I'm not sure yet if this will help in any way. It will not be placed in exact time I think, except that all happened between age 8 and 13 (or maybe even 14). Not in any way chronological. Repeated, some not always daily, but all events (I hope, eventually) that I had to do, my mother did, said. I might edit things later, but I won't try to keep any coherent wording for now.
- I wasn't allowed to shower. Since it would make the bath dirty.
- Every day I had to soap up head to toe then walk to the living room so my mother could check if I had soaped everything, I had to be quick since the soap dried up quite fast and if she missed soap somewhere I had to go back to my room and do it over. I couldn't make it too wet since she would get mad if I was dripping soapy water on the ground. I can recall one time where I didn't know they had visitors and stood there and all those people staring at me. Yes, that was quite painful when those visitors had gone.
- I had to brush my teeth till she said I could stop.
- When she brushed my teeth before I was allowed to do it myself she brushed so hard and so long I that my gums started bleeding and I was almost choked since I wasn't allowed to spit out the toothpaste/whatever till she was done brushing. I wasn't allowed to swallow it either, she checked if I spit out enough. She would keep my head pinned so I couldn't move it. And then kept saying: open your mouth more.
- When I was still allowed in the bathtub (with shower) and she still washed me till everything felt raw and open. Never bled though.
- I had to go bed at 7pm (unless I was busy working on a punishment). Till I was 13. I wasn't allowed out of my room till my father would wake me up at 7am. Not even to pee. I always had to pee. At one point I was too old to have a potty in my room, so I tried sneaking out to the toilet or peed in the sink. Till she found out and she started to pay attention if I would let the tap run to get it drained.
- Twice a week I had to pick clean clothes for the next day. Wednesday and sunday evening I spend most the time walking back and forth between my mother and my closet. Either the clothes were to warm, too cold, the colors didn't match, something I wasn't allowed to wear yet since they were for sunday only still.
- I had to wash a lot of my clothes by hand since I deliberately had made them dirty. I had to repair them too since I had broken them on purpose too.
- If I got stains on my clothes that couldn't be removed my mother exploded. I once spilled black ink on my turquoise summer shorts, during visual art and nobody understood why I kept trying to clean it in the classroom till they told me I really had to go home. That was one of the few times I recall not daring to go back home. My mother claimed I had done that on purpose since I didn't like those shorts. Yes I thought they were the most ugly pants I had.
- I wasn't allowed to walk through the house barefoot or without shoes since my feet always smelled bad.
- I never got an eiderdown and had to sleep under the heavy woolen blankies since I didn't deserve better.
- Each morning I had to tidy my bed again so it would be perfect. Same with clean sheets. If it wasn't perfect she would pull all off and I had to redo.
- Each saturday I had to clean my room. Everything. All. She checked for forgotten dust.
- I had to clean the rabbit cages. In winter without gloves my hands started to freeze. I had to pick up any spilled straw, there was a bundle of straw in the garage, whenever there was a new I couldn't really reach the top. But I had to take it in layers from the top.
- When the grass started to grow I had to cut the borders of the lawn. There was a pair of special grassbordercutterscissors, it was a bit too big for my hands and when I thought I was done, she checked if it was good enough, if it wasn't I had to redo the whole border. If I got blisters from the cutting I shouldn't act so dramatic about it.
- I had to vacuum clean the whole house, except for the bedrooms from others or the living room. She checked that on her mental timeframe, too fast bad, too slow bad.
- One time the vacuum cleaner hose had melted because it had fallen against the boiler. Since I had done that on purpose so I wouldn't have to vacuum clean anymore and wanted to annoy her since I was a nail on her coffin anyway and didn't like vacuum cleaning, she added as punishment that I had to clean the kitchen floortiles (which were carpet) with a small handbrush each day after I had done dishes till there was a new hose (which I had to pay from my pocket-money).
- I wasn't allowed to be in the living room alone. Since I would only steal things then.
- I had to empty all trashbins the morning that the garbage-truck would be in our street. Forgetting one was bad. One in each bedroom, two in the living room, one in my fathers study, one in the playroom. The one in my parents bedroom was a tricky one since my mother only got out of bed after she got coffee from my father just before he went to work. It had to be timed well and depending on mood of my mother would start my day bad. Which also indicated if the rest of the day would be bad too.
