TITLE: Walking Dead - (The Confession) By Ricky Flowers 05/07/07 |
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By Ricky Flowers May 6, 2007
It must be fear that drives me. Making me do the things I do with my life. It’s difficult to describe the feeling, I guess because I have been so out of touch with myself for so many years. Today I’m 39.5 years old and on most days, able to convince myself how happy I am but down inside, knowing none of it’s true but at the same time, not knowing why.
I consider myself a strong person who has overcome extreme odds over the last 39 years but I know I’m not because I continue to be the addict I am today and don’t have the strength to do anything about it……so I write my story’s and continue on…..nothing ever changing and as I stay on this road, I can see myself dying. I can see myself hurting. I can see myself going downhill and as the tears well in my eyes…….I take another drink.
I have a very colorful past starting as a child. I was born into a family where there were already three kids. My mom and dad had a very tumultuous marriage. They fought all the time because he was always drinking. It’s sad that drinking is the only thing I really remember about him. He left when I was two years old and I never saw him again. He died of cancer in 1988. We found out a year after his death. After he left, my mom had her boyfriends, one she liked so much she had two more kids with him. She would have married him but he died. The way she described him, he would have been a saving grace for our family. I guess it wasn’t to be.
So……My Mom, what can you say about a woman who raised 6 kids on her own. Usually it’s good things but for years I never had anything good to say and still really can’t find anything, in fact, I’m now seeing the results of her terrible parenting skills and what they have done to me and all my siblings. It’s not a pretty site.
The only Grandparent I remember was my mother’s father. He too died in 1988 in a head on collision. My mother shed not a tear at his funeral. This got myself and my brothers and sisters thinking. Now it made sense why she never did anything about the sexual abuse…..ahh yeah, I’ll get to that in a moment. We had finally figured out that my own Mother had been sexually abused by her father, my grandfather for no telling how many years and too this day will not talk about it or even admit it happened, but we knew.
Growing up my younger brother used to go into my younger sisters room late at night and do things. My mother knew when he did this but didn’t even flinch. Not once did she make an effort to stop it from happening and so, this went on for years. I too never said anything and like so many families, we pretended it wasn’t happening. It wasn’t until I caught my Grandfather doing the same thing to her that I screamed for my mother to stop it. She told my sister it was her fault.
There was non-stop physical abuse that went on in our house. People could hear the screams even down the street but no one cared. Back then I guess it was acceptable to beat the hell out of your kids. I remember going to school with belt welts on my back, black and blue and one time, a PE teacher saw it but did nothing and said nothing. God forbid he get involved. Oh if they had only known the intense suffering physically and mentally we were going through in that house, maybe someone would have helped, or maybe not. That was a long time ago.
My mother taught me to be afraid. She taught me that I was nobody. She taught me that life was about being controlled. She taught me that charity is a bad thing. That accepting help was for those who have nothing, poor people and an embarrassment. What she didn’t want to accept was how her own life had turned out. We were not poor because we had life, and life together, but we were poor financially. Getting help was not an option and so she took it out on me, and my younger sister. She beat us almost daily and we grew to understand that she hated us. We wondered why our older brother, two older sisters and youngest brother never got beat. It wasn’t fair. We were singled out for whatever reason. That still bothers me to this day. Why were we the punching bags?
Today, we are all grown up and of course, all of us have had failed relationships and pretty much lived in a world we created for ourselves excluding the memories of the past. My way is just to not deal with it. It hasn’t worked so far.
My youngest sibling, a sister, is awaiting trial for second-degree murder. She is the one that suffered the most abuse. She was sexually, emotionally and physically abused for years. I give her credit though; she stood up to my mother. It didn’t change anything but at least she tried, I just let it happen. She married at 15 and moved out just to get away from my monster of a mother. That relationship reaped two children but ultimately ended in divorce. Over the years, my sister had her boyfriends and tried to deal with life the best she could. She ended up with a man, a man who I knew was bad news from the beginning but she wouldn’t listen and so, our relationship went on hold. I wouldn’t talk to her as long as she was with him. I found out that she had killed him 8 months after it happened. He had been abusing my sister and his own daughter. This only reminded my sister of her past and she was not willing to deal with that again so she did the only thing she felt she could. I don’t condone it, but it’s done and she will pay the price. The night she set him on fire they had both been drinking and doing drugs for at least 24 hours prior. Go figure.
I guess I was the second most abused, physically, emotionally and yes…sexually. I can’t remember much about the sexual abuse but it did happen by my younger brother. I’ll talk more about me later.
My oldest brother started hanging out with the wrong crowd and drinking at about 9 years old. He turned out to be a really great con man. He can manipulate people into giving him almost anything he wants. He spent 18 months in the Texas State Penitentiary. Other than that I don’t really know anything about him. I haven’t seen him in about 15 years.
My youngest brother is doing nothing with his life. He still lives with my mother in my hometown. He never could hold a job and was never responsible. He used to hang out at my grandfathers a lot. I think he abused him as well.
My two older sisters, twins, have never been in any trouble that I know of. They both have had multiple relationships and marriages. One of them had a daughter that had kids at 15 so needless to say, there are many issues for them to deal with too.
That pretty much covers it. My family, you’ve gotta love em.
That brings me to me. What the hell is going on with me? On the outside you wouldn’t think anything. That’s because my mother taught me so well to hide my feelings. Because of her, I had emotional problems all through my childhood. She made me feel like nothing I did was ever right and of course that led to OCD. She taught me that being beat, and humiliated, and put down was okay. She taught me to have a low self-esteem and that I was not worthy of love. She taught me that only ciaos was normal and anything other than that was not acceptable. It’s hard to break out of those teachings that were drilled into my head at a very young age. People don’t understand. They don’t understand that it takes a lifetime to break out of, and away from those kinds of teachings.
Imagine getting up every morning knowing that your own mother wished you had never been born. Knowing this because she told you everyday so you wouldn’t forget. Like you were something evil. Like you were an accident that should have been avoided. Can you imagine? I can. I lived it. It was my life.
Today, I deal with my life the best way I know how. I have been drinking since the say my mother handed me a six pack at 17 years old after returning from boot camp at Ft. Knox Kentucky. I barely remember my 20’s and my 30’s. Alcohol has been a part of my life for so long I’m afraid to see what it will be without it and so I drink. Everyday I drink myself into that other world where I feel comfortable and don’t have to think about the last 39 years. I don’t now how to stop now. For many years I always could but now, I’m afraid I can’t and I’m afraid of what is out there if I do. It is fear of the unknown. Drinking has caused me to gain weight, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, depression, anxiety and unhappiness but I can’t stop and don’t know how to ask for help. I’m afraid to ask for help. It would be a whole new world for me and it scares me to death. I don’t know what my life would be like without it and so, I am a walking dead person. On the road to a certain end, an end I am fully aware of and still, it makes no difference. I do not have the control, it does. It is killing me and I don’t know how to make it stop. I don’t know if I want it to stop. I just don’t know………..
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