Weird Kid

by Emily
(California, USA)

My father told me I started acting "weird" when I was six. I was about 30 when he told me that.

I remember I hit other children. I was sexualized by the time I was seven. But I coudln't control myself around other children. I hit a girl over the head with a hammer when I was six. I felt terrible about it. My parents were hitting each other at that time. My Mother would get in the car and drive around in the middle of the night. They would argue horrendously. I would cry myself to sleep among my stuffed animals and build a fort around my head with them and my pillows. One time I even went into the den of our house where my father was drinking and stayed on the couch with him. The house smelled of liquor all the time.

I remember my Mother not talking to me for days and days when I was sick with the mumps and had to stay in my bedroom. She brought me lunch but didn't talk to me. I thought SHE was weird really, the way she was so silent with me. She was Finnish and Finnish people are known for not talking. But I have Finnish friends now who talk all the time.

I feel badly that I hurt other children. I hit a boy named H-- in the nose after he told me he was Jewish and talked about the tatoos on people's arms. He wouldn't say the Lord's Prayer so I hit him in the nose. I bloodied his nose. I couldn't believe I would do such a thing. I didn't get in trouble for it. But I remember I felt shocked and guilty for my behavior.

No one ever tried to stop my father and Mother from arguing. They didn't have living parents who would be able to help them.

There were so many incidents of my Mother slapping a little friend of mine for messing my bedroom and being black and blue from the arguments with my father.

I am sixty and have been married for 26 years, but I don't have children. I am too scarred from the awful memories I have.

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