This mainly takes place before I lived with my father (Part 1).
My earliest memories are watching my sisters catch the school bus. I remember being terrified just by the noise of the bus, hugging my mom's leg. I can remember playing soldiers and barbies. An essential for a boy with only sisters, I'd distract barbie with a date, while the troops scaled the wall and stormed the doll house, very black ops stuff. Mom and dad, son and two sisters living in a five bedroom house in a new housing development in N. Phx. The life people tell you your supposed to have.
I can remember my parents fighting. We had this stand alone counter in our kitchen and they'd shout at each other from either end chasing each other around with snarky insults. During this, me and my sisters sat at the railing of our stairs crying. I can't speak for them, but I never really knew what the problem was. As a child I thought, I was happy, why weren't they?I also remember my dad coming home from work and us waiting to see him. When I was 5, I noticed my father was coming home later and later, sometimes not at all. One day my mom called me to her room. She told me my father wasn't coming back, but everything was going to be fine, just a lot to get used to. She was right. For me, this was when life went from what I was told life is and became more of what life really was.
After my dad left, my mom started noticing subtle changes in my behavior. I started acting out violently. I remember throwing a wooden Noah's Arc to the floor, smashing it. Running away became a release for me as well. I'd walk aimlessly in one direction til I was tired, then find someone by their house and ask to call home. In other words bratty, but still acting out. All this to my mom signified a mental defect in my mind.
During this time, my mother seemed to be changing as well, understandably from becoming a single parent. After the divorce she became, let's say, aggressively proactive in me and my siblings mental state. As intense as me and my sibling acting out grew, she began taking us to counseling.
I remember going to a few sessions with the whole family, but mostly me and my mother. She had taken me to at least a dozen different counselors. They'd meet, talk to me for a bit, then ask to see her. After talking with her, we'd leave, never going back to the same doctor after the first session. That is, except one. This time I met him with my mother. Entering the room there was an orgy of toys to play with. Of course, me being a kid, my mom and him talked while I played mindlessly. I learned later in life that this is a common technique psychologist's use to access the subconscious or observe someone without them knowing they're being observed. It's a distraction. Most want to play a card game, then talk to you, letting your mind drift. This time the doctor told my mother he'd found the defect. I had A.D.D. After this one session i was prescribed Ritalin.
I think my mother was looking for a solution, but if the doctor even hinted that it could be from her behavior or the divorce she would dismiss it. She had probably heard about ADD, being the craze at the time and still even today (seriously in 5th grade my class started lunch at the nurse's office, everyone was there) and thought it would be a quick fix. However, I don't believe I ever had ADD. Ironically, my grades had not really shown a difference from before or after the divorce. After I started taking Ritalin my grades plummeted.
I became uninterested in anything. School, what was once fun and exciting to me, became uncomfortable and agonizingly long. I also became more isolated. Losing my friends over outbursts of anger and becoming more interested in playing by myself. My mom tried taking me to other counselors as I grew, but I was becoming aware of their techniques. At first toying with them, then becoming unresponsive to the therapists all together. At this point my mom felt she wasn't able to handle me and I was turned over to my father (see Part 1).
Later my addiction turned to the more street common usual suspects. I became the one looking for a quick fix. I felt anxiety, frustration, anger and was desperate for something to ease my mind. Not putting the effort into real, earned happiness or contentment, but instant gratification.
Now this is more the story of how I developed my addictions to drugs or, to be more precise, my attempt at all the good with none of the bad life. But it also sheds light on how my childhood shaped my views on spirituality. I was learning that my perception of life being joyous and carefree was crumbling. I was losing control of my emotions. I was being drugged and I was discovering that the mind could be altered and even deceived.
Thoughts on my mom:
I love my mother and though I don't communicate with her much, she has always done what she thought was right for me. She is a person just like all of us, and a strong, opinionated person at that. I've surely done worse things than her and do not consider myself above doing anything she did. Raising kids is hard, I'm sure, and I'm glad to be here because of her. I do, however, believe this is where my delusional mindset of "alteration of the mind can quickly fix behavioral or emotional problems" derives from. If it saves anyone pain, it doesn't work. I don't see her much because we don't get along, even with surface level conversations. I hope this also shows that we are very similar and the duality of her quick fix to my own.
Thank you for reading
Part 3 soon
