My mom still calls me "Pooh" as in Pooh Bear -- even at church -- she does it on accident I don't even mind anymore. Soooo, I guess that's my inner child
Me: 38 H: 35 S4, S5, S10 Bomb 01/07 Wanted D - nothing would change his mind Numerous A's prior to D bomb; EA prior/during D bomb Piecing 04/07 Deployed for a year 05/07 Still Piecing 2010 M 11 yrs 05/10
MJ, check this out: http://www.cafepress.com/wyominglibrary/3537232 (scroll down to the bumper stickers). I thought a bookie like yourself might appreciate. I dug the "cold dead fingers" and also, I have to admit, the mudflap girl.
Last edited by Kettricken; 12/04/0706:09 PM.
"Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock." -- Frank Herbert
This is my actual child, approx age 2. I'm with our Japanese maid. In 1950, in Japan, even the lowliest enlisted families had Japanese maids. I think I owe this woman whatever scraps of sanity I have managed (with therapy) to knit into a semblance of a functional personality. My father told me that she was absolutely devoted to me, that in her eyes I could do no wrong. She stuck to me like glue, fussed over me, and indulged me with endless patience. My father said that Japanese was almost my first language.
At that time, my father was drinking heavily, and my mother was very unhappy. Being in a foreign country was very hard for my mother who had no self-confidence and was painfully shy. She came from an immigrant family of 10 children and grew up in a close-knit ethnic neighborhood in the east. My mother did not like having a maid, and she didn't want another person in the house, especially a cute, perky young woman. Those were dark days.
Thank goodness this Japanese woman took me under her wing and "mothered" me in those early days. I don't know how long she was in my life, maybe a year or so? I'm sure when it came time for us to leave to return to the U.S., no one thought to forewarn me and encourage us to say good-bye to each other. Probably just one day she didn't come and I never knew why.
Then on the way back to the States, I contracted measles on the ship and was quarantined in the hospital as soon as we got back. My parents did not visit me for a week. They said they weren't allowed to see me. Hard to fathom that... there are such things as gowns and masks, aren't there? My father said that when they came to pick me up, I was a very angry three-year old. Always after that I was afraid of being sent away somewhere... so I became a model child and model student. I was too afraid to commit even the tiniest infraction. As an only child, as far as I knew, this was how families were run. Parents were not to be trusted... in fact, they were the source of greatest danger.
Later when I went to grade school and started visiting the homes of my friends, I figured out very early that something was deeply wrong in my home. Some homes had a healthy vibe; ours did not. I had a few other little friends whose homes were like mine. When I was with them, I knew something wasn't right. In other homes, I saw parents who hugged their kids, talked to them, took an interest in what they were up to, encouraged them to get involved in school stuff like sports, clubs, music, etc. There was none of that in my house.
When I got to high school and college (by this time my father was out of the service and we had settled where I still live), other families started "adopting" me. My friends' parents always really like me, and that meant so much to me. The mother of a old boyfriend (from 30 years ago) is still very much my adopted mother.
But I digress... (what else is new?)
I'm so glad I have this picture. In this picture, the hospital episode hadn't happened yet. There was discord in the family, but that great betrayal (from my p.o.v.) hadn't yet robbed me of innocence. I've tried to be hypnotized to take me back to my normal mental/emotional state before the hospital incident, just to get a sense of what it felt like to be me before that happened. My therapist and I had partial success with this effort one time. For a few seconds I was there, in that little girl, looking at the world through her eyes, but the rush of emotion-- the vividness and depth of the sensations I felt-- were so intense and overwhelming that I pulled back from the scene. Haven't been able to replicate that experience.
The thing that struck me about your cute picture was the way you are looking at your doll. I've spent a lot of time interacting with small children and I wouldn't have to know you to know that child grew up to be a very intelligent and insightful adult.
I'm so sorry to hear that you grew up in a "scary" house. My father was always "the more the merrier" type and my bi-polar mother erred on the side of creative neglect when I was young so kids frequently hung out at our house doing something fun until my mother returned to planet earth and decided to yell at everybody for doing the thing she didn't seem to notice for the previous two weeks. Our household became more chaotic and scary as her disease worsened during my adolescence and her rage incidents increased. However, we all laugh, Mom included, when we recall the time she yelled "I'm not running a teenage flophouse for your friends and their hoodlum boyfriends."
Anyways, I feel so sorry for your poor little bunny sent away alone. It seems like you never really bonded with either of your parents. Did they buy you things? Is that why your primary love language is gifts? Was the dolly in the picture a gift?
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
It seems like you never really bonded with either of your parents.
This is very true, and it is characteristic of the Type 4 not to have bonded with either parent.
I have a couple of pictures of me in Japan sitting with my dolls in a group portrait. I was never much into baby dolls, but there was a clown, a giraffe, a Little Lulu (from the comic book)... about a dozen all together. . I understand (and this may or may not be true), that when I came down with measles on the ship, the authorities took all my dolls away and burned them. (Gee, Officer Krupke... golly moses, that's why I'm a mess!)
My parents generally did not buy me things, but then I was a little kid in an era where brand name items, clothing, toys weren't a big deal. There were always parents who went overboard with presents, but I'm not sure the general over-the-top consumerism was as bad as it is now. There certainly wasn't the huge range of electronic gadgets that we have now.
I didn't have a bike until I bought myself one when I was a senior in college. I didn't have music or dance lessons. No pets (except parakeets). My parents didn't have people over for dinner or parties. I never had a birthday party. There was just this sense that those things were things Other People did, but they were not for us. Those things didn't even seem possible for me.
We DID go to the library just about every week no matter where we lived. I remember when I was really little and could read any "kid's book" through in one sitting, that to me the epitome of grown-up-ness was to read a book that you could not finish in one sitting, such that you had to use that symbol of adult sophistication: the book mark.
My parents were never very involved or interested in my life. I truly believe that books were my parents. I went to books for the things that children go to their parents for: information, solace, comfort, encouragement, truth, laughs, how to do things, etiquette & manners, stories. Books raised me.
The more I think of it, I think that gift-giving isn't my primary love language-- although it is up there, and gift giving has a lot of significance to me, because the gift giver thought about me when he wasn't with me, and thought through what I might like, and then went out of his way to get the thing. I think I need to take the test again and see which is number one.
I don't even mind anymore. Soooo, I guess that's my inner child 
(Gee, Officer Krupke... golly moses, that's why I'm a mess!)