- The big bin in the kitchen I had to empty whenever it was full enough, which required careful thinking too. Too full was bad since clearly I hadn't done my work, not full enough meant I was purposely trying to waste money because those plastic bags weren't cheap.
- Whenever a spoon or something was missing and I couldn't find it, I had to dug out the container since I had thrown it away on purpose anyway. Then I had to clean that up again.
- Dishes, morning, lunch, dinner. My job. If something not clean enough, not dry enough I had to redo all. I had to put what I considered done on the table in the play room, then tell my mother she could come check. She would make me look at the not clean/dry enough piece and I had to point out what was wrong with it. Sometimes I did dishes till my parents wanted to sleep. Once in a while I was too late at school because I had to redo dishes.
- One time I refused to redo the dishes again. I can't remember how many times I had done those same dishes that evening, but I had enough. IT IS CLEAN! My mother stood there with the plate that wasn't clean enough and she broke it on my head telling me that NOW I didn't need to clean that plate again and that after I had cleaned up the broken plate I was to redo the remaining dishes.
- Any physical pain from sore feet to my butt being all swollen to hands freezing, burning, blistering I shouldn't act dramatic about. I was not allowed to show that I had physical pain. Showing that was the same as acting dramatic. Which was a major sin.
- My mother had a timeframe for everything. Too fast was bad, too slow was bad.
- I wasn't allowed to cough when I got a cold. I always got that very dry cough from the back of my throat. It was not possible not to cough during the night. Since I did that on purpose since I was acting dramatic and just wanted to make people feel sorry for me and wanted to keep them awake I would get dragged out of my bed and room to get a flogging downstairs.
- Whenever I deserved a flogging I was to go to the study and fetch the plastic ruler. I had to return with it in the playroom, bend over my fathers knees, pull my pants down and got smacked till my mother thought it was enough. Crying and showing other signs of pain would make it last longer. These spankings were meant to make me remember what I had done wrong every time I would sit so I wouldn't forget again. After it was done I had to put the ruler back and get on with whatever I was supposed to do at that time. One time the ruler was missing (it had fallen off the desk) and I had to go out to find something suitable to flog me with. The ruler got introduced at some point because my mother found that they shouldn't dirty their hands by touching me. They made sure I only got bruises on my butt so I couldn't act dramatic about it and show it to other people to make them feel sorry for me.
- My mother slapped me in the face whenever she felt the need for it. Listen to me! Slap. Look at me when I'm talking to you, slap. Bold? Slap. Answer me, slap. What did I just say? Slap. Lost your tongue? Slap. Usually you don't have so much problems with saying something, slap. You want to make me mad, don't you? Slap. Don't cry, slap. This hurts me more than it hurts you, slap. Wait till your father comes home and hears this, slap. Get out of my eyes, I don't want to see you anymore, slap. You're not worth my time, slap. You hate me don't you? Slap. Stand still when I talk to you, slap. Don't you dare try to avoid my slapping, slap. You really want to ruin my life don't you? Slap. Don't act so dramatic, slap. You do know, slap. I don't want to hear another don't know from you, slap. Do you want the whole neighborhood to hear you are a bad kid? Slap. Why did/didn't you do/say/remember x, slap. You can, you just don't want to, slap. You will do as I say, slap. I am your mother! Slap. How long will it take before you do as I tell you? Slap. You are really a very bad kid. Slap. How many times do I have to tell you? Slap. I wish you were dead, slap. You are really worthless, slap. I don't know why we keep you, slap. Don't ever think you would get it better anywhere else, slap. We love you and all you do is give us troubles back, slap. I don't know why I keep trying with you, slap. Stop crying, slap. I can give you something to cry over, slap. This will be the last time you have done this, slap. We are your parents, don't ever forget that, slap. Repeat what I just said, slap. Nobody wants you, slap. Be happy you can stay here, slap. You should be grateful you can live in my house, slap. This is my house and you will do as I tell you, slap. It is your fault, slap. If you wouldn't exist I could be happy, slap. You make my life miserable, slap. It's your fault I smoke again, slap. Your father wouldn't forgive you if he would know how bad you are, slap. Be happy I won't tell this to your father, slap. Don't think your father will protect you, slap. Nobody will want you if I told them how bad you are, slap. I slap will slap make slap you slap remember slap. Nobody will believe you, slap. You are a liar, slap. You are a thief, slap. You deserve this, slap. I wouldn't do this if you were good, slap. You are trying to kill me don't you? Slap. Nobody can love someone like you, slap.
