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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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This is the house I had all my worst times. There were some happy times, I know there were, but the horrible times outweigh them.
Let me be clear: I was not abused or actually harmed physically. And my parents said that they loved me. It was designed and intended as a happy, secure home and I am sure they did whatever their best was. It was just all done wrong.
When my mother, then 88, was hospitalised in May, I had to visit her regularly. I returned to the area of my childhood, and, gradually, between then and her death in October, became immune to the area, the the fact that I drove, every day I visited, past the then home of a boy, not the boy, that I was infatuated with, past the homes of other boys I was seriously attracted to, past the home of the boy who outed me in school.
I visited through my tears, again calling John's name out loud - a throwback to my full obsession - asking him to come and hold me and love me. That would not have happened even if I had phoned him, of course. I'm through that now.
We held the funeral. It was good funeral. The party was happy, we had fireworks, and gave her a good sendoff. Later we tidied the house and reshaped the interior to maximise the saleability. It is not a pretty house, and I hate it. But we made it attractive to live in, and we have found a buyer with whom we are going through the tortuous UK sales process.
Yesterday we went there to do some more tidying and removal of rubbish. We accumulate so much rubbish in our lives and we've done a lot of this rubbish clearance. And we were sitting having lunch when it all became just too much.
What happened to me there:- Wrong love - no affection
- strict discipline
- smacked so often I ran out of the house to get away when I was very small, and floored my father when I was larger
- Much trivial stuff
- Not allowed to go out to dances when I KNEW I needed to meet girls
- Supervised so closely at all times that I had no real privacy
- Terror once I was 13 of being found out as a queer because I would have been sent away to be "cured"
- Given "the wrong bike" with love end generosity such that I felt stupid every time I rode it.
- Never, ever allowed a pet
So much little stuff. And yet they said they loved me.
I was a lovely little boy, and so lonely. They didn't abuse me. The smacking didn't really hurt that much not in any real sense.
I just hate that house.
I have grieved for neither of my parents. He died in 1982 and I didn't grieve then. She in 2007 and I doubt I will grieve for her ever either.
I grieve for my childhood. I think I missed it.
[Updated on: Sun, 02 March 2008 16:40]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Dear Timmy,
I feel for you and we have a lot in common. I haven't grieved for my father or mother. I was actually surprised when my brother told me, after my father died, that he missed him. When my mother died my brother was already dead and so I had no-one to please and, in effect, did a non-funeral. No guests, no flowers, no music, no speeches no burial. That was six or seven years a go and her ashes are still in a plastic drum under my desk.
And my friend, the chaplain of Oriel always referred to my family as "That nest of vipers where you grew up" and I put it down to his eagerness to get me into bed (and malice, too, maybe).
But I was never beaten, mostly didn't have inappropriate presents, and I felt cared for, even loved, but I have no comparison, of course. And, because of the war I had lived in ten or eleven houses before I was 12 and the house I then lived in from 1946 to 1958 (but was away in the navy and university for much of the last five) was a house I rather liked. I went to bed with William and Peter there - my first and my first love - and really don't have bad memories of it.
I too knew I needed to meet girls but on that front I was not helped. And when my mother suspected I was having sex with Margot (who was the maidservant of the mother of a school friend she asked me and when I confirmed I was (my mindset at age 25 was "how good! I can do girls as well" she went ape and said I was no better than an animal and and .. and.
I didn't hear the last of that for some time. My father never said a word!
So I think you had a harder childhood than I did but maybe an easier youth?
Love,
Anthony
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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A long time ago I worked out that comparisons always fail. For example the kids of both sexes abused at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haut_de_la_Garenne Haut de la Garenne suffered as they grew up and weathered, for the most part, that suffering. Their suffering was unimaginable, and was, for them 100%
My 100% was substantially trivial compared with that, as was yours. But we suffered, each of us, 100% of it.
Hard as it may seem, that 100% is as bad for each of us, as anyone else's 100%. This is harder to explain than to understand. It is very similar to the ability to tolerate physical pain.
A broken arm hurts like hell. We tolerate it and the pain eases over time. Yet that pain over time is still the maximum we can tolerate. The pain threshold moves with the magnitude of the pain.
Am I making sense?
[Updated on: Sun, 02 March 2008 14:04]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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unsui
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Likes it here |
Registered: September 2007
Messages: 338
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No Message Body
[Updated on: Fri, 24 October 2008 19:38] |
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Timmy, Im sorry, not for any abuse mental or physical, but Im sorry because you lost your childhood. That is something that should never happen to anyone. Childhood is supposed to be a time of magic and wonder, a time to learn and lead us into adulthood. There are pains I can never forget and I can never forgive my dad for trying to destroy any happiness I could find. My mom is fabulosly wonderful and has tried to undo the damage. I know we cant go back and undo the things that were wrong, but we can effect the future and how we raise our children and how we live our lives. Perhaps because of everything we become better people and parents.
Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you......
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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exactly
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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We do, with determination. I know you know what it is like to lose a part of yourself that way.
