HUSH, HUSH, KEEP IT DOWN NOW~VOICES CARRY! MONDAYS WITH MEG!

My black sheep story is of another quality - you could say I felt my mother was a black sheep that I wanted absolutely NO one to know about! Paranoid schizophrenia was my mother’s main ingredient. From the time I was born until she died a few years ago, my mother was never a mother to me. I never ever had one MOM experience in my entire life. My mom was the person you saw walking down the street screaming at the top of her lungs to nobody - having conversations 24/7 with people only she could see, shaking her fist in the air, and I constantly hoped she wouldn’t see me. When I was in grade school I lied and told people my mom was in the hospital because she broke her leg or some such thing - I never wanted anyone to know about her. When I was in high-school my mom was horrible beyond words - I’d come home from school and hear her yelling inside the house and pray she wouldn’t engage me or have eye contact with me when I got home or else she’d tear into me instantly - constantly telling me that I was the worst thing that ever happened to her - that the day I was born was the worst day of her life. Once day I came home when she was yelling and cutting up chicken so when I came into our house she still had that knife in her hand and came roaring up to me screaming about the usual insanity occupying her mind while waving the knife in my face. This was my daily life. When you talk about grandparents - my mom told me all of my grandparents died the day I was born and that it was my fault. I could never believe I had actually caused their deaths - but it wasn’t until I was an adult that I actually researched this. I was an only child (thank God no other child experienced my mom) and luckily I had a wonderful dad who had a great sense of humor - I think because of him I turned out ok and am able to have my own sense of humor. All we can do with our black sheep stories and backgrounds is to know that we don’t have to bring that baggage into our present life - or at least let it consume us. I like to think that having these stories in our lives makes us more interesting people than maybe the people with perfect June Cleaver households. Think of it this way...a story such as the ones I read today on this blog and including my own - in TV land - they would make riveting TV shows - right? You’d tune in every week to see what was going to happen next to our characters! So...on one hand maybe some things in our gene pool backgrounds suck the big one - but nobody can say we have boring backgrounds right?

Oh grandparents putting their OUTDATED ideas onto us. My family is Southern...DEEPSOUTHERN. I broke up with my college boyfriend of 7 years because he was sleeping around on me. I was 25 at the time. I immediately got a call from my grandparentsbemoaning "You're 25 years old...WHO is going to WANT you now!!!". Hand to god, I waswashed up at 25 according to them. I travelled, partied and basically LIVED my 20's.Then I didn't marry until almost 30 and have hadconsiderable problems with infertility.According to my family this is God's punishment for my DECADENT ways and putting offsettling down when I was YOUNG enough to still have children. I'm now 34...stillchildless...and I'm quite sure the laughing stock of the family. Who gives a flying fig!I've travelled the world, educated myself, and have been a good person. That's allany black sheep can do!

Meg, First let me say, what a wonderful forum for people to open up and get some support from others in the similar/same situation. I feel for all the ladies who posted-but Jeanasina's story is heart breaking. What a way to live and think that you are the cause of deaths and living in fear everyday. My heart goes out to you. Please don't every blame yourself, you are a force of strength and because of these experiences you will prevail. God Bless you. Meg, your a riot and love to hear your stories. Since I am part of your "family" I have to say that I am rethinking my occupation-SOOO much material, it is going to waste-Last Comic Standing here I come..I love you

Okay, buckle in ladies, it's going to be a bumpy ride with this one. I have been the black sheep of my family since I was a small child, mostly because I have a different mother than my siblings. My dad was married twice. This I knew. I also knew that my mother had a brain aneurysm removed when I was young. What I did not know was that my mother was a drug addict and had stolen pills from my sister. What I did not know was that the weeks my mom spent in the hospital for a "stomach condition" was actually rehab. What I did not know was that my mother's operation damaged the part of her brain that controls judgement. And it's not done yet. I have the disadvantage of older parents- my dad's near seventy. So that time I tried to go goth in high school? That was stamped out by him. Talking back, even when he was being a tyrant? Not allowed. My older boyfriend? Great disapproval from him. Don't get me wrong, I love my dad, in some strange way, but he has a number of problems. I haven't been as close with them lately since this summer, when I discovered that there had been 50,000 dollars worth of loans taken out in my name by them. I am a college student with no job and no income. I cannot pay for 50,000 dollars. My parents claim that "I'm not as in debt as I think I am", and apparently they've taken those expenses to debt consolidation, but with all the lies lately, I'm not buying it. My dad is an old New Englander, living in Boston his whole life, and he believes that "family business" should be family business, and even got angry with me for telling my boyfriend (who, by the way, has been my guiding light through all of this- he buys me groceries, school supplies, anything I can't afford). I don't even know my parents anymore. I guess it was an idealized view. I knew my mom had problems, but I thought they were over. Wrong. Since my dad decided to take off for Boston for six months (as he does every year), I was the one that had to put my mother in rehab for being addicted to prescription pills again. What kills me about all this is while I'm worrying about what I'm going to do once college is done and I owe 50,000 dollars plus government loans for school when I'm going into a field that doesn't pay anything, really; my parents seem to be fine and dandy. Sure, they're a little worried, but I can't go talk to a lawyer because that would mean my parents would go to jail, and I can't bring myself to do that. As a side note? My dad yelled at me when I got angry with /them/ about the loans. "What about all the piano lessons?" He said. "And the voice lessons? What about all we gave you over the years?" I even feel guilty sometimes because I feel like this is my fault somehow. But alas, enough of my woeful tale. I feel for you, Meg. Family secrets are never fun and always destructive, and I know how it is to be from an "old New England" family.

Oh, Meg, when you said your family was from Boston, that explained everything to me. New Englanders are horrible about wanting to keep "family secrets". I live in Rhode Island and really understand. It wasn't until after my Dad died that I found out that my grandmother wasn't married when my Dad was born and no one seemed to know who his father was since my grandmother died in her 30s. I also found out around the same time that my Dad had an affair right around the time I was born. I've always said it, and I still believe it, "Families are strange entities." Much love to you.

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