Hum, I think I might have to stop the stream of this here. Not sure if I can handle more of this right now.
- Dishes I had to do in hot water. Hot. Adding cold water was bad, since it wouldn't get the dishes clean. So once in a while she checked the temperature of the water. When I started the dishes she would force both my hands in the hot water, when I tried to avoid touching it. Since she could handle it, I was just whining. Everything she could handle I should be able to handle. Including fetching hot pots from the stove without mittens.
- Each day I had to peel potatoes for dinner at 5pm. Which was the time I had to be home wherever I was. Being back 1sec after 5pm was bad. Before I had to peel potatoes I had to be home at 5.30pm. So I had 30mins to peel potatoes for 5 people. I had to peel very thin. If there was too much potato at the skin was bad. If I left any of the pits was bad. If I had picked too little, too much, too big (you are lazy since you don't want to peel the smaller ones). I tried to pick all the same size so I could calc more easy how many I had to peel. Then I had to wash them. Really wash them. In cold streaming water. Cold. I got dragged back to the potatoes after the water was boiling whenever there was like a grey foam on the water. Which meant I hadn't washed the potatoes well enough. Bad.
- At one point I had to make the start of the salad. The cutting of the onion(s) and wasn't allowed to cry. Then the mixing of the oil and vinegar. We ate most of the vegetables made into a raw salad. If I didn't mix the oil/vinegar/pepper/salt in right proportions. Bad.
- I usually got send away from the dinnertable after soup. And was either send to the playroom to finish my dinner there or got send to my room for being dramatic or unresponsive or saying the wrong things. Dinnertime was the time where we had to be the all loving family. So the children had to mention the normal things like how school did go. And I never managed to get it right, I either talked too much, talked too little, was too loud, too soft, too anything. If I got send to my room I always had to come down again to do the dishes. I got send away with the message that I was once again spoiling the happiness. I got send away to finish dinner in playroom whenever I showed signs I didn't like the food. Once they had finished dinner I got forced to eat all I didn't like. Yes forced as in forced. She would shove stuff down my throat and prevent me puking. Whatever she forced down my throat would not leave my body through my mouth. You had to serve yourself at dinner. Tricky. Meat got divided by my father. Potatoes kinda fairly shared, so you had to calc in who didn't take yet, too much, too little, bad. Vegetables was usually always too little so my mother would shove extra on your plate, specially if she knew you didn't like it. You have to learn to eat everything. You know the kid next door only eats steak, applesauce and fries, we will make sure you won't be like that. I always was too greedy. I didn't want to share fairly. I was anti-social. We had to chew each bite 60 times I think. Wow I forgot the amount (I blame it being a number). She counted my chews. But I always ate very fast knowing I could get send any time and would be hungry if I didn't get enough inside before getting send away.
- Breakfast was quite okay. My mother stayed in bed till everyone had left the house. I dreaded the mornings where my dad was gone. Sometimes he had to go somewhere far for work and then my mother had to wake up to get all the kids to school. Horrid. Those days were always bad. Overly bad.
- Lunch was bad, just my mother and us home. She might be standing there in the doorway between kitchen and playroom, waiting. Then I knew something would go bad, just had to figure out fast what. Same for when I got home at 15.40.
- Quite often I climbed out of my window trying to get sick. There was a balcony under my window which was the roof of my fathers study. My parents bedroom had balconydoors to that too. I swapped from wanting to become so sick that they would love me because well I was really sick, to getting pneumonia which hopefully would kill me. Bare feet and just my jammies walking around. When there was snow I only dared to do that when it was still snowing so my tracks would be gone by morning. For hours walking around hoping to get something serious. Lying on the lawn when it was cold and raining. Till I was so cold everything was numb. Sometimes walking around through the city at night, hoping and fearing at same time that there would be somewhere I could go. Till some people apparently saw me and reported it to my parents. Who changed how far my window could open. So I had to unscrew something now to be able to get out. Which they found out when burglars entered through my window and the police found a fingerprint there which was mine. After that they added locks.
