My Monster Has A Name

Trigger Scale: (3.5/5)

I have always had a disproportional fear of spiders, (arachnophobia) one that I could never really explain until I got older, which I will try to illuminate in this post. There are particular spiders that I am afraid of, most of them the hairy large variety, with the worst of them all being the pink-tip tarantula.

I will attempt to put a picture with this post, but just looking at pictures of spiders makes my skin literally start to crawl away from my hands and face, and I want to run from the image. I understand now that I was running from the memory that the image invoked. Here is my second earliest abuse story I have recollection of, although I am not sure when it became part of my conscious memory:

When I was 2-5 I lived (I use the word ‘lived’ loosely) with my biological mother. Oh, how to ever describe this demon of a women? I call her my “biological womb-donor” or “biological egg-donor” and I believe this allows me to disconnect myself from her. Technically she is most definitely a diagnosed sociopath, and I believe she is also schizophrenic (I know her mother was diagnosed with both).

She has done and said the most terrible things to others with not a blink of the eye, with a cutting accurateness that would make you think she was a psychic. She has lied to me about who my father might have been, playing with my emotions while going back and forth. She has stolen things from me, including but not limited to shoes, clothes, pictures, treasured mementos, inheritance, a tv, money, I could go on, but most importantly, she stole my CHILDHOOD and INNOCENCE.

This women has also physically abused many, spending numerous nights in jail, and causing others to as well in defending themselves against her. She is wild and ravage when angered and will come at you like a rabid dog. Or she will lock you up to shut you up, or maybe drug you up. How do you feel about valium for a 4 year old? This was no issue for her, along with many other drugs including cocaine.

I think you get the point…I am trying to say my biological mother was a masterpiece abuser, making abuse into an art form.

On this particular day she was hell bent on keeping me shut up and not in the way of her life. She knew that I was kind of afraid of this pink-tip tarantula that she kept as a pet. She kept it in on of those small aquariums, and I would sit and watch it move around. Before this day, it didn’t creep me out to watch him, I think I just liked the way it moved. Slow at first, then so fast when catching prey, like a lightning bolt…But when she would take it out – that always made me nervous so I would leave the room…she must have taken note of this.

All I remember is her coming at me, fast like a line backer, scooping me up and carrying the aquarium in the other hand. She was screaming that I was “making her crazy” and that she “couldn’t handle me anymore.” Her favorite line is “you’re making me crazy.” She carried me downstairs into the basement and into the laundry area, dropping me on the floor. She opened the aquarium into the dryer, then picked me up and shoved me in. I don’t think I fought because at a certain point in her rage, you don’t want to put up any physical resistance, or she will really lose it.

I remember it being very dark, and very very hard to breath. But that didn’t bother me, it was the spider, that tarantula. I will never be able describe the horror I felt, knowing that it was poisonous and could kill me (or at least, that is what she told me). Upon writing this now, I wonder if she was trying to kill me! Oh my, from doing a little research I have now learned this is the most common of “pet” tarantula’s and is only mildly venomous, and not really to humans. She was just trying to scare me!

But back to the emotions of being that little child thinking it WAS poisonous and deadly, reminds me of the famous art piece “The Scream”. I had a scream of horror in my throat, but was too afraid to disturb my mother or the spider. So I sat perfectly still. I could feel it crawling all over me, slowly, looking for a way out. Now that I think about it, I could probably have pushed the door open, but I never tried…I don’t know why, I was very defiant, except against her…

She used this tactic many times I think, maybe with my brother too, simply because it worked. It accomplished the goal of making her temporarily free from us. I still cannot stand anything crawling on me and WILL freak out, no matter what the circumstance, if something does. No matter where I am at or what I am doing, the physical sensation is just too much. Please, do not lock your children in the dryer with spiders! It is not nice!

Over my life many people have tried to show me that spiders are helpful and not harmful, and I do now respect their place in the natural order, just not in my home! There were many signs as I grew up after this abuse that hinted at it, like the memory of the abuse was trying to surface, or that the memory was at least affecting me, even though I had no conscious recall of the events. Here are some examples:

• When I was about 7 there was an abandoned house next door to my friend’s house and a black widow took up residence in the car-port. It made a huge web that was probably about 4-6 feet wide eventually. I watched it kill many mates over the weeks, and it was getting fat and was so shiny and black. I remember being fascinated with it (I call it my morbid fascination, because it is so compelling that I know these certain fascinations are related/linked to my abuse history). I started poking it with a stick, day after day, until one day it jumped down on me, bitting my arm. This made me very sick and I had to go to the hospital…
• I was probably about 12 and had just gotten home from school. I went into my bedroom, shut the door and sat down on my bed, besides all my stuffed animals. I remember slowly turning my head to the side, and there on one of my blue teddies was a brown wolf spider (another gnarly, hairy spider) that was quite large. I remember my body convulsed off the bed, almost throwing me into the wall, and I screamed without even knowing I was doing it. My step-mother came in a rush, and when she saw it, she just looked at me and shook her head, saying “Oy vey” under her breath, taking the spider outside. She said she thought there was a dead body in my room!
• This one is probably delusional, but I can swear when I meditate the spiders come out of the walls. I distinctly remember that two days in a row while meditating, I attracted a spider to crawl on me, nearly scaring me to death! On numerous other occasions, I can recall getting up from a meditation session to have them hanging out near me, or hovering over me from the ceiling, etc. However, the apartment I lived in at the time did have a bug problem, but it has made it hard to meditate while lying on the ground to this day.
• I cannot kill a spider or get close to one, unless it is very tiny. I always have to ask my roommate to take care of them, because I also cannot stand knowing that one is in my home! (Even though I logically know there are many, and all the time). I do prefer they be put outside, instead of killed now though.

