one. I got to watch color Tv when i'd go to other people's houses, but at home, we were a black and white TV family, whose children also had to be black and white and subdued.
We were never allowed a voice with him..or to debate him, or disagree with him either.
We were all expected to attend 8:00 AM Sunday Mass, or sometimes we'd go on Saturday nights at 6 PM. No ifs ands or buts.
All oif the above behaviors would bring out that ferociously hot, loud, hair-trigger temper..and he would yell SO loudly and SO sharply that it felt like a sharp burning whip to my back..we were always being sent to our rooms as a punishment, and then, if he got pissed off enough, he would give us the awful lickings...."lickin's", is what he would call them...and i can remember LOTS of times where i would actually have huge red welts on my buttocks and thighs from these lickin's; i would always be made to go to my room after these, and i remember sitting there on my bed, sobbing, and trembling in pain and raw fear, with snot pouring out of my little nose, feeling like total worthless garbage. From early on, i knew my daddy hated my guts. And it used to hurt my littele-girl heart so badly, as i would sit on my bed, wondering why my daddy was like this, why he hated me? Mixed in with the smell and taste of my tears, woukld be the afterglow of his scent, which was a mix of tobacco smoke and aftershave, and Brillcream or Vitalis for his hair.
One day as a little tiny girl, i was watching a baseball game with him. We were playing, and laughing...but then all of a sudden he grew angry and pinched me on the arm and yelled at me to "Go away!!" At first i thought he was still palaying..but when he yelled harder and pinched me again, i KNEW he was NOT playing..and off i went down the hall to cry, my little heart and spirit broken again. It was a Sunday, so my mom was at church, so she didn't witness this incident.
One night, he had punished me for making noises he didn't like, so i thought i'd stick my tongue out at him..i did, and told him "I hate you, Daddy!!" He lost it and before i could ge away from him, he lunged at me, yanking me around by my ear, then threw me over his shoulder, and then threw me in my bedroom, where he pulled my pants down, and gave me one of his horrible lickin's.
On another afternoon, i was outside our ranch house in the carport, kneeled at the back of our family station wagon, fascinated with the license plate, so i was playing with it, pretending it was my imaginary friend. This "friend" got mad at me, so i yanked the plate off. My dad came out and saw what i did, and not even bothering to find out why i did that..he again lost it and yanked me by my ears and braids, then picked me up by my arm and threw me onto his green easy chair in the family room, and gave me another awful lickin', which left horrible red raised welts on my buttocks and thighs. my mom tried to stop him, but he wasn't about to stop. he kept hitting me...and it hurt!!!!
There were times that he would be kinda nice, too, like that brief period of time when we were watching that baseball game. When he got a little red Honda motorcycle, he would take me and my siblings for little rides to the end of our street and back. And around the mountain roads on the mountain property we had. And sometimes he would give me a little affectionate hug and kiss. Sometimes he would play the upright piano that was in the dining room of our ranch-style house, and i would be allowed to climb up on the top of the piano to listen to him play and sing his old songs. Sometimes he would take me to get a bunch of popsicle trearts for us kids at the grocery store. Sometimes he'd treat us kids to McDonalds hamburgers and soda pop.
As i grew older, those nice times grew less and less, and the walls between he and i grew taller and deeper.
In June of 1970, after school let out, we moved to our mountain property 22 miles East of town, where he had built a cabin and a Big two-story house two years after that. I had to now attend a country school where there were no more special ed classes for me, and i floundered on all levels there.
It was at this school that i discovered that hair shines in different colors, like almost a rainbow and prism, and boy, after that, i became totally enraptured with shiny hair!!! I just loved to play with the other girls' hair at school recess, and they all let me do so, too, but my sisters would always shoo me away and one of my sisters would actualy yell at me and hit me if i tried to touch her hair. I was teased mercilessly for this, by alot of the kids at school...but my father's reaction to this new quirk of mine, was to always yell at me for looking at my shines in my hair.... i wuld actually sit there on our country living room couch, and pull my hair in front of my eyes to look at the beautiful shines in it, and i'd do this, it seemed, like for hours on end. But because this was not normal to my daddy, he started threatening to take the cow clippers to my hair and give me a buzz-cut if i didn;t stop playing with my hair. And he was NOT joking!!
Neither was he joking when he kept after me for the arm-swinging (stimming) i was doing. He kept threatening that he would make me stay in my room ALL DAY LONG, if i kept this up..and because this was stimming that i was doing....i couldn't stop it..and he made good on his threat one Sunday after church when he caught me behind an old house trailer we had in our bacxkyard, swinging my arms in private, so as to not have HIM see me and punish me!! Well, that didn't matter to my dad, and i had to spend the whole rest of that day in my befroom..so, no playing Tonka trucks with my little brother that day..however, i was allowed to go with him and my mom to a nearby ranch several times that day as an outing, so that i wasn't having to be in my room all the time..and i was also allowed to go to the bathroom too.
My mom was able to talk my dad into relenting and letting me go on the little mini-trips to the ranch, where my dad was taking care of some livestock for the owners, who were away that weekend. Because she felt his punishment was too unreasonable and harsh.
From 6th through 9th grade, i withdrew into a quiet shell, so as to not upset anyone. Oh, i still talked and interracted with everyone but i moved heaven and earth to be as non-obtrusive as possible so as not to piss off my dad and make people call me different anymore. I also stopped liking country and western music in the 6th grade, which also irritated my strait-laced father, because he now hated rock music..even the lighter pop Top 40 tunes!! He and my brothers and one of my sisters all called it hippie music now....and i was now a litle mini-hippie-teenager in the 6th grade!!
