History

Since I can't sleep, maybe it's about time I write it all down (who knows if it's constructive somehow). I tried so often and always ended up with weird half-stories, losing myself on details, scared of forgetting the important things (but what's important and what does it matter I forgot them? (not like I have forgotten anything)). I've tried the factual neutral approach, the how I felt during all the years approach, the start somewhere random, the start at the end and at the beginning. So many little failed stories of my life. Maybe I somehow really didn't want to have it all written out. I don't know. I could just be a lazy bastard too. So, another restart of this. And again, no clue where to begin. The short chronological facts then?

1972 born
1974 adopted
1980 my memory works
1983 grandfather dies, things go from bad to worse
1986 psychiatric hospital
1989 kicked out of hospital
Since then pretending I'm normal enough and trying to stay on the sane side.

Before 1980 I have two memories I can call my own (not the memories that exist because people tell you things happened and are integrated in some false memory that are true from then on).
My mother is riding a bicycle bringing me somewhere (to kindergarten?), we're getting past a plowed field with snow on it, I can remember the black earth and the snow, making a sort of black and white striped pattern and between the road and the field a pile of roof tiles (also covered a bit with snow).
The second is a visit from the whole class (or I think it was the whole class) to our teacher who just gave birth and me standing at a big (it was bigger than me (so maybe not that big *giggles*)) stone that was being used as a nameplate or something.
The only reason (I can figure out at least) why I remember these things is the feeling of oddness. From then on there's nothing odd anymore, just fear.

I think memories are always connected to something unusual. Something out of the normal feelings. After all these years so many things have slipped my mind (thank heavens!), all that's left are the real ups and downs.

I was eight (or so I think, looking back) and it was bad. Every day I did something (anything, everything) wrong and had to be punished for that. My mother had no way of distinguishing between intentional and unintentional wrongs. She was so positive that everything I did wrong I did on purpose and eventually ended up with believing I not only did that on purpose but also to hurt her. My memories are filled with sentences she kept telling me, mostly about what I did to her and how bad I was. I didn't know I believed it all till I thought the same things when my daughter got close to being eight. Or rather, I really thought and hoped maybe that words are just words and you can just forget them if they aren't true. For the past six years I have been fighting memories. Fighting to keep seeing the world through my own eyes and not through my mothers. Knowing something is untrue doesn't mean you also believe it's untrue.
When I was thirteen I believed I stopped caring, but all I did was giving up trying to make her love me. I stopped believing there was anything I could do to get her to like me. Which led to me being sent away since she couldn't handle me anymore. And she was right to do so. There's no fun in punishing someone that doesn't seem to be affected in any way. She didn't understand (nor will she ever I think) that it was inevitable. Five years living in constant fear, of never knowing what will upset someone, always being alert for the tiniest sign of an explosion, I just couldn't handle it anymore. What will be, will be. If I'm sure I will be punished no matter what I do, what's the use of me trying to be good?
The first night in the hospital I went reading a book in bed (yes, on purpose, since it was a forbidden act) and all I got was someone telling me to go to sleep. Nobody trashing my room, yanking me out of bed, hitting me, pulling me downstairs to stand for hours till I could answer questions the way my mother wanted them answered. So I went to sleep that night, I didn't even wait for everyone to be asleep.
When you're a kid, everything that happens is normal. And why talk about normal things? That I didn't like the way I was treated didn't mean I didn't deserve it or that it wasn't normal.

[to be continued...] <- I so hated that on television.