- I tried most the times trying to avoid being alone with my mother. It was bad whenever that happened.
- Nights. Whenever my parents quarreled during the evenings. My mother in that yelling high tone. My father a faint buzzing sound. You always protect her. Bzzzz. You love her more than me. Bzzzz. I can go if you don't want me here. Bzzz. She is just a rotten kid. Bzzz. You don't know what she does when you are not around. Bzzz. You don't know what I go through when you're not here. Bzzz. She is setting you up against me. Bzzz. I knew she would come to my room after.
Yank me out of bed. Trash up my room while yelling: Look what you did to my life. Your room is now like my life is. When literally everything was smashed to the ground and in complete disorder she would storm out again. Leaving me to order the chaos again. Which I did. Putting everything back where it belonged, making up my bed again. Sometimes she would leave the house even after that. Those were the best days I can remember. She was gone. Just 3 kids and a father. Relaxed. No tension anywhere. Nothing bad. Everyone ignored the fact our mother was gone. Talking about it was bad. My father usually just said she was visiting her mother. In that casual tone like there was nothing wrong in that really. And then one day she would be back.
- We had truces. A long talk about what I did wrong, what I should change, that she was willing to start with a clean slate, that we could really be all one happy family, that she was willing to forget everything I had done wrong, I only needed to not do anything wrong. And yes I agreed. Yes I so wanted to have everything right. Yes at some point I stopped believing that it would last, but there was no way I could say that without breaking that magic moment of my mother telling me she wanted it all to be good. It never lasted. But I have good memories of me and my mother with jigsaw puzzles. I did the airs, she started with recognizable other stuff and we filled in the gaps together. I think those were the only moments when we had a positive connection. Nobody else in the family did jigsaw puzzles.
- Some evenings/nights she would tell me to get out of bed and come downstairs. Which meant hours of just standing and having to answer questions. Questions I didn't understand. About something she had found out and I had to answer. It was the same as the daytime playroom/kitchen doorstep, except with my father watching and sometimes asking questions too. And no slapping (or not much). But her remarks stayed mostly the same. One time when I was 12 I think, it was after first visit riagg she forced me to decide whether I wanted to stay with them or go away. I was even allowed to sit in the corner-chair. She said nobody would go to bed till I had made a decision. She pointed out the difference of going to some unknown place with unknown people with unknown rules versus staying with her and my father who both loved me very much where rules were clear. I only remember the pure panic. What she wants me to say. Stay, go, stay go, stay go stay go stay go stay go. It's a trap. It's a trap. It's a trap. If she wants me to stay and I say I want to go, she will hurt me so badly. If she wants me to go and I say I want to stay, she will hurt me so badly. I have to pick the right thing. Yes there was one floating thought that maybe this was my way out. But I didn't trust this was a valid choice, I believed that it was a trick/test. Also go to something unknown when you are sure you are less than garbage versus staying at a place where they tell you they love you and would treat you different if only you would do the right things. Hum, I don't think that I could have ever chosen to go away in that state/time. Yes I have regretted it multiple times. She made me write a paper with the new rules, which were basically the old rules. And sign it. And drag me to that paper whenever she thought I had broken one of them. It was a truce. I think the last. And it didn't last. And yes drag.
- If my mother wanted to emphasize something she would pull my by my hair to the thing she wanted me to see. Or yank my right arm till I was at the place she wanted me to be.
(I still claim children are utterly stupid by keeping up with crap like this, I was physically stronger, yet it didn't even occur to me I could fight her that way or even occur to me mostly that I had a choice to fight her).
- I was only once too sick to get out of bed. She didn't like that I was still in the house on a weekday. So I had to drink a whole pot of camomile tea since that was good for you when you were sick.