Like you, I am not moaning about it. It just sometimes needs to be said aloud.
I think I tried to "keep" my childhood and not grow up. It was stupid, and I harmed myself a lot because of it.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Dear Timmy,
Yes it makes sense, but I think it isn't quite right. I used to argue with my friend Tim Cook who maintained that in a lifetime the highs and lows add up and the 'average for each one of us is the same and if it isn't it doesn't matter because no-one can feel anything else but thier own average.
I do think some people have a happier life than others. The worst pain for Timmy is very unlikely to be equally bad as the worst pain for Anthony.
I do think that some people care more about others and some less. The amount you have done for others seems to me overwhelming.
I do think I have been very lucky in many ways but have suffered more unrequited love than most (probably because I was naive).
But I think you have suffered more because you were younger when you first fell in love and so suffered longer.
Anyway I've just said goodnight to my daughter and son-in-law and their two children and can tell you that Emily on seeing some pictures I've just found remarked that her taste in men is similar to mine!
And I'm tempted to send you a couple of pictures of me punting on the Cherwell. I don't think, I'd kick him out of bed, would you?
Love,
Anthony
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[Updated on: Sun, 02 March 2008 21:19] |
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I think we all try and keep our childhoods and not grow up. Unfortunately life doesn't seem to work like that ... otherwise we'd all be Peter Pans, and who'd play Hook?
Camy
"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: Music and Cats." - Albert Schweitzer
It's like Mad Max out here: guys doing guys, girls doing girls, girls turning into guys and doing girls that used to do girls and guys!
- from Alex Truelove
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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Great article.
I kind of fired my parents some years ago and then re-befriended my mother to an extent.  It works
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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> "I was my mother's best friend," she says, "and sometimes it was a burden."
Her parents' marriage wasn't great and they didn't have friends, so Seeger was their lifeline.
Wow... this could have been written about me. I think I was a substitute for my Dad because he was on the road so much. My Mom became dependent on me for emotional support because she didn't have any friends either. I remember feelings of frustration, anger and resentment, mixed will filial love. It is a parent's responsibility to help their children achieve independence. After grieving my Mom's death, I too felt as though a burden had been lifted from my shoulders, even though I had lived away from them for many years by this time.
Thank you for the article, Scott.
Youth crisis hot-line 866-488-7386, 24 hr (U.S.A.)
There are people who want to help you cope with being you.
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Dear Paul
I wonder why I was so different. When my father died I didn't grieve for him. My brother (younger by 2.5 years) told me that he really missed my father and was surprised that I didn't. I admired my father and never felt I was his equal but I still don't feel any affection and, I suppose, this is because I didn't feel any affection for me from him.
When my mother died, twelve years later, I was the only surviving child and I don't feel I grieved. I had visited her every day for the nearly four years she had been in a nursing home (where she had to go as she was incapable of looking after herself) and her death was a release for me. Her funeral was perfunctory and her ashes are still in a plastic drum under my desk. I suppose out of piety, I ought to scatter them where my father's ashes are - in Sedlescombe churchyard.
I'm reluctant to make the long drive. I'm reluctant to put her in a churchyard - I don't think she went to church once to my knowledge since she got married (apart from other people's weddings, funerals etc). So I haver undecidedly.
Sometimes I wonder whether I have inherited their unfeelingness; sometimes I'm not sure they were really unfeeling. Maybe my brother had a relationship with them that I couldn't aspire to because I was gay although I never told them and they never challenged me (and I was always a "good little boy" - my brother was naughty and nearly got expelled from school and so on)
Maybe I made some mistakes that I could have been warned about and could have learned to love my parents. Does anyone have any idea how I could have seen the danger and, if I had, how to avoid it?
Love,
Anthony
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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Accept it and move forward. We love in different ways and grieve in different ways.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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While my mother and myself had eventually come to terms with certain issues that plagued us in my youth and over time we had become close..... if that indeed is the right word to use.... We at least became friends, she met Kevin first in 2003 when she and my dad came north to visit. She knew about how I felt for Kevin and she accepted him.
I guess it didnt hurt that Kevin opened the wine safe for her.... Which she managed to drain in short order.... Now, don't get me wrong, I didn't begrudge her the drink.... And the result was that she and Kevin had some quality time together, cooking and talking about me mostly....
The mother-in-law - son-in-law was further cemented when Kevin allowed her to swipe one of my cookie scoops to take home.... but not without proper protestations from a very wounded ME....
Mom died about 18 months ago from a prolonged illness.... I was not prewarned of the immediacy of her health issues.... I got the call at 3:30 in the morning that she had passed peacefully in her sleep....
A month later my father along with an aunt, my mom's sister, Kevin, myself and a close friend of my mom's quietly spread her ashes at her favorite beach on Cape Cod.... We barely said 3 words to each other as her remains were carried out to sea.... I think about her alot.... mostly not in the bad way I used to.... I prefer to remember and reflect on the good times we had later on....
Well, I guess I am missing her a little right now....
At any rate... It is better to remember one good thing about a loved one passed than to dwell on anything bad however awful or however often....
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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