This is me... the good, the bad, and the ugly.

I've come to a conclusion that therapy is going to be a regular part of my life like dental checkups and pedicures.  I've been in therapy on and off since I was about 16 years old, with the array of crap I've had to deal with over the years.  Even my new therapist had goosebumps on her arms as I gave her this 'Coles Notes' version of my short 36 years on this earth.

My parents were married young, although I'm still uncertain as to why they ever married.  They were never really committed to each other like my husband and I are.  For as long as I can remember, they argued, yelled, cheated on eachother, and generally just did not like being around one another.  My father's sneaky way of getting rid of my uneducated, unemployed, mother was to leave her and the three kids at home and use the excuse of a bad economy to go to Toronto to work.  There was none in Saskatchewan. At least that's the story he gave her.

So my father would send money on a regular basis as he 'worked' in Toronto for almost a year so that we had food - if that's what it was called - in our bellies and a roof over our heads.  My mother drank daily.  She would drink most of a 26oz bottle of Kahlua with her coffee in the mornings before we even left for school.  Then she would finish the other half before we got home from school.  Nothing says love like a smashed mom by 3pm on a weekday. 

My mother's father, I guess by name, he would be my grandfather, touched me from the time my cousin and I were about 5 years old until I was 12.  He would put us on his lap and lift our nightgowns and say, "oh, what's under here?" and run his finger over our labia.  I remember my cousin and I running into the bedroom when we heard him walk through the door, and push the dresser against the bedroom door so he couldn't get to us. 

The last time he touched me was Christmas Eve.  My father came home from Toronto for Christmas, only to tell my mother that he only came home to get some personal items, and that he was leaving in the morning to go back to Toronto to live with his 17-year old stripper girlfriend.  She was only 5 years older than I.  They spent the following six months in a cocaine-induced trance in his townhouse, and then he tossed her away like he did my mother.

My mother, upset about the way my father left, called my grandfather to come and console her.  While she was at the convenience store getting him mix for his gin, he came into my room and fingered me, wiping his hand on my blankets as he heard my mother walk into the apartment.  He thought I was asleep.

I confronted my mother about this the next morning, and several times since then, and the only answer I ever get is, "that's just the way grandpa is, he's touched all of us".  Aren't parents supposed to protect their children?

He never had the opportunity to touch me again.  Any time he was visiting, I made sure that I was sleeping over at a friend's house for the night.  At 15, I had enough of the neglect and abuse and left my mother's home, thinking it would be easier on my own.