I did discover, too, that i had allies in my mom and two of my older sisters, and they would allow me to sneak my music when the others weren't around. But my brothers were also alot like my father, very harsh and rigid, too.....and i never got along with them either. Nor the one sister who had the long silky shiny hair.
I felt so stifled and oppressed growing up. Never allowed to have a voice and never allowed to be me....
And as my older siblings became teenagers..guess what? My intolerant father began letting them have more privileges. They could now talk and joke with my father, even at the dinner table..and even my little brother began doing the same!!!!! He could get away with anything!!!
But i was still being squelched by my daddy!!!!
Needless to say, i grew to have an intense HATE for my father. Even as i still had to live at home with my parents through my twenties, i still had a very stilted, stiff relationship with my father.
When i was a sophomore in high school, my father was eatting a box of Sees candy in front of all of us, and wouldn't offer us any. Most of the time he would offer us a few pieces. But this night he wouldn't, and my mom pled with him to pass the box around. My older brother jokingly called him mean, and he laughed and shrugged and continued to eat his candy. I chimed in, agreeing with my brother..."Yeah, Daddy, you're mean!!" THAT did NOT fly with daddy..he immediately yelled "Hey, young lady, you nincompoop, GO TO YOUR ROOM!!!!"
My mom goes: "Dad, she was just joking!!"
His loud retort: "Well, I"M not joking!!! She needs to shut her smart mouth!!"
In My Sophomore year of high school i ran away three timnes toi try to get away from my hateful father and narrow-minded family.
Even after high school, when i got a small job cleaning house for a doctor and his wife and their boy..i wanted to wash my hair one Sunday afternoon, but he was eatting dinner, and would not allow it, said it would upset him to have me do that, to wait till the next day. I told him that i would have to get up earlier than normal to do it then, and he lost it, and started to lunge at me...i tried to run out the door, and he caught me by my hair and, literally screaming in my ear, yanked me inside the cabin, and to my room, where he roared at me that he wanted no more flack from me ever again..that he was fed up with me and would not tolrerate anything from me anymore..i felt that he was actually going to KILLL me that night. I manged to escape out my window and go to the Big House, where i called the doctor and his wife, and they let me come over and spend the night. After that, i moved my bedroom out to the Big House and got away from him that way. I didn;t speak to him for a long time after that incident with my hair.
Then, in the summer of 1983, when i was going to go on a trip to Indiana to visit friends, he came home one evening from work, my mom and i had been shopping in town that day, and we were unloading the family station wagon..and being i was so excited about my trip, i was in a friendly mood, so i asked him how his day at work went.
" I DON'T THINK THAT'S ANY OF YOUR BUSINESS!!", was his snotty reply, as he slammed shut the refrigerator door, my mouth popped open in utter shock, and i turned on my heel and ran out to my grandma's room which was downstairs in the Big House, running into her open arms, sobbing, my heart broken yet again by my daddy. My grandmother was shocked and upset too...she and my mother both felt he was out of line.
Many other simliar incidents followed, until one day in 1986, he and my mom saw a man with an oversized white cross walking down Broadway Street as they were stopped at a traffic light...and my father suddenly told my mother that he realized that he wasn't being kind to me. He told her that day that he was goi ng to make a concerted effort at being nicer to me. He did get alot nicer after that..but i still was afraid of his temper, because he would still get grumpy with me, so i still stayed my distance from him.
After all of our black and white TVs finally died and couldn't be fixed anymore, he finally went for a new 19-inch color set for him and my mom. Since i was now on SSI, i also had my own 17-inch color TV and a stereo now too..and i now had my bedroom out in the big house across the yard from my mom and dad's cabin, so i could stay seperated from him and have my music. But then, he started asking me to let him watch Monday Night Football on my TV, so my mom could watch The Bob Newhart Show..so i let him do that..with the provision that he not touch my rock posters that i had all over the walls of my sanctuary. Or my stereo. I had to have my mom tell him, because i was still not comfortable talking directly to him. He still would threaten to take his shotgun to my posters though, and kept accusing me of being a bad person just because i loved hard rock and heavy metal.
In 1987, i was finally able to move back into town next to two old ladies, a mother and her daughter, and they and their family and i became very close..and i began going to their Southern Baptist church and making more friends and blossoming out more. My dad and i would see each other on occasion, and he was always so nice to me now....but, still, i would never let my guard down, because..the damage had already been done...
My father had a stroke in 1989..and alot of his behavior reverted back to the old meaner version of Daddy again. But he also became less of a threat to me physically, so his and my blowouts were different now in that i could now tell him off and he'd shut his mouth. it still affected me, though, that he was always wanting to be harder on me than the others. I no longer hated my father..but i still wasn't close to him.
He died in February 2000.
Since then, he has periodically come to me in my dreams, sometimes they are peaceful dreams, where he is uber nice and accepts me and my music and ways of thinking..and other times he is the old mean daddy who would break my heart into little tiny pieces, time and tine again.
My father was a very good-looking teenager and still was good-looking in his twenties and thirties.
~~~~ <3<3<3 I wanted my father to love me...and he just couldn't do it.... <3<3<3 ~~~~
In the dream i had of him today, he was in his thirties and it was 1967 again...i had gone to the store to get the family groceries. Only i had gotten the wrong kind of milk, and my father didn't like that, and began lecturing me in his loud voicxe, and in this dream, i was fed up. I turned around and stood up for myself....and..THIS time, as i looked deep into his handsome blue eyes and spoke from my heart, telling him how hurtful he was being to me, that i am a human being...HE LISTENED.
