The Darker Side of Life

 

WARNING: To Those Who Are Reading My Blog And Know My Parents, You May Not Want To Keep Reading This Blog. (Also, I won't be proofreading this one, because it was hard to write the first time.)

Originally when I was thinking of my blog today, I was going to share about the great regrets I've had in life (I'll touch upon those in the near future), but then as I was thinking about them, I was led away from that topic and was pointed in a different direction, because many of the choices that I made in life were probably the direct result of how I was raised and a belief system that was supposed to be Godly, but was in fact, in contrast to Godliness. I've heard the phrase that God can take the bad and turn it into good. In fact, that is the purpose of my blog. I want to share what God pulled me out of and how He has changed my life for the better.

People have met me and before they know the reasons why I have had the life I've experienced, they don't know my background. -- they judge me harshly for the choices that I've made. I will admit, a lot of my choices weren't ones I wanted to choose, but through the process of life, it's what happened.  What they see is the surface stuff of my bad choices and what they perceive as the reasons for my choices. I've been called many unpleasant descriptions for who I was at different periods of my life.

I'm going to share a little background about me. You know if you read my previous blogs when I was just four years old, my innocence was robbed from me by a distant relative. I was diagnosed as having autistic behaviors by a doctor when I was about 8 years old. So imagine how chaotic my thinking processes were at such a young age of four to 8 years old. Life on a daily basis was a struggle for me, because nothing really made sense to me. I was deemed as an odd child. So I'm going to share a glimpse of my past when I was probably a little over four years old. I don't know what my Mom was going through or what demons she was fighting, but I remember she was crying. She had bought herself alcohol and was drinking it. Then  as she held me in her lap and also in front of my older brother, she started swallowing a punch of pills and following her taking of the pills with alcohol. Pretty soon, both my brother and I noticed her going out of her mind. She ended up on the bathroom floor vomiting until she passed out. It was at that point that my brother knew to run downstairs and get my cousin, because my Mom had done something really bad to herself and she had done it in front of her own children. So, imagine that memory implanted in a child's mind. I don't know what happened after that incident, but I do know once she got better, however long that may have taken, we were placed back with her again -- like nothing had happened.

I also have another memory of her around the same age. She had a best friend along with other friends and they used to like to get together for pizza and margaritas. But that isn't all they liked to do. Someone had bought an Ouija Board and they were always playing with that thing. I remember one night my Mom got in a horrible panic and she broke up the Ouija Board and with us kids in the car, she threw it in the trash on our way home. This part I didn't witness, but it was shared to me sometime after that incident -- the next morning she woke up and said Ouija Board was fully intact leaning against her apartment door. My Mom admitted to us kids that she and her friends had been summoning spirits and when she would get home she would smell rotting flesh. She was in the medical field, so she said with her experience, she knew what that would smell like. -- I can thank her for myself never, ever messing with the occult nor ever having an interest in the darker side of life. To me, the fact that she involved herself in such evil was a bit alarming to hear.

So let's go a few years later when we moved to an apartment in Lomita. My Mom has a past that is her story to tell, but after her Mother passed away in 1967, there was something that snapped in her head and while newly married to my stepfather she experienced a nervous breakdown. Understand as her children, we were never privy to what was going on or what happened until she came home and was all drugged up with what I will assume were antidepressants. After that I don't know how long she needed pills to stabilize her but life moved forward.

My Mom had a very loving side to her and I can reflect on those good memories in order to overshadow the not so good memories. In fact, I owe my love for Jesus to my Mom. She is the one who initially planted the seed and eventually at 12 years old I would make the decision to get baptized and profess Jesus as my Lord and Savior. She gave the perception of being a very Godly woman, both she and my Dad. But as you have read, there was some dark stuff going on behind the scenes.

I recall a time when we lived a block off of Pacific Coast Highway in what I call my childhood home and my Mom just looked at me one day and in a very sinister voice told me that she often thought of chopping me up into little pieces and putting me in a trash bag and throwing me in the trash. I asked her why she would think and say such a horrible thing, she said she would never do it, but sometimes she thought about it because she just gets so tired. (I should have known by this time that this was not normal behavior.) But after all, I had to honor my mother and father right? Or so it was engrained in my head.

I can tell you that my Mom when she got mad was a whole different person. I remember as a little girl, I had long hair. One day, I told my Mom that I couldn't get a comb through my hair because I had so many knots. So instead of getting me a cream rinse, she proceeded to pull the comb from the top of my head to the ends and tore out the knots out of my head. I asked her to stop that it hurt and she replied, "Well, maybe after this you will learn to comb your hair and not let it get like this again!!" She tore out wads of hair and I'm sure parts of my scalp, because I remember the scabbing afterward.

I shared in a previous blog that in sixth grade that I had contracted lice and instead of treating the bugs, she ended up without warning chopping through my long hair with scissors without explaining what she was doing and then shaving my head bald. This was around the Christmas holidays and was actually during the time the molestations began.

