Yesterday was an interesting and quite perspective-changing day. My favorite Uncle came to my apartment for the first time. Aside from my brother, he's the first relative I've seen since April of last year, when I found out some horrid truths about my father which tore a rift in my relationship with my parents so big that I'm still not able to talk to them.
Some background information regarding my family: Until recently, I thought my entire extended family on my father's side were super-Christians. The way my parents raised my brother, sister, & I was psychologically torturous. Imagine that you're a child going about with regular childhood things, when your parents decide they should go to a Southern-Baptist fundamentalist church 3 times a week for the rest of your time living with them. Imagine everybody in your church teaching you that you have to be a literally 'perfect' person or you'll burn in hell forever & ever. That if you listen to any music that isn't Christian then something's wrong with you and you're going to hell. Imagine in everything that you do feeling that you have to live up to an impossible standard or you'll go to hell and be charred for an infinite amount of time. Being taken to youth rallies that felt more like nazi-youth brigade ceremonies, because of the fire & brimstone being spewed by the manipulative fuckers. It sounds dramatic, but when you've got a Scorpio Moon, things like this tend to weigh on a kid's mind a little too often than's mentally healthy.
Well, my dad became a pastor in the mid-90's and he continued doing this until April, when my sister spilled the beans on him. I stayed at my friend's house for a few weeks until my brother rescued me. We got my stuff from their house and I didn't look back.
So, yesterday my Uncle & I went on a drive to Nashua, New Hampshire. We had the best talks on the way there & back. Apparantly, my parent's approach to religion is quite contrary to the rest of my dad's family. Hearing this was a huge relief for me, because the best part of my childhood was going to my grandparent's house for the holidays, with my Aunt's & Uncles and younger cousins. It's a nice, warm & cozy house, out in a tiny town in the woods, with a huge yard, brook, and pond. It just meant a lot to me as a kid, because my extended family were such loving people. I was afraid that my time of being accepted over there was in jeopardy because I have different beliefs now, and my parents continue to go there for the holidays. Apparantly, though, my grandparents feel really horrible about the way my brother, sister, & I were raised, so if anybody wasn't accepted over there it'd be my parents.
Aside from that, my Uncle said that the last holiday everybody was there (excluding my siblings & I) the family seemed to be falling apart. Everybody's mad at my dad. He refuses to work now, and nobody understands why. He just makes these bullshit excuses and seems to feel that the world owes him a living. It's so bizarre, because it's very contrary to the perception I had as a child of him as a hardworking person. Now, apparantly, he keeps saying that he's going to get, like, a camper and move down south or something. Lead a simpler way of life. It drives me insane.
I'm surprised I never realized how irresponsible he was when I was growing up. We kept moving every year, so we had no roots anywhere. We kept moving back in with my dad's parents. My mom's parents, as well, once or twice, before they got fed up with my dad's laziness, and made him leave. He moved back in with his own parents, then, for a few months until he got a short-lived job and saved up enough for another short-lived apartment for us to move back into. They pulled us out of public schools to home-school us, which ended up with us just filling out these cheesy work-books things. My mom had more psychological problems then you could shake a stick at. I can't even recall how often she'd get into a screaming fit, and stomp around & throw things (such as our gunea pig.) Still, I kind of feel bad for her, because she came from a pretty wealthy family and is soon to be homeless once again, because of these psychological problems which render her unable to just leave my father.
It just made me so mad when my Uncle told me that my dad was hinting that he wanted to move back in with my grandparents. They're retired now and should not have to be dealing with that shit.
Eesh. Anyway, there's some of my life-story in a nutshell.
Some background information regarding my family: Until recently, I thought my entire extended family on my father's side were super-Christians. The way my parents raised my brother, sister, & I was psychologically torturous. Imagine that you're a child going about with regular childhood things, when your parents decide they should go to a Southern-Baptist fundamentalist church 3 times a week for the rest of your time living with them. Imagine everybody in your church teaching you that you have to be a literally 'perfect' person or you'll burn in hell forever & ever. That if you listen to any music that isn't Christian then something's wrong with you and you're going to hell. Imagine in everything that you do feeling that you have to live up to an impossible standard or you'll go to hell and be charred for an infinite amount of time. Being taken to youth rallies that felt more like nazi-youth brigade ceremonies, because of the fire & brimstone being spewed by the manipulative fuckers. It sounds dramatic, but when you've got a Scorpio Moon, things like this tend to weigh on a kid's mind a little too often than's mentally healthy.
Well, my dad became a pastor in the mid-90's and he continued doing this until April, when my sister spilled the beans on him. I stayed at my friend's house for a few weeks until my brother rescued me. We got my stuff from their house and I didn't look back.
So, yesterday my Uncle & I went on a drive to Nashua, New Hampshire. We had the best talks on the way there & back. Apparantly, my parent's approach to religion is quite contrary to the rest of my dad's family. Hearing this was a huge relief for me, because the best part of my childhood was going to my grandparent's house for the holidays, with my Aunt's & Uncles and younger cousins. It's a nice, warm & cozy house, out in a tiny town in the woods, with a huge yard, brook, and pond. It just meant a lot to me as a kid, because my extended family were such loving people. I was afraid that my time of being accepted over there was in jeopardy because I have different beliefs now, and my parents continue to go there for the holidays. Apparantly, though, my grandparents feel really horrible about the way my brother, sister, & I were raised, so if anybody wasn't accepted over there it'd be my parents.
Aside from that, my Uncle said that the last holiday everybody was there (excluding my siblings & I) the family seemed to be falling apart. Everybody's mad at my dad. He refuses to work now, and nobody understands why. He just makes these bullshit excuses and seems to feel that the world owes him a living. It's so bizarre, because it's very contrary to the perception I had as a child of him as a hardworking person. Now, apparantly, he keeps saying that he's going to get, like, a camper and move down south or something. Lead a simpler way of life. It drives me insane.
I'm surprised I never realized how irresponsible he was when I was growing up. We kept moving every year, so we had no roots anywhere. We kept moving back in with my dad's parents. My mom's parents, as well, once or twice, before they got fed up with my dad's laziness, and made him leave. He moved back in with his own parents, then, for a few months until he got a short-lived job and saved up enough for another short-lived apartment for us to move back into. They pulled us out of public schools to home-school us, which ended up with us just filling out these cheesy work-books things. My mom had more psychological problems then you could shake a stick at. I can't even recall how often she'd get into a screaming fit, and stomp around & throw things (such as our gunea pig.) Still, I kind of feel bad for her, because she came from a pretty wealthy family and is soon to be homeless once again, because of these psychological problems which render her unable to just leave my father.
It just made me so mad when my Uncle told me that my dad was hinting that he wanted to move back in with my grandparents. They're retired now and should not have to be dealing with that shit.
Eesh. Anyway, there's some of my life-story in a nutshell.