If only he would have listened to me when i was a little child...back when it still mattered to me.
by Melissa Fields on Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 7:59pm
Today i had a bad nightmare about my strict, stern father. Well, let's put it this way, it wasn't a pleasant dream, but i think i had it for a reason, because my Higher Power, whom i refer to as God, wants me to make peace with my past, once and for all.
When i sleep deeply, i have lots and lots of really vivid dreams..most of them are really pleasant dreams where i am able to escape into them and be somewhere else where i am happy; i even get to travel in alot of these dreams, to places where i have never been, that, in real life, i absolutely dream about visiting.
But sometimes my dreams are not pleasant..like the dream i had today. Sometimes i dream about the very unpleasant things in my life that have happened to me, either in my past, or things that haunt me now.
As most of my friends know, i grew up in an era, the '60's, where not alot was known about high-functioning autism, or that autism is a spectrum of different levels of a very complex disorder.
Because i was highly intelligent from the get-go, my quirks and meltdowns always came as a total shock to all of my family, and i often got misinterpreted and misunderstood as being spoiled and selfish and lazy--and as just a brat.
I was always close to my mother..and my grandmother was very nice too, to a point, but she, also, could never seem to wrap herself around the fact that i was "differently-abled". Neither could my father..and this is why i am writing this note.
My father was a hard-working and very strait-laced Catholic, who came from a family who also had very high standards and ultra-strict morals. He was honest and loyal to his family and wife....in that he treated my mom like gold, provided all of us 7 children with all that we needed..and some of our wants too, and would take us for Sunday drives and picnics every Sunday afternoon/evening.
~~~~ <3<3<3 I always wanted to love my father. <3<3<3 ~~~~
But he was very harsh and had a quick temper and very little tolerance and patience for anything out of the norm. His children were always expected to behave and mind him, but there was little in the way of affection and warm and fuzzyness from this man..or tolerance for anything that he deemed nonesense.
He did have that nice side, but it was only sometimes seen.
We children could never talk or converse at the dinner table, because that seemed to really irritate him.
Too much horseplay, giggling, and running around also irritated him.
When he watched his baseball, football, basketball, auto races, and nightly boxing and wrestling matches...we children had to keep quiet for those too. He had Master Control over the family TV, and we could only watch things that my mom would talk him into letting us watch. He also never believed that we should ever have a color TV, so we never had one. I got to watch color Tv when i'd go to other people's houses, but at home, we were a black and white TV family, whose children also had to be black and white and subdued.
We were never allowed a voice with him..or to debate him, or disagree with him either.
We were all expected to attend 8:00 AM Sunday Mass, or sometimes we'd go on Saturday nights at 6 PM. No ifs ands or buts.
All oif the above behaviors would bring out that ferociously hot, loud, hair-trigger temper..and he would yell SO loudly and SO sharply that it felt like a sharp burning whip to my back..we were always being sent to our rooms as a punishment, and then, if he got pissed off enough, he would give us the awful lickings...."lickin's", is what he would call them...and i can remember LOTS of times where i would actually have huge red welts on my buttocks and thighs from these lickin's; i would always be made to go to my room after these, and i remember sitting there on my bed, sobbing, and trembling in pain and raw fear, with snot pouring out of my little nose, feeling like total worthless garbage. From early on, i knew my daddy hated my guts. And it used to hurt my littele-girl heart so badly, as i would sit on my bed, wondering why my daddy was like this, why he hated me? Mixed in with the smell and taste of my tears, woukld be the afterglow of his scent, which was a mix of tobacco smoke and aftershave, and Brillcream or Vitalis for his hair.
One day as a little tiny girl, i was watching a baseball game with him. We were playing, and laughing...but then all of a sudden he grew angry and pinched me on the arm and yelled at me to "Go away!!" At first i thought he was still palaying..but when he yelled harder and pinched me again, i KNEW he was NOT playing..and off i went down the hall to cry, my little heart and spirit broken again. It was a Sunday, so my mom was at church, so she didn't witness this incident.
One night, he had punished me for making noises he didn't like, so i thought i'd stick my tongue out at him..i did, and told him "I hate you, Daddy!!" He lost it and before i could ge away from him, he lunged at me, yanking me around by my ear, then threw me over his shoulder, and then threw me in my bedroom, where he pulled my pants down, and gave me one of his horrible lickin's.
On another afternoon, i was outside our ranch house in the carport, kneeled at the back of our family station wagon, fascinated with the license plate, so i was playing with it, pretending it was my imaginary friend. This "friend" got mad at me, so i yanked the plate off. My dad came out and saw what i did, and not even bothering to find out why i did that..he again lost it and yanked me by my ears and braids, then picked me up by my arm and threw me onto his green easy chair in the family room, and gave me another awful lickin', which left horrible red raised welts on my buttocks and thighs. my mom tried to stop him, but he wasn't about to stop. he kept hitting me...and it hurt!!!!
There were times that he would be kinda nice, too, like that brief period of time when we were watching that baseball game. When he got a little red Honda motorcycle, he would take me and my siblings for little rides to the end of our street and back. And around the mountain roads on the mountain property we had. And sometimes he would give me a little affectionate hug and kiss. Sometimes he would play the upright piano that was in the dining room of our ranch-style house, and i would be allowed to climb up on the top of the piano to listen to him play and sing his old songs. Sometimes he would take me to get a bunch of popsicle trearts for us kids at the grocery store. Sometimes he'd treat us kids to McDonalds hamburgers and soda pop.