- My periods started when I was 11 and I had to make sure myself that there were sanitary towels for it. But I usually forgot or well not forgot but I had troubles asking anything. If I didn't ask if I could buy them since I had run out I wasn't allowed to get them during, since I should have thought about it before. I wasn't allowed to use the towels from my sister, since she had more expensive towels and I wasn't worthy those. And when she found out I used toilet paper she started keeping track of the toilet paper too, so I stole toilet paper from school. By that time I had to hand wash my underwear already I think since it was dirty and wasn't allowed in the washing machine or even between the other laundry.
- My mother did volunteer work at the telephone line for children (meant for children in distress who wanted to talk about something anonymous). Whenever she got a call from that all kids had to leave the living room, since privacy and all that, so one time I sat on the stairs listening instead. Apparently she was talking to someone who had problems obtaining sanitary towels and she suggested to that one to steal them. That totally freaked me out. I just sat there on the stairs with one thing in my head: Don't listen to my mother, it's a trap. Don't listen to my mother, it's a trap. Don't listen to my mother, it's a trap. She will come and punish you.
- Whenever school was out we had to walk back home. Twice a day. If my mother stood in the living room looking out the window something was bad. If she then went to the kitchen to look out the window there which looked out on the ramp, where the garage door was which was unlocked most the times, it was maybe very bad. Then left was the door from garage to play room. Then left was the doorway (without door) between play room and kitchen. If my mother stood in that doorway it was very bad. My brother and sister silently vanished past her while I waited for whatever was coming. We had to walk straight home after school was out. If it took me too long, was bad. I couldn't speed up though because we walked home with 2 friends who lived in the same street and if I would start to run they would ask questions. Once they were home I could run, but was tricky too. Since if I went breathless and got red cheeks from the running my mother would see that as a sign I had read at school. Bad.
- My sister resented me badly when she hit puberty, since I soaked up all of my mothers attention. For my sister I was just the stupid one that did everything wrong. Whenever I got send away from dinner my mother said something along the lines: your sister doesn't want to eat with us apparently since she's poisoning the atmosphere by her talking too much or too little
or by not answering. When she waited for us when we got out of school she would send the others away because she needed to talk to me because I had done something wrong again.
- Each day I was allowed to go to the library. I wasn't allowed to ride a bike, since I was a danger on the road. So I walked. I had 30mins for this. The walk was about 10mins, so I had 10mins to get 4 books. It was faster if I climbed the fences at the railroad, instead of walking to the crossroad for it. If I didn't make it back in time, I wasn't allowed to read those 4 books. Sunday the library wasn't open, so I only had 4 books for the whole weekend. Each weekday after I got home from school I walked to the library to return the old ones and get back 4 new. If I hadn't done anything wrong yet, I was allowed to sit in the living room to read them.
- Over the course of these years the time I spend on punishments increased. Nonphysical punishments was getting either the least fancied daily/weekly chores or doing chores alone. Doing a chore bad got you to do it again till it was good enough and got added as having to do it the next time too. In the end most the house keeping was done by me.
- My mother tried to force me to keep my eyes still while reading. Moving my head along the lines while trying to not move my eyes left and right got her even more upset.
- When I was home too late, mostly on wednesdays because then afternoon was no school and I used to go out to play somewhere. 5pm whenever I had to peel potatoes or 6.30pm because at that exact time we were supposed to be sitting at the table. My mother got angry. 1sec too late made her angry, the longer the more angry, since she had to wait for me and she had better things to do than to wait for me, since I was too late because I didn't want to do the chore I had to do or because I wanted everyone to wait for me since nobody was allowed to eat till everyone was present at the table and everyone had food on their plates. And I shouldn't think I was so special that the whole family would want to wait for me. One time she locked the door so I couldn't get inside, since apparently I didn't want to be home, else I would have been in time. I stood outside till they were done dinner and I got send to my room.
- Everything that was bad and not related to any of the chores triggered her into physical punishments. By the time there were no new chores to punish me with because I had to do them all, doing the chores bad triggered her into physical punishments too or I just had to redo the chore or both.
