My whole life has been plagued by abuse, bullying, drama and a feeling of not being good enough to fit into the perfect ideal that those around me; my elders mostly had about who they believed I should be. As unpleasant as it has been, it has been my source of strength and determination. 

If I was upset about something, I was being melodramatic. If something offended me, I was being silly. If I felt worthless, and like life wasn't worth living, I was just seeking attention. When I was uncomfortable doing something, saying something or going somewhere, I was being ridiculous... it seemed like nothing I ever did or said was good enough.

Constantly put down and abused psychologically by my paternal nana over the course of my childhood, life took on a feeling that abuse was normal and was what should be expected. Her 2nd husband, a disgusting creep of a man exposed himself several times to my brother and I, straight before urinating right in front of us, and on one occasion asking me if I wanted to "play", and my instinct told me to run!

Each time I told my father and his response was, "Well you shouldn't have been looking!"

On one occasion my brother and I were staying with my nana and I'd had a bath. Nana instructed me to go into the loungeroom to get dry and dressed, saying that it was warmer near the fireplace than in the bedroom. I was not comfortable and would have prefered to get dry and dressed in the bedroom away from the eyes of her creep husband who was perched on a chair in the corner of the loungeroom with a blanket over him (he was battling cancer if I recall correctly). He watched my every move in such a predatorial way that my skin crawled and I had the urge to run and hide, and I was relieved once I finally had all my clothes on and was not naked anymore.

On another occasion during a stay there, Sisco, the fox terrier who belonged to my nana came into the loungeroom where my brother and I were playing on the floor with toy cars and other toys. The dog tried to hump my leg and the creep husband of my nana thought it hilarious, and started making reference to the dog wanting to "F*" me, as well as other lewd and revolting commentary, that as a six year old child I had no comprehension of. But looking back, it was just inappropriate and overtly sexualised things to say to a child!

I was relieved when I was told that the creep had died. But the abuse from my nana continued. 

She lived on a property. There was always horses, and other animals around. The dead creep and nana had bred and owned race horses, so I took delight in going down to the fence and talking to the horses. it was good solace from the horror I would otherwise feel being there.

There was always fresh country air outside and beautiful trees and other greenery to look at. But at a deep level I was affraid of her; afraid of what I would be accused of or blamed for next, afraid of the next put down or back handed sling she would thrust my way. She always commented on my weight - which, I might add was not really something I had any control over since the medications I had been prescribed for my asthma had affected me adversely. My growth was stunted and I gained weight easily, despite taking in less calories than I should have been able to for my age.

But, every time I would see that woman she would tell me I had gained weight - or she would tell me I'd lost some, only to remind me that certain foods would make me get fatter right after offering them to my brother! 

I recall when I was seven years old and my eighth birthday was coming up and nana was trying to work out what to give me as a gift. She asked me what I wanted. I told her I wanted a new sleeping bag. She remarked, "Oh, I was thinking more along the lines of getting you a teddy suit." Now, an innocent child hearing that would automatically think of a teddybear. I did. I wasn't sure why she wanted me to dress up like a teddy bear so I asked her.

"Not that sort of teddy suit," she said, "the sort that is sexy and made from lace!" I had zero clue what she was talking about. She told me when she did the washing she would show me my aunty's teddy suit. When she showed me, I'd never seen anything like that before, but my instinct told me it wasn't something I would like, more to the point it wouldn't be something my mother or my maternal grandma would want me wearing either! Nana reacted like she was offended when I declined her offer, asking me "Don't you want the boys to find you sexy?" - a 7-year-old, almost 8-year-old child? Seriously? Not the sort of thing that should EVER be spoken about with a young child.

Nana was absolutely tactless! She was inconsiderate of my feelings. She made me feel like I didn't belong there, or anywhere. She always compared me to my brother, and told me how much worse than him she thought I was. She was often making sexual references that are truly inappropriate around children. One time a reference to my aunty and her boyfriend about how they were "going at it" and "nearly went through the wall last night", another time discussing the sexual partner my older female cousin had been with. Just highly inappropriate. All colours of WRONG!