As i grew older, those nice times grew less and less, and the walls between he and i grew taller and deeper.
In June of 1970, after school let out, we moved to our mountain property 22 miles East of town, where he had built a cabin and a Big two-story house two years after that. I had to now attend a country school where there were no more special ed classes for me, and i floundered on all levels there.
It was at this school that i discovered that hair shines in different colors, like almost a rainbow and prism, and boy, after that, i became totally enraptured with shiny hair!!! I just loved to play with the other girls' hair at school recess, and they all let me do so, too, but my sisters would always shoo me away and one of my sisters would actualy yell at me and hit me if i tried to touch her hair. I was teased mercilessly for this, by alot of the kids at school...but my father's reaction to this new quirk of mine, was to always yell at me for looking at my shines in my hair.... i wuld actually sit there on our country living room couch, and pull my hair in front of my eyes to look at the beautiful shines in it, and i'd do this, it seemed, like for hours on end. But because this was not normal to my daddy, he started threatening to take the cow clippers to my hair and give me a buzz-cut if i didn;t stop playing with my hair. And he was NOT joking!!
Neither was he joking when he kept after me for the arm-swinging (stimming) i was doing. He kept threatening that he would make me stay in my room ALL DAY LONG, if i kept this up..and because this was stimming that i was doing....i couldn't stop it..and he made good on his threat one Sunday after church when he caught me behind an old house trailer we had in our bacxkyard, swinging my arms in private, so as to not have HIM see me and punish me!! Well, that didn't matter to my dad, and i had to spend the whole rest of that day in my befroom..so, no playing Tonka trucks with my little brother that day..however, i was allowed to go with him and my mom to a nearby ranch several times that day as an outing, so that i wasn't having to be in my room all the time..and i was also allowed to go to the bathroom too.
My mom was able to talk my dad into relenting and letting me go on the little mini-trips to the ranch, where my dad was taking care of some livestock for the owners, who were away that weekend. Because she felt his punishment was too unreasonable and harsh.
From 6th through 9th grade, i withdrew into a quiet shell, so as to not upset anyone. Oh, i still talked and interracted with everyone but i moved heaven and earth to be as non-obtrusive as possible so as not to piss off my dad and make people call me different anymore. I also stopped liking country and western music in the 6th grade, which also irritated my strait-laced father, because he now hated rock music..even the lighter pop Top 40 tunes!! He and my brothers and one of my sisters all called it hippie music now....and i was now a litle mini-hippie-teenager in the 6th grade!!
I did discover, too, that i had allies in my mom and two of my older sisters, and they would allow me to sneak my music when the others weren't around. But my brothers were also alot like my father, very harsh and rigid, too.....and i never got along with them either. Nor the one sister who had the long silky shiny hair.
I felt so stifled and oppressed growing up. Never allowed to have a voice and never allowed to be me....
And as my older siblings became teenagers..guess what? My intolerant father began letting them have more privileges. They could now talk and joke with my father, even at the dinner table..and even my little brother began doing the same!!!!! He could get away with anything!!!
But i was still being squelched by my daddy!!!!
Needless to say, i grew to have an intense HATE for my father. Even as i still had to live at home with my parents through my twenties, i still had a very stilted, stiff relationship with my father.
When i was a sophomore in high school, my father was eatting a box of Sees candy in front of all of us, and wouldn't offer us any. Most of the time he would offer us a few pieces. But this night he wouldn't, and my mom pled with him to pass the box around. My older brother jokingly called him mean, and he laughed and shrugged and continued to eat his candy. I chimed in, agreeing with my brother..."Yeah, Daddy, you're mean!!" THAT did NOT fly with daddy..he immediately yelled "Hey, young lady, you nincompoop, GO TO YOUR ROOM!!!!"
My mom goes: "Dad, she was just joking!!"
His loud retort: "Well, I"M not joking!!! She needs to shut her smart mouth!!"
In My Sophomore year of high school i ran away three timnes toi try to get away from my hateful father and narrow-minded family.
Even after high school, when i got a small job cleaning house for a doctor and his wife and their boy..i wanted to wash my hair one Sunday afternoon, but he was eatting dinner, and would not allow it, said it would upset him to have me do that, to wait till the next day. I told him that i would have to get up earlier than normal to do it then, and he lost it, and started to lunge at me...i tried to run out the door, and he caught me by my hair and, literally screaming in my ear, yanked me inside the cabin, and to my room, where he roared at me that he wanted no more flack from me ever again..that he was fed up with me and would not tolrerate anything from me anymore..i felt that he was actually going to KILLL me that night. I manged to escape out my window and go to the Big House, where i called the doctor and his wife, and they let me come over and spend the night. After that, i moved my bedroom out to the Big House and got away from him that way. I didn;t speak to him for a long time after that incident with my hair.
Then, in the summer of 1983, when i was going to go on a trip to Indiana to visit friends, he came home one evening from work, my mom and i had been shopping in town that day, and we were unloading the family station wagon..and being i was so excited about my trip, i was in a friendly mood, so i asked him how his day at work went.
" I DON'T THINK THAT'S ANY OF YOUR BUSINESS!!", was his snotty reply, as he slammed shut the refrigerator door, my mouth popped open in utter shock, and i turned on my heel and ran out to my grandma's room which was downstairs in the Big House, running into her open arms, sobbing, my heart broken yet again by my daddy. My grandmother was shocked and upset too...she and my mother both felt he was out of line.