- Wednesday was children tellie afternoon day. The whole program ended at 5.30pm. Avro woensdagmiddag, kinderbioscoop. I couldn't leave till it was finished. I couldn't explain why I had to go before it was finished. I tried that a few times. I have to be home in time for dinner. I couldn't say more without alarming them. My mother goes nuts when I'm too late. Yes those few lousy minutes I'm past 5.30pm are that important. I had to make sure they wouldn't call my mother to ask if I could stay till the program was finished. Since that would mean I had tried to say bad things about my mother being so stern or that I wanted to be pitied for having to be home in time or that that I just didn't care enough about her.
- Any question my mother had to answer that had something to do with me was bad.
- Any contact I had with anyone from outside the family would trigger my mother into questioning me. Whenever I was out of her sight she had to know exactly what I had done and said. I had to repeat any talk I had with any grownup and had to tell her how those people had looked and what I thought those people had thought. She would call the parents of the friends I had played with to ask if I had behaved well. If those stories didn't match, another questioning would follow during the evening. She regularly called my teachers about me and my behavior.
- A questioning could be followed by a flogging.
- I sometimes tried to hide invitations for birthday parties. Then they would call my mother and ask where I was. Since I had hidden them to give my mother a bad name the punishing would be faster. So preferred sometimes over punishments that I wouldn't know would be when.
- Every week you could get a small amount of money, but you had to ask for it or you wouldn't get it. Since anything I asked for was because I was greedy or selfish it got more hard to ask for money each time. So I rarely had money to buy presents and everyone had to give a present at a family birthday. We did get extra money for that. My presents for my mother were always wrong, because I couldn't add money to that basis amount. The last weekday before her birthday I spend all my spare time in a store in town picking up everything, trying to figure out what would look like it would give me the least problems.
- She would punish me too for everything my babybrother had done wrong. Since I was older than he was. And hence it was my responsibility. Since my sister was mostly sick my brother usually was with me outside. If he kicked a ball in her flowers was my bad, since either I had to make sure that wouldn't have happened or I had made him do that. And he was too young to understand the rules, so I should have known better.
- When I got in high school, homework started. And the checking of the homework. My mother had done the study to be a schoolteacher. So all of the remaining free time I had still at that point had to be spend on homework. Whenever I thought I was done with my homework I had to bring it all to my mother, who would check the work I had done. And tested if I had memorized everything I had to know. Since I was smart apparently I went to a gymnasium. With lots homework. She would take the books and asked random questions and if I failed to find the correct answer I got send back up to study more. I had to get the highest possible score on every school test. Getting a poor grade wasn't an option. If you are so smart why is this not a better score? Because you are lazy. It was her first question whenever I gave her a graded test back: Did anyone have a better score? Since if so I hadn't done my best. I was blessed with a kid in my class that was absolutely brilliant in any subject. If 10 was the highest available score he scored 10+. Only one time I think did he ever score below that. But the whole class failed that test. And it wasn't possible that he was more smart than me. So I hadn't studied enough, or hadn't tried my best, since I wanted to make her look bad. Each change in the class schedule had to be reported. The schedule was pinned on the inside of the right door of one of the cupboards in the kitchen. 10mins after the last hour of the schoolday I was to be home. She would drag me there whenever I was later than that. Look! What does this say? So when were you supposed to be home?
- That first year high school there was too much time alone with my mother. My sister had stuff to do out and was at a different school and since home wasn't really the best place to be, she didn't come home till dinner usually. My brother was mostly outside playing when he wasn't at school. My father wouldn't return till dinnertime either. Bad. Homework was a valid reason to not allow me to go outside anymore, except for chores or school.
- Whenever I couldn't answer something I had to stand. Whenever it was close to dinnertime I was send away. Go to your room and don't come back till you can answer me. I would be called down to do the dishes, then was to go back to my room till I could answer. Going to sleep before I had answered wasn't an option, as I found out. She could leave me standing somewhere for hours, not allowed to move. Straight up, arms at my sides. And come back to check if I had moved. Slapping me in between. If someone would visit or come home earlier than expected and caught me just standing, she would say something like: Why are you standing there like a dummy, go to your room please. I was supposed to go to my room the moment someone would be able to see me standing at one place.
- I missed a lot of dinners. I missed a lot of food. I begged my friends at high school to give me anything they didn't want to eat. At some point some friends brought extra food to school just for me. Breakfast was my only daily certain food at some point. I could always eat. Anything. Anytime. Breakfast and the 4 sandwiches I was allowed to bring to school might be the only food I would get that day.
