Sunday, November 28, 2010

Going Through Puberty

That is one time in life you really don't want to be in my mothers care.  I will start with myself.  When I hit puberty I had no idea what was going on.  My mother never discussed anything with me.  I was 12 and I was at home alone.  My sister was off with friends and my mother was out with her friends.  I felt these awful pains and ran to the bathroom.  When I saw all the blood I freaked out.  I thought I was dieing.  I ran to the phone and called my mother at the restaurant she was at.  One of the people working there picked up and I asked for my mother saying it was an emergency.  Luckily her table was right next to where the phone was.  I told her what was happening.  She started laughing and then announced it to the whole group she was with.  Telling them what an idiot I was because I was crying and thought I was dieing.  They all started laughing.  I still had not been told what was going on but because I was so embarrassed I hung up the phone.  I grabbed a towel crawled into bed and curled into a ball and cried.  I was scared and in a lot of pain and alone.  I had no idea what was wrong with me and people thought it was funny. 

About an hour later my sister came home.  She asked me what was wrong.  I told her and she took me into the bathroom to show me how to use a tampon.  Holy Cow that hurt to use.  I was in so much pain from it that after 10 minutes I had to take it out.  My sister said it was a couple of sizes too big for me and that I would have to wait till my mother got home to get ones for my size.  She got home about an hour after that.  First she walked up to me and slapped me on the face.  I coward in front of her.  She told me that if I ever hung up on her like that again that she would beat me senseless.  She told me about how I had embarrassed the crap out of her by hanging up on her in front of her friends.  She then asked my sister if she had taken care of me.  She said that hers didn't fit and I needed a much smaller size.  My mother then said tough.  She was not going out again and I would have to wait till tomorrow.  She didn't give me anything for the pain.  Just told me to go to bed for the rest of the day.  The next day she did get me the small size.  It was still uncomfortable but I could handle it.

I didn't understand that periods could affect moods.  I seemed to cry at the drop of a hat.  For no reason at all.  A few days later I got home from school and was looking in the fridge for a snack.  There were only apples and I didn't want one.  I wanted an orange.  I started crying.  I didn't know why.  I just did.  And my mother walked in demanding why I was crying.  I told her there were only apples and i had wanted an orange.  She then started hitting and kicking me around the kitchen.  Accusing me of telling her that she was not providing well for us and that I should be thankful for what ever I had.  She then grabbed me by my hair and literally dragged me to my room and tossed me in so hard that I slammed hard into the bunk bed my sister and I shared.  My side hurt for weeks after that any time I breathed, moved to fast or twisted or lifted something.  There was a huge black and blue bruise that formed there and remained for over 2 weeks. 

I was not the only one that suffered while going through puberty.  When the oldest step daughter was going through it was when she was made to live out in the barn for over two months.  And when the youngest step daughter was going through it she was residing alone with my mother and her 5th husband.  She basically was made to live in her room.  Only coming out to do cleaning or for meals.  My mother took great joys in telling teachers, therapists and others all sorts of lies to convince them that she was trying hard to work with her but that she had mental issues and was acting out badly.  In the end she was kicked out when she was 12.  My mother told people that she had taken all of her photo albums to the basement and set them on fire.  She accused the step daughter of tearing them all up and putting them in the trash.  Neither story was try.  The albums didn't exist.  When we had moved from the east coast to the prairie provinces we traveled by bus and had had to leave a ton of items behind.  Including the photo albums.  My mother had said they were not worth it to bring because there were so many bad memories.  She only brought one album with us.  And when this was going on with the step daughter I had that album in my possession.  A few years later I returned it.  The accusations were just a way for her to have another excuse to kick another child out.  Luckily her dad though had remarried and came to get her. 

I truly fear for my children when they start to go through puberty.  It is hard enough to go through it in the best of places but around my mother it is even more confusing and at times scary.

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