Many other simliar incidents followed, until one day in 1986, he and my mom saw a man with an oversized white cross walking down Broadway Street as they were stopped at a traffic light...and my father suddenly told my mother that he realized that he wasn't being kind to me. He told her that day that he was goi ng to make a concerted effort at being nicer to me. He did get alot nicer after that..but i still was afraid of his temper, because he would still get grumpy with me, so i still stayed my distance from him.
After all of our black and white TVs finally died and couldn't be fixed anymore, he finally went for a new 19-inch color set for him and my mom. Since i was now on SSI, i also had my own 17-inch color TV and a stereo now too..and i now had my bedroom out in the big house across the yard from my mom and dad's cabin, so i could stay seperated from him and have my music. But then, he started asking me to let him watch Monday Night Football on my TV, so my mom could watch The Bob Newhart Show..so i let him do that..with the provision that he not touch my rock posters that i had all over the walls of my sanctuary. Or my stereo. I had to have my mom tell him, because i was still not comfortable talking directly to him. He still would threaten to take his shotgun to my posters though, and kept accusing me of being a bad person just because i loved hard rock and heavy metal.
In 1987, i was finally able to move back into town next to two old ladies, a mother and her daughter, and they and their family and i became very close..and i began going to their Southern Baptist church and making more friends and blossoming out more. My dad and i would see each other on occasion, and he was always so nice to me now....but, still, i would never let my guard down, because..the damage had already been done...
My father had a stroke in 1989..and alot of his behavior reverted back to the old meaner version of Daddy again. But he also became less of a threat to me physically, so his and my blowouts were different now in that i could now tell him off and he'd shut his mouth. it still affected me, though, that he was always wanting to be harder on me than the others. I no longer hated my father..but i still wasn't close to him.
He died in February 2000.
Since then, he has periodically come to me in my dreams, sometimes they are peaceful dreams, where he is uber nice and accepts me and my music and ways of thinking..and other times he is the old mean daddy who would break my heart into little tiny pieces, time and tine again.
My father was a very good-looking teenager and still was good-looking in his twenties and thirties.
~~~~ <3<3<3 I wanted my father to love me...and he just couldn't do it.... <3<3<3 ~~~~
In the dream i had of him today, he was in his thirties and it was 1967 again...i had gone to the store to get the family groceries. Only i had gotten the wrong kind of milk, and my father didn't like that, and began lecturing me in his loud voicxe, and in this dream, i was fed up. I turned around and stood up for myself....and..THIS time, as i looked deep into his handsome blue eyes and spoke from my heart, telling him how hurtful he was being to me, that i am a human being...HE LISTENED.
If only he would have listened to me when i was a little child...back when it still mattered to me.
Not Welcome In My Own Hometown
You know, it really pains me that in this day, that people can still get away with trying to squelch and silence those of us who are differently-abled. It is so nice that i have been able tgo find all kinds of really awesome autism community friends through facebook....but....when i knock on the door of my local home turf...the doors stay shut tight to me.
Through Facebook i have heard of wonderful kind doctors, wonderful families and communities..which have all embraced their autistic patients, citizens, siblings, sons and daughters and so on. Yet, here i sit by my computer....as i try to reach out locally....i get shut down, dissed and pushed aside....
I am so very tired today....if i could, i would pack my car up and get in it and just leave...i would leave this whole state for a state where my friends live, where i can get help....where i can get far far away from all those mean men who taunt me everyday with their loud motors.
The media here all turn a deaf ear to me. So does my city's mayor and city council and city officials. Nobody seems to want to give me the hand-up i am asking for....which is mainly good medical care, and for those mean bully konsters to be made to leave me alone.......
I don't know how much longer i can last like this...God please hear from above..and get me to that open door so that i can leave this hell-hole and go far far away.......
Through Facebook i have heard of wonderful kind doctors, wonderful families and communities..which have all embraced their autistic patients, citizens, siblings, sons and daughters and so on. Yet, here i sit by my computer....as i try to reach out locally....i get shut down, dissed and pushed aside....
I am so very tired today....if i could, i would pack my car up and get in it and just leave...i would leave this whole state for a state where my friends live, where i can get help....where i can get far far away from all those mean men who taunt me everyday with their loud motors.
The media here all turn a deaf ear to me. So does my city's mayor and city council and city officials. Nobody seems to want to give me the hand-up i am asking for....which is mainly good medical care, and for those mean bully konsters to be made to leave me alone.......
I don't know how much longer i can last like this...God please hear from above..and get me to that open door so that i can leave this hell-hole and go far far away.......
Saturday, August 14, 2010
The Scathing Hell Continues
It is Saturday..it is mid-August..and i am still here. The mean bully monsters are across the street again, working on a classic car and are bothering me because they won't respect my desire for at least a weekend of relief and peace from the loud hot rod noises and smells and their nastiness...i wish i just had somdeone to come here to help me with my computer issues when they occur...all of my close friends are on Facebook and live all over the US and in the UK and Australia and a few other places..but i can't seem to find friends here who get my autism like my autism community friends do on Facebook who all live so far away. I still do not feel that i can get on the phone to call on the brother that lives here in Santa Maria..i feel so alone today, and like this is never ever going to end.
