Word of the day:
truckle- to act in a subservient manner.
I know a lot of teens who don't get along with their parents, a lot of my friends don't get along with their parents. But sometimes I wonder if they don't like their parents as much as I don't like mine. I know, that sounds completely self centered and like it's a competition of whose life stinks the most, but I really do wonder. I'm about a thousand miles away from my home and completely content with that, I count down the days until I go home not because I miss my family but because I miss my friends from home. If my friends moved to another state I'd probably go there and I wouldn't go see my family. I know that sounds horrible, but I just wouldn't. I guess to better understand that you have to understand the relationships I have with my family.
My mother and I have the rockiest relationship out of all of my family members. There are many horrible moments of my childhood that I remember vividly and they all revolve around my mother. I remember the one moment that changed my outlook and self esteem forever, it was during a particularly horrible fight with my mother and I remember her yelling at me "I can't believe you've let yourself get this fat!". It hit me like a ton of bricks to the stomach, I had never seen myself as fat. Of course I wasn't as skinny as my sister but I never thought of myself as fat. This comment was followed by a bunch of appointments with doctors including a few months at a nutritionist, I was put on a strict diet and told by every single one of my doctors that I was overweight. Let me tell you, this can lead to a pretty bad self image, and I still struggle with my body image today. I remember leaving the Nutritionists one day and my mother was crying because she had been dragging me to to the nutritionist for a couple months and I had lost no weight, she didn't understand. This was the first time I stood up to my mother, which was a very difficult thing to do because I had been brought up to respect my parents and to do what they said, I told her that it wasn't my decision to go to the doctor and if it wasn't doing any good I shouldn't go anymore. This started a complete and total change for me, I stopped depending on my parents morals and ethics to determine what I should do. I decided that I should come up with these things on my own, I changed my morals around, I did what I thought was right. My mother and I began to have even more issues, I got into a relationship and she accused me being pregnant when I started getting sick. I was dragged to more doctors and about a two years after my first symptom of being lightheaded and passing out in the shower I was diagnosed with PCOS and hypoglycemia and IR.
Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), hypoglycemia, and insulin resistance. I had to keep repeating it to myself over and over, it just seemed so surreal. I had done some research on my own and realized that I was one unhealthy human being and it had nothing to do with my weight. It was my ovaries, it was causing severe cramping, blood sugar problems, weight problems, mood swings, and I would most likely be infertile. I was crushed, completely crushed, and my mom was relieved. She said to me just recently over this summer, "I'm so glad I took you to all of those doctors, I just knew there was something wrong. No one should weigh that much." I've come to terms that me and my mom don't get along, and I avoid conflict when I can. I avoid her when I can. I'm trying to stop seeing myself the way my mom does, and it's difficult but McDreamy is helping me work on it. He's my support system, and I don't think he'll ever grasp how much I really need him.
Gumby. My sister. What can I say about her? She's practically perfect. She's gotten one B grade in her entire life and she cried for about three hours afterward. She's really pretty, and really skinny. Her doctors are always on her case about needing to gain weight but she never does. She tall and has curves in all the right places, where I'm short and stocky and have huge breasts that get in the way of everything and child bearing hips. Her skin is always clear and when she gets up she looks glamourous. When I get dressed up I just look plain. She listens to everything my parents say, and that's where she and I have issues. Sisters are supposed to tell each other everything, and she tells me everything because I'm not judgemental and I don't have the same values as she does so when she says she kissed my friend I don't have issues with it. When I date someone a couple years younger than me she has problems with it because she thinks it's wrong to date someone younger than you. I can't tell her things. I can't share, we don't have that sister friendship that people talk about. I also spent many years of my life being compared to her, my little sister was better than me. My mother really screwed up our relationship, and I hate that. Gumby and I are just related, we're nothing more than that. We may look alike but personality wise we couldn't be more different.
Padre. He's the one family member that I like. He doesn't pretend with me, he doesn't pretend to know me or to understand me. We talk about things that we both understand, like Science or Music or Math. Not a lot of stuff with substance, and that's okay with both of us. In a really weird way it makes me like him more because we're both okay with not being really close. We're okay with having some distance. I love my father.
My extended family is huge (my mom is one of 8 kids) so when I'm with them I barely talk. I just sort of observe. I guess that's why I've always been better with written words rather than verbal words. I just didn't find a reason to speak over everyone else when I was younger. There is one family member who always heard me though even if I wasn't saying anything. My grandfather. He was the most brillant man I had ever met, he read me Shakespeare when I was too young to even understand what was being read to me. I'd sit there for hours at a time on his lap feeling like the most special person in the world. He wrote me letters every week and I still have all of them sitting in my drawer in my desk. Every once in a while I take them out and read them, he was the person who got me into writing. He was the one who got me into reading which sparked my interest in writing even more. When he died, I started writing and I couldn't stop. It was like a stream of water coming out of a broken faucet, I just couldn't stop it. Poetry, prose, fan fiction, I just couldn't stop the words. Between him and Sarah I have become a totally different person, my view of the world has changed drastically and I'm not nearly as optimistic as I could have been. He was my best friend and she was my mentor.
When he died that's when my relationship with my mom changed. I blamed her for a really long time, she had the chance to take me to go see him and she didn't. I don't remember the last time I saw him because of her. And when they turned off the life support I blamed her even more. I think on some level the only thing me and my Grandfather have ever disagreed on is my mother. He would want me to forgive her for her behavior with me, and I just can't get myself to do that as of right now.
I guess that's enough of my life for now.
Ta for now!
-Becca