The Secrets Children Carry Because Thet Don't Know How To Put Them Down

I've just finished reading a Stephen King novel," Lisey's Story", who I read every once in a ten years or so and I've been in bed for two days, which is why I can read a whole book in one day. I've the time. When I went to the doctors a few days ago complaining about my joints aching, (if the rest of my bodily aches and pains and diseases weren't enough), he wants me to go get a Lyme's test, as I've lived in the deep Woods for so long and in town not so very long. This King book is not one of the won't I just won't read like the ones about rabid dogs, or haunted houses and cars that are alive, I like the 'nice' ones and I thought this was going to be one of those and it was not, but it was so close to home, I couldn't not finish it. It was about mental illness to be summed up in one sentence. But it was also about the magic places one can 'create', or go to to be safe. And I don't know if those places can exist without someone making them, or if they are like, "If there isn't anyone in the forest, and a tree falls, can it be heard?" kind of conundrum.

My mother and my oldest brother (who is younger than me) are both , shall we say politely, 'over the edge'. I say it this way, because there are times when they have been loving to me and I hold those few moments precious. But That's the sadness, they are so few. My mother's illness, as well as my brother's is well-lubricated with meanness and that's the hardest part to take and the hardest part to break on through to the other side as Jimbo sang, into love. I don't know where my mother's came from. I know that my brother's illness came from my mother's treatment of all of us children and on into adulthood, and he didn't have the strength that my little brother and I have to combat the meanness, the abuse, the down-right scariness of cruelty.
I do know I can love them only because Jesus. There are people rolling their eyes as they read that and I don't much care. In fact, I don't care at all. I know what it's taken to keep me from the fear-monster and that's enough for me. Also, He has taught me how to NOT be one sonnuvabitch, when it would be so easy.

King's book talks about that concept. Oh, he doesn't use Jesus as his method of strength, but he talks about the capability to love when someone on the outside lookin' in, would say, "you are one crazy woman to waste an ounce of love on that kinda treatment.". Well, I'm not wasting any treatment on anybody. My mother is a person, not just her actions and I can pull a few, not a lot, but some memories out of my hellhole of a childhood that indicate something that is nice. I won't go so far as to say it was love she was offering me, but it wasn't mean-ness at that moment and that's always a relief. My brother, I only hold responsible for ugly behavior when I know sure as shootin' well, he could have controlled it, if he had just put out some effort or listened. But I could be wrong there and I'll never know.

In Lisey's Story, the man does what a lot of decent sensitive men do when they come up against things like mental illness: they look for someone to partner with who is just the opposite of the mental illness they grew up with. And that's what Scott did in Lisey's Story. Women , I've noticed, in myself, as well as some other women, tend to marry what they are familiar with and as a teen, I married a paranoid schizophrenic. When the violence came out, I skedaddled just as fast as I could, with a baby in my arms. I think I took longer than I should have, but we did live in the Deep Woods and he would steal my shoes or clothes and when it was winter and snowy, eight miles to town can be dangerous if
no one comes by and you have to run through that woody place that is close to the road to get out into if it's not his truck, but remain hidden in the woods if it is his truck. It was a tricky roll of the dice. I called it playin' Chutes and Ladders while wearin' a Snuggley (tm) up against my breasts with a sweetbreath baby in it.

There was a sweetness about that man that was tormented by his illness, there was a genius inside that flabbergasted a number of people and when he died prematurely just a few months ago, people flew in from other states to the memorial I put together and my son, at 32, was an upstanding gentleman, who had several bad encounters with his father and I don't think any good ones.

My mother's illness includes a great deal of violence placed on her children as well as permission for her husband (not our Father) to mete out violence on children too young to understand why, just as mother herself meted out violence on me when I was as young as two. She has a fine line between what is real and what is her idea of real. That's the most frustrating part, now that we are too big to beat up. There was only one time when all three of us children were, as adults in the same room with her and corrected her idea of a reality story and her frustration at 'losing' out to her false memory was profound to watch. To watch the mentally ill, is both sad and frustrating to the sane. We can't cure her.
She's a psycho-path, which is scary and she's also a Narcissist. Us grown kids ten years ago decided to leave her alone and save ourselves. Though, this last year September after ten years of silence, I called her on her birthday to see if there wasn't a way back through to love and she told me never to call her again. Apparently a nephew had told her a horrific lie she chooses to believe rather than understand that he was hurting her to hurt his father. So I realized, the meanness, which is different than the actual mental illness, has come on down the line like a freight train out of control.