I was just talking to my neighbor, the nice one who is my friend, last night..and i was telling him that i am actually housebound in the daytimes due to the mean bully monsters and their terrorism against me!!! And...this is true..i AM!!!! I am literally afraid to go anywhere or even be outside in my front yard becasue i will get taunted and yelled at....and they will honk their horns and rev their loud engines at me just to hear me scream and have a meltdown..and then they sit and laugh at me when i have those meltdowns....God, this is HELL!!!!! Hell in its purest form, right here on earth!!!!
Yes, this is what it is like to be a middle-aged adult who is autistic and who cannot get the help and supports she needs so she can finally work on having her physical health back, and a decent life off of all these scary government programs.
And...on and on this goes.
I was just talking to my neighbor, the nice one who is my friend, last night..and i was telling him that i am actually housebound in the daytimes due to the mean bully monsters and their terrorism against me!!! And...this is true..i AM!!!! I am literally afraid to go anywhere or even be outside in my front yard becasue i will get taunted and yelled at....and they will honk their horns and rev their loud engines at me just to hear me scream and have a meltdown..and then they sit and laugh at me when i have those meltdowns....God, this is HELL!!!!! Hell in its purest form, right here on earth!!!!
Yes, this is what it is like to be a middle-aged adult who is autistic and who cannot get the help and supports she needs so she can finally work on having her physical health back, and a decent life off of all these scary government programs.
And...on and on this goes.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Cloudy, Cool, Muggy Sunday
Before i begin today's blog entry, i want to first put this disclaimer out there..i am not doing this as a negative rant..and i apologize that these blogs are always like this, so negative....but this is how life is for an autistic adult who cannot get help and support....even from her own family.
Today is Sunday..it is cool, but muggy..and cloudy, too, with a slight chance of thunderstorms here in Cali. My street today..is quiet, thank God. I am usually asleeep right now, but i can't at this time, so, i have decided to write.
How am i doing today? I am tired....i am mentally and physically very tired....the heel of my left foot is hurting badly again,....and both of my legs feel like huge tree trunks. I am once again sleeping days and getting up at about two, three or four in the afternoon, and staying up all night, because the nights are so, so quiet. My days....continue to be sheer hell, because of the relentless loud meanness from the mean bully monsters at the auto repair shop across the street, as they continue to level their intolerance and hate my way. I am sure that i have gained 5 more pounds in the past week..because i feel heavier than i did before. My couch that i sit and sleep on, is all broken down to where i now have sores on the backs of my thighs....you see, i have to sleep sitting up and back on my couch, because i can no longer sleeep laying down on my bed in my bedroom. I actually sometimes now have dreams that i am sleeping in my bed again, all cozy and warm and comfortable....and it is such a good feeling....even if it's just a dream....
I still do not hear from my aunt who said back in May that she would help me make a move...i am now told that she won't help me at all, because she feels that i am "too needy". She even told this person that she was talking to about my situation, that she can see why my brothers, my two sisters in laws, two sisters and my neices, all have nothing to do with me....because of the fact that, as a special needs autistic adult, i do have alot of needs.
I am still unable to find a good medical doctor that will help me to get my legs and feet back...that will even help me so that i can at least have a handicapped sticker so i can park where i can easily get right in and out of the stores i go to, to do my grocery and neccessity shopping. Or someone to come in and give me respite care so i can function better.
It has gotten even harder for me to move around my house. I feel like i am eighty years old, even though i am still kind of youngish in age. I am actually afraid that i will fall and break a hip when i take a shower, or that i will fall on the front steps that lead to my house. My knees always hurt, my back and hips hurt too. I feel weighed way down..and the only reason that i keep going on and on and on, is because, after all of this, i still have my faith in God...and i still have the hope that someday, SOMEDAY, i will have my miracle!!!!! I pray everyday that God will soften the hard cold hearts of my aunt and uncle...and those of my other family members who also won't have anything to do with me because of my autism.
Yes....this is what it is like for an autistic adult who cannot get help or support even from her family.
I pray that my story will get published soon....i pray that this blog will be read by someone who will have the means to help me...because it is a horrible, awful feeling to feel like life has passed you by at the young age of fifty.
Today is Sunday..it is cool, but muggy..and cloudy, too, with a slight chance of thunderstorms here in Cali. My street today..is quiet, thank God. I am usually asleeep right now, but i can't at this time, so, i have decided to write.
How am i doing today? I am tired....i am mentally and physically very tired....the heel of my left foot is hurting badly again,....and both of my legs feel like huge tree trunks. I am once again sleeping days and getting up at about two, three or four in the afternoon, and staying up all night, because the nights are so, so quiet. My days....continue to be sheer hell, because of the relentless loud meanness from the mean bully monsters at the auto repair shop across the street, as they continue to level their intolerance and hate my way. I am sure that i have gained 5 more pounds in the past week..because i feel heavier than i did before. My couch that i sit and sleep on, is all broken down to where i now have sores on the backs of my thighs....you see, i have to sleep sitting up and back on my couch, because i can no longer sleeep laying down on my bed in my bedroom. I actually sometimes now have dreams that i am sleeping in my bed again, all cozy and warm and comfortable....and it is such a good feeling....even if it's just a dream....
I still do not hear from my aunt who said back in May that she would help me make a move...i am now told that she won't help me at all, because she feels that i am "too needy". She even told this person that she was talking to about my situation, that she can see why my brothers, my two sisters in laws, two sisters and my neices, all have nothing to do with me....because of the fact that, as a special needs autistic adult, i do have alot of needs.
I am still unable to find a good medical doctor that will help me to get my legs and feet back...that will even help me so that i can at least have a handicapped sticker so i can park where i can easily get right in and out of the stores i go to, to do my grocery and neccessity shopping. Or someone to come in and give me respite care so i can function better.