- I got told I was fat and greedy, lacked selfcontrol, was selfish, couldn't share, because I ate too fast, too much whenever I had a chance to eat.
- When I still had books in my room, my mother pulled the electricity plug downstairs to prevent me from reading when I was supposed to sleep. Which annoyed my sister since the whole second floor would have no electricity/light that way. My mother tried everything to prevent me from reading when I wasn't supposed to. I tried everything to read. If there was no light in my room I read at my window till it would get too dark. I've tried standing in a weird position on the window-sill because there was a street-lantern which at some angle gave just enough light for me. But I was too visible that way. After they removed my books, I had to smuggle readable things into my room. My sister got the Donald Duck every week and had them in a pile on her floor just right of her door. So till they caught me lending those, I did. My floor had carpet-tiles, so I could hide them under, till I had the opportunity to swap them.
- Over time there was not a single place left my mother didn't know about big enough to hide a book. At random she would search my room and if she found anything that she thought shouldn't be in my room. Bad. She checked my dustbin, so I started to throw suspicious trash in my brothers dustbin or I could take the risk of having something in my room till morning. Leaving the house before my mother was awake gave me the chance of sneaking something out of the house. Random things that would upset her if she knew I had them. Candywrappers, things I had gotten from friends she didn't know about, small notes we exchanged during schooltimes. When I had to leave or enter the house and my mother was there she could randomly check what I brought in or out. I had to empty my pockets, my bags. What is this? How did you get it? Who gave it to you? Did you ask for it?
- There were only two things my mother never found out about. I had written in the tiniest way in the corner of the back of a poster on my wall, under the sticky stuff to keep it at the wall: I hate my mother. Sometimes I would just peek at it and I would feel so bad for having that written and at the same time so good that she hadn't found it (yet). And I had a plush dog. He got one ear sorta without plush since it was so fluffy I had to keep touching that and the tail was about the same and I had to keep sewing it close, whenever I had illegal money I would stuff it in his tail.
- I tried to write a book. Secretly. And she found it one day. I got called downstairs. And there she stood, holding my book. It was a crappy story, but it was my first story that was supposed to be a book one day. It was horrid that it was in her hands, that my parents probably had read it. It wasn't even close to being ready to be read by someone else. I had wanted to finish the first raw edition, then rewrite it, polish and shave, before I would be willing to let someone read it. And it wouldn't be her. I had put every minute I could spare in it, for a few months. It was mine. It was the only thing in the whole world that was just mine. And she had it. And then both my parents started asking questions. But I couldn't talk. The questions weren't really so bad, I just couldn't answer. I didn't want to talk about that because it was mine. And that got my mother upset. She might have been upset that I had written something she didn't know about, but my father was there and writing wasn't a forbidden act. Not answering was. And then she threatened to throw it in the fireplace if I didn't answer. It is mine. I made it. I grabbed it out of her hand and threw it in the fire myself. And watched it burn. And then I told her that there was nothing she could do anymore to make me answer anything and went back to my room.
- I failed the first swimming exam because I couldn't swim 7 meter under water. Bad. We always went on holiday in summer to a hotel with a pool and the next holiday I swam under water over the full length of the pool. Bad. My mother gave me swimming lessons. She let me tread water with both my hands above the water till I my legs got so tired I started to sink and went under. Whenever I had to swim on my back I somehow always swam in circles and I was terrible in staying in the right horizontal position, so either my legs were too deep in the water or my head went under. When I got water in my nose I couldn't control the reaction of my body. Bad. I had to swim back and forth till my mother was satisfied.
- In general most holidays were not that bad. Whenever she got upset she just told me to stay in the hotel room till I was allowed out. Each summer holiday we went to France (once to Spain, but there was a horrible smell there, so we never went back, no clue if that was because of the smell) and each fall to Zeeland (silly part of the Netherlands with lots sea).