Whew…that has been on my little one inside’s heart for so long. Any spiders around me? Nope, okay…all good here!

1. Why I’m Afraid of Spiders – Arachnophobia Part 2**
2. I Have Been Abused – Please Believe Me!***
3. The Black Doctors Bag*****
4. Session Splash – May 12, 2009*****
5. Lydia – Crazy Abusive Babysitter Part 2*****

Trigger Warning: (5/5!)

This is Part 2 of a story about one of my earliest physical abuse memories, dealing with a babysitter I had when I was 6 or 7 (read Part 1 here). By earliest I don’t mean first physical abuse in my life, but the first memory that I was able to recall. I think this is because to me, it doesn’t seem that bad. This babysitter was in my life soon after I was out of my body cast (due to an accident with a horse). To read a brief history about me, please read my sorted past.

Continued…

On this particular occasion she employed both tortures, dragging me into the Belt Room first. The Belt Room was a small room with a full or queen size bed in the middle, top against one wall. There was maybe 3 feet of floor space around the other three sides. This room might have had a window at one time (I mean, it must have, right?) but it was covered over, so the only way out was the door, which was covered with locks, most on the inside, with the one on the outside, the sturdiest of them all.

She tied me face down onto the bed without my shirt on (yes, it was already pre-fitted with a restraint system, for her pleasure) and looked around at the walls to choose her weapon. All four walls were completely lined with an assortment of different belts, some being more whips than belts, but all technically belts. All flavors too – ones with spikes, ones with needles, with holes, holes with leather strips… The belts were hung on nails, hammered about four inches from each other, floor to ceiling. It never occurred to me how odd this was when I was a child, but the horror of it is slightly creeping in as I write this.

Lydia liked to beat me from all angles, really moving around the little bit of space that was there, wedging herself around the bed, her hair waving behind her. She would hit and hit, screaming and spitting at me that she was beating the evil out of me and that it was for my own good, getting spittle all over me. She would do this until she was completely exhausted, usually hunching against the wall, with her hands on her porky knees, trying desperately to catch her breath, eyes wildly staring at the ceiling. Once she would catch her breath, she would leave to set up the Standards Desk, only letting me free so that I could start the next punishment.

Lydia then made me write Standards at a school desk that she put outside in the yard. I was forced to write different phrases, at least 1,000 times each, taking up pages and pages with my child’s hand writing. If you don’t know what Standards are, they are when you write a sentence about what you did wrong over and over in the hopes that you will never make that mistake again. I do not remember specifically what Lydia had me write over the months, except this once, which was “Dirty little girls will not put stickers on the walls.”

One day while writing Standards I broke composure and started crying (Lydia was not outside at the time) because I was so frustrated (I still cry today when I am frustrated, now that I think about it). This practice of writing Standards of un-true events and statements, such as “I am the devil’s spawn” encouraged a horrible compulsive lying habit that I did not truly break until I was about 20. I wish I still had these Standard pages today to remind me of how insane the situation was. I have to remember that the things I wrote, the things that she said to me, were not true. Because to be honest, sometimes I think I must be evil, to have been treated so evilly so regularly.

I was glad though that it was me and not my brother. I remember once she tried to touch my tiny little brother in a harmful way. It enraged me to the point that I lunged for her throat, trying to strangle her. I mean I went totally insane, and she really had to work to get me off of her throat, her face started to change color. It got me the worst beating ever that day, but she never did touch my brother again. I think I showed her that I could be unpredictable as well.

That day I was obviously frustrated, and tired of being…

“…badly bruised almost every day. On this particular day though, it was really bad, and I think the skin had broken and was bleeding, in the middle of a huge purple-blue welt that covered nearly a quarter of my back. I was mad. I was hurt, and I was tired of being subjected to her…

I came out that day to show my father, once again, when he picked me up, right there in the parking lot. I pulled my shirt up and looked him squarely in they eye from over my bruised shoulder, and said something like “I’m bleeding this time. I don’t want to come back here. I can watch myself,” almost like a challenge, to see how he would react. He looked at my shoulder, then quickly looked away and said “What do you want me to do about it?, I don’t see anything?” He grabbed me by the same shoulder and shoved me into the passenger seat of the car.

I remember walking around to the car door when I saw a dragonfly…a big, beautiful green and purple one that flew away, to wherever it wanted to…I guess I was already good at dissociation by the age of 6.”

(Quoted portion re-posted from “I Have Been Abused – Please Believe Me!”)

A related article I recently found, about Using God to Abuse, makes some very interesting points. It helped to see another perspective.

1. Lydia – Crazy Abusive Babysitter Part 1*****
2. I Have Been Abused – Please Believe Me!***
3. Why I’m Afraid of Spiders – Arachnophobia Part 1***
4. Why I’m Afraid of Spiders – Arachnophobia Part 2**
5. White Kittens – An Animal Abuse Story*****