It has gotten even harder for me to move around my house. I feel like i am eighty years old, even though i am still kind of youngish in age. I am actually afraid that i will fall and break a hip when i take a shower, or that i will fall on the front steps that lead to my house. My knees always hurt, my back and hips hurt too. I feel weighed way down..and the only reason that i keep going on and on and on, is because, after all of this, i still have my faith in God...and i still have the hope that someday, SOMEDAY, i will have my miracle!!!!! I pray everyday that God will soften the hard cold hearts of my aunt and uncle...and those of my other family members who also won't have anything to do with me because of my autism.
Yes....this is what it is like for an autistic adult who cannot get help or support even from her family.
I pray that my story will get published soon....i pray that this blog will be read by someone who will have the means to help me...because it is a horrible, awful feeling to feel like life has passed you by at the young age of fifty.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Wake my Family Up, Lord...
Wake my family up, Lord, before it is too late
and the gates close tight upon them!!
Tear down the walls that divide us...and make it so hard
for me to even TALK to them in a normal phone conversation!!
It makes me wonder, Lord, why You chose to put me in a family
with such narrow, and intolerant spirits!!
This afternoon, all i did was call my sister, MJ,..only to find out
if my mom was still there at her house..and MJ yelled at me, for
no reason at all..shouting me down so loudly and so harshly
that i was suddenly put back in that awful, degrading mold of
that little dirty child---yes, yesterday's waste...that child
who was always so wrong, always in the way, all the time,...
that child who never had a right to even say hello to them
..who never had a right to have her own opinions..or to make
her own mind up on matters of politics or music, or TV shows...
my way of thinking was always so wrong, or too weird and "out there"
for them....like it was always such a crime---and---i so dread the
times that i have to call MJ---
because she never says "Hello, Melissa, how are you today?
It's so good to hear from you!" Instead, she answers the phone always,
with a very harsh, loud, hot and bothered "YEAH!!!!!", when she sees it
is me on the other end of the line--and then, she proceeds to talk AT me,
in a voice that continues to be so loud, so rude, and actually irritated--
that i am even DARING to call her--like i just commited this awful crime
by calling her!!!
I am not allowed to have MJ's e-mail address, and she will also not allow
me to friend her on Facebook!! When i went to friend my sister-in-law, J,
my brother, E's wife, on Facebook---she, too, declined my request--
--instantly!! This same thing happened when i tried to friend another neice and another sister-in-law on Facebook.
My little brother, MC, even told my mom five years ago, that the family BBQ's would all have to stop if i were to move up to Idaho---
because i would cause too many upsets!!! My aunt also seems to think that it is perfectly okay for me to remain right where i am, with no services, no healthcare, no dental care, no respite care or autism supports--no way to pursue my lifelong dreams and goals!!!
I do have a brother who lives here--and am invited to his and his family's home for Christmas Eve dinner and they are always very generous with me on that one night each year. But there are walls between he and i too, where i cannot talk to him
either...and...this hurts, because i am so open--and am so used to being open with people!!! I also have two other sisters who have also mostly always been kind to me--but--there are walls between me and them too.
I have always felt very much like i have had to be something i am not in my family
in order to survive being there!! Why, Lord??? WHY?????
Dear Lord----what did i do to deserve this????!!!!
All i can come up with for an answer --is that i am different---i am what is called
"differently-abled" than they all are!!!!
I am not a redneck or a cowboy like they are!!
I am not into horses or big huge 4X4 pickups
or country and western music and John Wayne or
Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns or hunting or guns--
--and--i also happen to be autistic too!!!!!
THOSE, dear Lord, are the ONLY "CRIMES" that i have committed in this family.....
....and...to this day, i pay dearly for being this way!!!
How, then, do i go on, can i go on, knowing that i will
evidently always be viewed as a curse to my family----as
just yesterday's waste? It is ONLY BECAUSE You, Lord, have chosen to put
some groups and some areas of people in my life who ARE sweet angels who accept me
for the unique person i am....people who show me that i DO matter
that is why i am still here....still alive and willing to put up with all the garbage
that comes along with the little oasises of good that i have in my life!!
It is because of the beutiful sunrises and sunsets that i
sometimes get to see..and the beautiful Christian rock
that i can hear streaming on my computer every night...
and Your LOVE, Lord, Your LOVE so UN-conditional---
plus the fact that my life here on this Earth
has been such agony and hell already--
that i am too much of a chicken to even consider suicide as a way out
because i am too afraid that if i did try to take my own life--that You would
be so angry and hurt that i would be sent to the real hell--where i will have a whole ETERNITY of this same hell and agony--except minus all the good that i do have now!!!
Still, dear Lord, it is so hard...and as i fight back huge, hot tears of fresh hurt, fresh rejection,....i pray this fervent prayer to Your throne of grace tonight
that You will convict all of the hardened hearts of my family as to what they are doing to me by continuing to treat me like this!!
I am NOT a monster!!
I am NOT mean!!
I am NOT selfish
or lazy
or spoiled
or crazy
or mad!!!!
I AM AUTISTIC!!!!!
I was BORN this way...and i will DIE this way....
unless YOU supernaturally heal me, Lord!!!!!
My family...do not realize the heart of gold that i have,
or the sense of humor or intelligence and unique ways i have---
because, to this very day, they keep the walls up...
they keep me shut out..and shut down...
they STILL will not allow me to be myself around them!!
