As a teen, I was no angel (I disrespected my parents, I talked back to them, I cut classes, I skipped out on doing homework and got into trouble for that), but compared to those who used drugs, committed crimes, I WAS an angel. No brushes with the law, no experimentation. I used humour as a crutch and became the class clown. Nothing ever made any sense at all and my viewpoint around school was, "why should I bother trying anyways? Nothing I do ever measures up to my uncle...the golden child"...if I can't reach his aptitude, then to hell with it. Yeah, you could say that my self-esteem took a major pounding.
With the amount of kvetching my mother did, I had to get away from her for a while or I'd end up going insane. Finally, I just decided that practicing my piano for seven hours a day would keep her from talking to me. So as soon as I got my homework done, I headed to the piano and practiced. It worked; it kept her away because at least I was practicing.
My best friend from elementary school decided that he was going to hang out with the cool kids...and well, I was not one of them, so he turned on me (maybe it wasn't as bad as it sounds, but the way it felt back then...people do like being with the popular crowd and well, he was popular when compared to me - I wasn't sports-minded and if you weren't athletic...well...you weren't a part of the in-crowd).
So I decided to hang out with some new friends who weren't in the in-clique and we got picked on. But well...that's the way life is. The in-crowd generally tend to be a bunch of self-serving hind-end inversions that most of those who are looking in on the in-crowd want to be like them hoping and praying, in vain, that they'll be noticed, brought into the in-crowd so that they could, in turn, dump all over those who weren't so fortunate. Life's like that, everyone plays nice until they get what they want. Sure, the choices I made on school were my choices and I live by them, but having to get verbally slammed continuously every day by my mother from the time I was a kid to the time I made the choice that "enough was enough"? That was a choice?
When you get woken up at two in the morning to be screamed at because you said something that, after the fact, your mother took exception to, or mainly because she didn't like your attitude; and to be shown the door and told to leave when you're thirteen years old, that's not something that you expect. Your entire foundation gets rocked to the core because your sense of security, your sense of well-being gets shattered. Goodness knows, I've asked myself these questions over and over again. "What was it that I said? What did I do?" A child's sense of security is knowing that their parents will stick by them. Those who don't have that live in a world that scares them and no one who hasn't gone through that can understand that kind of fear. In that kind of world, you don't dare to step wrong. You fear making mistakes and you don't ever dare to make one...because you don't attempt to try anything.
It just so happened that someone special came into my life...roughly about the time that I aged up to young adult. And well, things worked out between the two of us, so I proposed and well, that sent my mom through the roof. She basically threatened us and told us if we didn't annul the engagement, she'd throw the both of us on the street.
...so there comes a time in one's life when you don't want to deal with that stuff any more. So we packed our bags and headed out of the house. Hey...life on the streets was better than life at home. It may be rough but at least, I'm not getting psychologically battered. Hell, the cops don't believe you - you don't have a mark on your skin at all...so therefore, you can't have been battered and I wasn't going to subject my fiancee to that. Hell, we could find our way...without my parents. Do...or die trying.
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