Being disciplined by her was always brutal. There came a time in both my brother's and my life when both she and my stepdad would inflict very abusive discipline on us. Then as you know, there came the sexual elements from 11-13 years old -- as I slept. After the molestations were disclosed and counseling sessions invoked, the physical and sexual abuse ceased to occur. However, the emotional abuse continued for many years after.

My Mom always read me a Bible Story Series put out by the Seventh Day Adventists. Sure there were the beautiful stories, but my Mom always seemed to read the ones that were unpleasant -- the ones about hell and the end of the world when fire would fall down on the wicked. I remember asking her if I was going to hell -- she told me that if I committed sin -- I could count on it. Also the topic of dying came up one night -- we were probably reading about Lazarus of Jesus's own resurrection. She then told me that every time I went to sleep at night that I was actually practicing dying. (I never put two and two together that may be the reason why I sometimes have suffered from insomnia.) Either that or being woken up by someone touching my body inappropriately.

Another thing, whenever I would get new or new used clothes to wear, I'd be so excited and looking forwarding to planning what days and what I would be wearing, my Mom would tell me, well let's hope you live to see tomorrow and can wear your outfits.

I also shared in a previous blog my Mom's questioning why I had never told her about the sexual abuse, I told her my reasons of taking it because I knew of her mental instability and I didn't want her to have to go through another divorce. Instead of recognizing my reasoning, she responded, "You didn't tell me, because you liked it!!" -- I told her know I did not like it and that it was terrifying. This was going to be one of my greatest regrets -- I wished now that I would have been strong enough to tell her the first time it happened.

I also shared in a previous blog post that somehow because of this horrific time in my life, I became the family scapegoat. I can assure you that living in that household for me was pure hell. I can't sugar coat it. Yes, there were good memories that I tried to override the bad stuff with, but the fact remained. My childhood was not a happy and loving one.

My Mom was a controlling meddler as well. My boyfriends were pretty much innocent until I married my first husband.  But my Mom always had this idea that a boyfriend was either too rich, not treating me right or that we were getting too close, so she would often break us up. I would be forbidden to see them again. I've written about several incidents in previous blogs about these situations.

I had a boyfriend who came from a wealthy Italian family and she was convinced that they were involved somehow with the Mafia. We had been dating most of the year and it was close to Prom and I was forbidden to see him. My second husband, she was convinced had another family in Mexico that he would go visit when he drove down to San Diego without me.

As soon as I could after I graduated, about a year later, I married (mistake) and moved out of my parents home. In my adulthood as I started having my own children, my parents became better grandparents and had also had another child 20 years younger than me. They had conformed to a more Christian lifestyle. The demons were still there. My Mom has been taking opioids since she was 40 years old and still does to this day -- and that is all I have to say about that.

I will share that even after all this, when my younger sibling was running out of steam taking care of my parents, and in 2021, I stepped up to the plate and invited them to live in my house. I've written about this also in a previous blog post. My Mom accused me of elder abuse, she insulted my children, my son in love and was also very meddling with and in my already failing marriage. My parents living arrangements with me were very short lived. She got mad one day because a physician she was seeing with me wanted to wean her off opioids, so she lost her temper to the point of coming at me with an art pencil. Prior to this she also told me that she knew why my husband of 24 years left me, it was because I was mean. I responded to her, "Oh, you don't think it has anything to do with the extramarital affair he had been having since 2008?" As she raised that pencil toward me, I told her to put it down and call whoever she needed to call and I would drive her back down to Southern California the day before Thanksgiving (which was taking place at my home).

Finally at the age of 61, I had come to my senses as to the toxicity of my parent's behaviors toward me and I said that day -- "Today, it stops!!" This is where I have no regrets.

This past Sunday as I attended a sermon here in Mill Valley, the preacher shared that people who have mental issues or are bi-polar sometimes may be in fact possessed by a demon. I will share this, I heard that message and wondered when my Mom was playing with the Ouija Board and being involved in the occult, if she didn't have one jump in her, because I have no other explanation. I have gone through a process where I have forgiven both my Mom and my stepfather for their past transgressions, but it was more for me -- and unfortunately you can forgive, but it doesn't mean you will forget and certainly I will never put myself in a place to receive ill treatment by them again. I tried addressing these issues with them both and they have very selective memories and have excuses -- so forgiveness happened for myself.

I'm sharing these background stories so you can understand the restoration process of what Jesus has accomplished in my life. Even through all this chaos, I prayed and I continued to believe since I was 4 and certainly after being baptized at 12 that I have a Father in Heaven who loves me and that He sent His son to die on the cross, so that I would not perish, but have everlasting life. I stand on that promise. And yes, I have struggled and have taken ownership of my life choices and I know that I am indeed imperfect, but wonderfully made with a purpose. My life is full and I have been abundantly blessed by God through Jesus Christ.

Psalm 23:4 "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me."

Matthew 10:14 -- "If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet." -- (Thank you, Sheila for teaching me this!!)