Putting on a Show

Our parents were always on stage putting on a show to attract clients in their advertising business. The reality was we were isolated and didn't really have family love and harmony. We were fed by a maid for all of our meals and not tucked in at night. 

We saw our step-father for a moment and then maybe a glimpse on a weekend until they purchased a country house when I was 15, and were gone every weekend to entertain clients. I was left home to water the plants. In Summer I was locked in the country house alone while carpenters rebuilt the kitchen. I was the mistreated dog.

They lived an air-brushed, retouched picture while the truth was, it was miserable and they hated each other.

My father couldn't save me from the horrible physical abuse by my crazy mother because according to her claims, I was her property. I was a leftover from her first divorce. She never healed. To her death. She stayed at age 16.

My mother's decision to take me to endless doctors to find violent cures for her imagined and projected diagnoses was the daily drama inflicted on me while my father was at work. I was her property and her obsession.

I was taken out of school every Wednesday afternoon starting at age 7.

Until one day November Thanksgiving weekend 1978 I walked away from the family. And never went back. Not even for her funeral. 

The price of losing my family was well worth it.

I have a life

and now my body and mind are in tact.

She only took a few organs but had plans to take more.