- If a door was closed (except the doors that lead outside and the door between the garage and the playroom) I wasn't allowed to open it, unless someone had told me I could. For some time she locked my bedroomdoor but replaced that I guess by telling me I wasn't allowed to open it. Whenever a door was closed by my mother, I was only allowed to open it if she had told me so. If I had to answer a question and was in my room to find the answer, I could open my bedroomdoor because I had closed it myself too. Then I had to knock on the living room door and wait for her to tell me I could come in. Had to be the right knock. Not too soft, not too loud. I couldn't knock another time if I didn't get a reaction. So once in a while someone would come out or went in the living room, close the door in front of me, while I just stood there waiting for her to tell me I could come in. I wasn't allowed to go back to my room after I had knocked. If it was a too soft knock she would say she hadn't heard it, but if I knocked another time it would make her mad and she would tell me she wasn't deaf and that I shouldn't be so impatient. If they had guests it got tricky.
- Whenever we were through the whole cycle of something bad and I had come to the point that I knew what I had to admit that I had done wrong she told me I was to go to my father to apologize for the wrong I had done and promise him I wouldn't do it again. After I had done that she got mad for me never doing that spontaneously and that I always had to get told that that was the proper thing to do. The next time we got to a same wrong, she went mad since now we could all see what my promises were worth. Nothing. Same as what I was worth. Nothing.
- When I wasn't home, I could be dared to do anything. Climb out this window during german class. Sure. Do you dare to not go sit the whole schoolday? Sure. Can you jump from this high? Sure. I don't know if my mother heard about those things, because I didn't get any reaction to most of them. Except for that jump. It was the gym hall with a balcony for visitors so they could watch some sport school events. To me it didn't look that high, so I just jumped. My mother freaked out. Like I don't have enough to handle with you. I have better things to do than having to visit you in the hospital. You could have hurt someone down. What will the people say.
Well someone down said I could jump and she would catch me?
- Each event connected to getting presents we had to make a wish-list and hand it in. It took me hours. If I put too expensive wishes on it I was greedy, selfish and inconsiderate, if too cheap I was trying to make my parents look bad (do you think we're that cheap?) and/or was mocking them. You were supposed to balance it, from fairly cheap to a bit more expensive and one big wish, so everyone including visiting family/friends for that event could pick depending on the amount of money they wanted to spend. A week or so before december 5th, we were allowed to poke our shoe somewhere, sing a crappy song to find some little present in it the next morning. Candies or something. One time they had put a little bag of salt in my shoe for being bad, by that time I didn't believe in St. Nicholas anymore, so apparently it was funny. My mother asked the salt back after.
- Birthdays. I got more and more problems with everything before that. You had to say what you wanted for dinner, what presents, who you wanted to invite, what to bring to school to hand out, what kind of birthday-cake. And I couldn't. I wasn't allowed to ask for anything, yet I had to. After my grandfather had died on my 11th birthday, my 12th birthday went totally bad. It was my father that died on this day! What makes you think you are more important. My 13th birthday nothing happened. As in nothing. Nobody was allowed to give me presents or congratulate me. Since I didn't want anything because I hadn't handed in a wish-list. My mother used to arrange a lot of things for birthdays herself, but that time she hadn't. Random visitors for my birthday got tea or coffee and then got send home, since clearly I didn't want to celebrate my birthday because I hadn't told her the how and what. She apologized to those visitors that I had neglected to inform them of not wanting to celebrate my birthday party and told me it was very inconsiderate of me making them come over for nothing and get them feeling uneasy.
For my 14th birthday (which was on a friday) I got nametags and I had to sew them in my clothes that weekend. People visited to say goodbye. They gave me the folder of the place I was going to, so I would know what I had to pack and all that. They drove me there on monday.
Hidden step 1: She made me unable to fulfill the requirements to get something
Step 2: She then made me not get it due to step 1
Step 3: She then showed that I wanted step 2 myself
Step 4: Which proved I was bad/insane/weird since step 1
Hidden step 1: She made me unable to do something right
Step 2: She waited (and sometimes watched) for me to fail due to step 1
Step 3: She could then punish me because of step 2
Step 4: She then showed step 3 had to be because I failed on purpose since step 1
I have to stop this for a bit, since I can't handle the implications of these steps. I don't want to consider at this point that there might be another hidden pattern behind this even. I don't even want to write now what these implications are, since I cannot comprehend it.