I am expected to jump through certain hoops when around them
..and if i can't do it..i am cast off to the side like a
wallflower at a high school dance!!
Please, dear Lord, i pray, in Jesus' Holy and Wonderful Name
Please soften the hearts of my family--please tear down the walls that bind them
please deliver them from the spirit of fear and intolerance and heal their hearts so that there will be patience and acceptance towards me instead of the harshness and coldness...please, Lord, do this before it is too late!!!!!
This i pray, in Jesus' name,.....
......AMEN!!!!!!
and the gates close tight upon them!!
Tear down the walls that divide us...and make it so hard
for me to even TALK to them in a normal phone conversation!!
It makes me wonder, Lord, why You chose to put me in a family
with such narrow, and intolerant spirits!!
This afternoon, all i did was call my sister, MJ,..only to find out
if my mom was still there at her house..and MJ yelled at me, for
no reason at all..shouting me down so loudly and so harshly
that i was suddenly put back in that awful, degrading mold of
that little dirty child---yes, yesterday's waste...that child
who was always so wrong, always in the way, all the time,...
that child who never had a right to even say hello to them
..who never had a right to have her own opinions..or to make
her own mind up on matters of politics or music, or TV shows...
my way of thinking was always so wrong, or too weird and "out there"
for them....like it was always such a crime---and---i so dread the
times that i have to call MJ---
because she never says "Hello, Melissa, how are you today?
It's so good to hear from you!" Instead, she answers the phone always,
with a very harsh, loud, hot and bothered "YEAH!!!!!", when she sees it
is me on the other end of the line--and then, she proceeds to talk AT me,
in a voice that continues to be so loud, so rude, and actually irritated--
that i am even DARING to call her--like i just commited this awful crime
by calling her!!!
I am not allowed to have MJ's e-mail address, and she will also not allow
me to friend her on Facebook!! When i went to friend my sister-in-law, J,
my brother, E's wife, on Facebook---she, too, declined my request--
--instantly!! This same thing happened when i tried to friend another neice and another sister-in-law on Facebook.
My little brother, MC, even told my mom five years ago, that the family BBQ's would all have to stop if i were to move up to Idaho---
because i would cause too many upsets!!! My aunt also seems to think that it is perfectly okay for me to remain right where i am, with no services, no healthcare, no dental care, no respite care or autism supports--no way to pursue my lifelong dreams and goals!!!
I do have a brother who lives here--and am invited to his and his family's home for Christmas Eve dinner and they are always very generous with me on that one night each year. But there are walls between he and i too, where i cannot talk to him
either...and...this hurts, because i am so open--and am so used to being open with people!!! I also have two other sisters who have also mostly always been kind to me--but--there are walls between me and them too.
I have always felt very much like i have had to be something i am not in my family
in order to survive being there!! Why, Lord??? WHY?????
Dear Lord----what did i do to deserve this????!!!!
All i can come up with for an answer --is that i am different---i am what is called
"differently-abled" than they all are!!!!
I am not a redneck or a cowboy like they are!!
I am not into horses or big huge 4X4 pickups
or country and western music and John Wayne or
Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns or hunting or guns--
--and--i also happen to be autistic too!!!!!
THOSE, dear Lord, are the ONLY "CRIMES" that i have committed in this family.....
....and...to this day, i pay dearly for being this way!!!
How, then, do i go on, can i go on, knowing that i will
evidently always be viewed as a curse to my family----as
just yesterday's waste? It is ONLY BECAUSE You, Lord, have chosen to put
some groups and some areas of people in my life who ARE sweet angels who accept me
for the unique person i am....people who show me that i DO matter
that is why i am still here....still alive and willing to put up with all the garbage
that comes along with the little oasises of good that i have in my life!!
It is because of the beutiful sunrises and sunsets that i
sometimes get to see..and the beautiful Christian rock
that i can hear streaming on my computer every night...
and Your LOVE, Lord, Your LOVE so UN-conditional---
plus the fact that my life here on this Earth
has been such agony and hell already--
that i am too much of a chicken to even consider suicide as a way out
because i am too afraid that if i did try to take my own life--that You would
be so angry and hurt that i would be sent to the real hell--where i will have a whole ETERNITY of this same hell and agony--except minus all the good that i do have now!!!
Still, dear Lord, it is so hard...and as i fight back huge, hot tears of fresh hurt, fresh rejection,....i pray this fervent prayer to Your throne of grace tonight
that You will convict all of the hardened hearts of my family as to what they are doing to me by continuing to treat me like this!!
I am NOT a monster!!
I am NOT mean!!
I am NOT selfish
or lazy
or spoiled
or crazy
or mad!!!!
I AM AUTISTIC!!!!!
I was BORN this way...and i will DIE this way....
unless YOU supernaturally heal me, Lord!!!!!
My family...do not realize the heart of gold that i have,
or the sense of humor or intelligence and unique ways i have---
because, to this very day, they keep the walls up...
they keep me shut out..and shut down...
they STILL will not allow me to be myself around them!!
I am expected to jump through certain hoops when around them
..and if i can't do it..i am cast off to the side like a
wallflower at a high school dance!!
Please, dear Lord, i pray, in Jesus' Holy and Wonderful Name
Please soften the hearts of my family--please tear down the walls that bind them
please deliver them from the spirit of fear and intolerance and heal their hearts so that there will be patience and acceptance towards me instead of the harshness and coldness...please, Lord, do this before it is too late!!!!!
This i pray, in Jesus' name,.....
......AMEN!!!!!!
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