On with the Dysfunction

I had a hard time in school, socially. I made good grades until about the 8th grade. It was making friends that I had a hard time with, not grades. It always seemed as if the bullies picked me out of a crowd. Not the beat you up kind of bully. The mock you and call you names and find your weak spot and poke it with a stick kind of bully. They gravitated to me. At first, I just took it, quietly. Then I started to argue and take offense and get into arguments. Then, I started to go along with it. Laugh with them. It was miserable. I let on that it was better than being quiet or arguing because I was told that it was better, but it wasn’t. I felt like a fool. It made me sink lower and lower into a funk. I started to crave friendship and affection, and I got very little of either one. I felt like everyone would rather not mess with me. The only reason they were so protective, I thought, was because they didn’t want anyone to think that they were negligent or a bad parent or grandparent. After I grew up and they continued to “keep tabs” on me, it was more of a nosy thing. Something to keep the gossip fresh. Something to talk about at breakfast. At least I kept it interesting.



After my Daddy left, two men in black suits came to the door asking for him. My mother said they had FBI badges. She told them that he left and took everything that belonged to him except a pair of socks, “he even took our marriage license.”, she told one of the men. I never knew why they were looking for him, we never saw him again. I learned, recently, through a source that I’ll explain later on, that he passed away on January 3, 1999. The day that my divorce was final from my second husband. He’s buried in Lexington, Kentucky in an unmarked grave. I actually grieve for him. I pray that he got right with God. I just wish he could have made it right with me. I’ve been in contact with one of his cousins and I asked her if he ever mentioned me at all. She said he did a couple of times. Over almost 40 years, he mentioned me “a couple of times.” Did he feel too guilty and ashamed? Was he afraid he might tell someone what he did if he talked about me at all. Or did he just not care? Was there no natural affection? I’ll never know. And I suppose I’ll never get over it. I just wanted a Daddy.

Where my Daddy left off, my mother’s sister’s husband took up. He started out by having me help him shoot up drugs. You could buy Paregoric over the counter back then. It had opium in it. I can remember my mother using it to calm my brother when he was teething. She’d just rub some on his gums and he would go right to sleep. She did the same thing to me when I was a baby. I can remember the smell of Paregoric. I loved it. It smelled like …..psycho mint. It was almost sweet smelling with a slight chemical smell. It’s hard to describe.




My Uncle had a Zippo lighter. He’d have me flick it and light it, then set it down on the table…a make-do Bunsen burner. He put the paregoric in the spoon and held it over the flame until it started to bubble, then he’d lay the spoon on the table and draw the liquid through the needle into the syringe. He’d grasp the arms of the wheelchair and push himself up so his butt hovered above the seat of the wheelchair. I’d pull his pajama bottoms down to mid-thigh and he’d lower himself until his butt rested on the seat again. Then, he’d tie his belt around his thigh and have me pull it tight until he told me to stop. Then he’d inject the paregoric into the vein in his thigh, and I’d help him pull his pajama’s back up and “get rid of the evidence”. Sometimes my mother’s brother was there. He did most of the “helping” if he was present. I remember it being surreal. Scary, but I assumed it was what all uncles who were crippled did. Whenever he was high on that stuff, his appearance changed. I always got scared as soon as he got off. His eyes changed. He looked mean and he talked mean and he threatened all kinds of things if I didn’t do what he wanted me to do . Everything from “making sure” that my brother and I were put in an orphanage because, he said, my mother had not proof that she was ever married to my Daddy. A lot of things that should have taken place between me and a boy of my own age happened between me and my old, toothless, skinny, crippled uncle. Right under my Aunt’s nose, my mother’s nose. I can remember times, like at Christmas, when he fondled me right in front of a room full of people. He’d caress my boob…..I started to develop at about 10. He’d rest his had on my butt, but he’d do it quickly…I knew what he was doing, but no one else noticed.

IF they had been paying attention, they’d have noticed. But the least they saw or heardfrom me, the better. I never got affection or praise or positive …..anything. If I was sad about something, I was being a sissy. They were always calling me “spoiled rotten”. I could never figure out why. I hardly ever got anything …period, much less whatever I wanted. If I did something wrong, I got the crap beat out of me with a belt or a fly swatter. I never got to join any groups or organizations, especially if it cost money or required the purchase of a uniform or equipment. So, the spoiled thing, I don’t know where that came from. I was not, by any definition of the word, spoiled. Anything I got, which was not very much and not very often, I had to BEG for. Literally BEG. I usually had to have an adult ally as well. Any other child that we knew who received any kind of affection, like hugs or “I love you” was considered spoiled. I never got any of that either, so I still am bumfuzzled about being spoiled.




I have a hard time digging through all these cobwebs and thinking about these things. It makes me angry at my Mother, my Grandmother, my Aunt… for not believing in me and not recognizing that I withdrew for some reason. I can remember being outgoing and always “putting on shows” and singing and dancing and wanting to sing and dance. I was in all the school plays. I was happy. Then I just wasn’t happy anymore. I tried to tell that my own father had taken it upon himself to abruptly end my innocence without asking me if I was ready to end it. He confused me and was not a good father. He abandoned me, then came back and turned my brain to mush, then he abandoned me again. He was supposed to be my hero. He was supposed to tell me that I was the prettiest girl in the world. He was supposed to tell me that no boy would ever be good enough for me. He was supposed to protect me from bad people and bad things. He was supposed to teach me to ride a bike and drive a car. He was supposed to actually spoil me. He wasn’t supposed to warp my mind and abandon me. Twice. He made me a prisoner of my own mind. I think all the time. I think about him a lot. I always have. He didn’t even give me the opportunity to miss him. I could only wonder what he looked like, what he did everyday. If he molested other little girls. He left me with a brother who worships him, even though he never laid eyes on the man. He can’t believe that his father is a child molester. Whether or not he was a “pedophile”, he was definitely a child molester in December of 1967.

I never tried to bluntly tell about my Uncle. When he died, I almost blurted it out at the cemetery, ….but I didn’t. I had a breakdown instead. They all thought I was overcome with grief. I was actually relieved that he was dead. I was overcome with emotion because I was glad he was dead and I wanted to shout to the world that aside from the fact that he fought in a war, he ruined the innocence of a girl who was left in his care from time to time, trusting that he would protect her, not harm her. I am her and I still get angry about the things he made me do.




He had a pornographic novel called “Family Circus”. It was a paperback with artwork of a woman in a dominatrix outfit, smiling, creepily, as she pops a whip, surrounded by a variety of male and female characters of all ages. A shirtless man,. A young boy in sneakers, shorts and baseball cap with unbuttoned shirt, young girl with daisy dukes and crop top with nipples protruding, pouted mouth, doe eyes, man with sinister smile, drooling and groping at the young girl from behind.



My Uncle would make me read to him from this book. It was about a Mother and Father, a brother and sister and an uncle. They all had sex with each other, separately and together. If you’ve ever heard Bob Saget tell the joke, The Aristocrats, that’s what it was like. My uncle would have me read to him and when I came to a work like “fuck”, I didn’t want to say it. Being 8, 9...10 years old… he would spend a half hour coaxing me to say it. Then he’d get excited and I’d have to jerk him off. At first, he was teaching me “how to make a boy pee”. When he ejaculated, he said it was pee. Then as I got older, he said he was “teaching me what to do with ’the boys’” when I got “old enough”.

This is so hard for me sometimes, but I feel like I have to do it. It’s like exorcising demons. I have been an accidental, unintended victim my whole life. And I don’t like it.