memories - can anyone relate?
Being given drops of brandy to help me sleep when I was a baby. [I don't have memories of that, have been told.] I have never touched alcohol since then. Ever. Note that back then it wasn't my choice. They just wanted to quiet an unhappy, anxious, insecure and colicky premature baby they were scared they didn't know how to care for. She was too fragile, see.
I do very much remember...
- Age 9ish... the nightly rows. Red wine from a knocked over glass spreading across the table. A table containing a TV, piles of bills, along with dinner and said wine glasses. My parents' wine glasses. My father's yells and terror-inducing threats. The helplessness.
- In my late teens.... the front room that was never used, but contained many bottles of wine and dry sherry.
- From age 10 - late 20s - 'holidays' with my parents to Belgium. Again, their drinking. Especially dad. Strong dry sherry as aperitiff, bottle of wine between them, then dad would have a strong spirit, especially brandy. If they had genever gin my mum would have some too. And his false conviviality with the restaurant owners. Loud. False. Embarressing. As an adolescent I was expected to sit through all this without complaint. Submissive. When I tried to persuade dad not to have brandy he would get irritable and cut me down.
My father's personaility changes terrified me too much.
But even though I've never touched alcohol, my parents' behaviours have effected me. And home life, along with the bullying at school has ironically resulted in post traumatic symptoms and depression that mirror my father's drunken behaviour. My father drank to cope with an unrelenting, untreated depression marked by paranoia.
At times I find it hard to see what is my own, and what is his/theirs. My mother's stubborn and nasty "You're just like your father" when I was adolescent didn't help any either.
Who the heck am I?
Well. I'm finding out now, with the help of therapy. I'm growing into myself, my intelligence, my creativity. Peeling back the layers of the submissive, internally seething child and teenager, to find an adult who is struggling to bloom.
It's hard though, and sometimes I feel so alone.