I remember the day one of my male cousins visited while my father, brother and I were there. Nana gave the boys some bread rolls to feed to her chooks. I hadn't been near the chook pen at all. In fact I had spent the majority of my time there that day indoors. But in the afternoon Nana came storming up to me shouting at me and I had no idea what I had done wrong since I was always on my best behaviour around her out of fear of recieving more abuse!

She grabbed me by the forearm, pinching the skin in the process, which later resulted in a small bruise, and dragged me to the sliding glass door. One of the chooks was loose. I can still hear her shouting at me about it if I close my eyes and let the images of that day flood back in... "You've let the ruddy chooks out! You weren't meant to go near the chook pen. You left the door open!"

What was she talking about? Chooks? Chook pen door open? I'd not been anywhere near it. Trying to explain that to her was met with, "Don't back chat! You shouldn't have opened the chook pen door!"

I remember feeling humiliated because my cousin and my brother were standing not far away hearing the whole tirade and my cousin, who was obviously responsible for the chook pen being left open, was smirking at me like it was a hilarious joke that I was the brunt of! I was too prideful to let anybody see me cry. I wouldn't give them the satisfaction. I was told to sit and be quiet and told that I wasn't allowed back outside. Thank goodness we didn't stay for a meal that day. Once dad had finished the yard work he was helping nana with, we went home in dad's bright yellow Ford F100. Not another word was spoken about the incident and that night I cried myself to sleep, feeling totally hopeless and alone - because talking about things never seemed to make them stop; it never helped. 

I recall a day when my brother and I were staying with nana over a few days during the school holidays and nana had some brocolli that needed to be used up before it went bad. She had made roast lamb. She cooked up all the brocolli, as well as some cauliflower and other veggies. The amount she piled onto my plate was massive. I didn't have a hope in hell of eating it all, much less fitting desert in afterwards. I ate as much as I could. There was still brocolli on my plate. I told nana I had eaten enough and that I was full. She flew into a verbal tirade at me claiming that I wasn't allowed to waste the brocolli otherwise I wasn't allowed to have desert! I tried to let her know that I did not want any desert and that I was full and couldn't fit anymore food in. She stood right beside me, leaning on the table shouting at me and demanding that I eat the brocolli. I'd already eaten a portion of it. I legitimately couldn't fit anymore in. I tried to eat it anyway, afraid that she would escalate her anger toward me if I didn't. I ate about half of what was left on the plate and literally had food regurgitating into the back of my throat because my stomach was too full to fit more in and I had been forced to do it anyway. I felt like I was going to literally burst!

She kept yelling at me, and I got angry, and stood up and stormed out of the room, trying not to cry, but failing and ending up hiding under the covers on the bed with tears streaming down my face. She shouted something else at me about not getting any desert as I went into the bedroom trying not to vomit. But I didn't care. I had already tried to tell her I wasn't after desert - I literally was just full and couldn't fit anymore food into my belly.

After a good cry and a bit of a rest I felt less discomfort. But I was too afraid to leave the room or go anywhere near nana for the rest of the night. The next day when I got up and used the toilet, she was standing in the hallway waiting for me to come out. She made some remark about naughty girls who don't eat all their dinner, don't get desert. I didn't respond. I was too afraid to incase she started yelling at me again. As a result of the brocolli incident as I have come to refer to it as, I could not eat brocolli for many years - not until I was 19 years old and pregnant with my first child. Each time I so much as smelled it cooking I would gag and feel nauseas!

On several occasions during visits to nana, she would force me to rub moisturiser cream into her smelly, dry, cracked, revolting feet! It made me feel very uncomfortable but I feared retribution should I refuse to do it, or protest against having to do it. She would always threaten that if I didn't rub the cream into her feet, she would not be able to stand up and cook a meal and therefore my brother and I would not be fed. I couldn't be responsible for  him not getting a meal. Looking back it was a very cruel thing to say to me! Eventually after I complained to mum, dad had a word to nana and asked her to stop asking me to rub cream into her feet and she never asked again - but the damage was already done. I had a phobia of feet because of that. I would internally freak out every time anybody's bare feet were touching me, but because I was ashamed of the fear I would try to bottle that up and I would stew on those feelings, sometimes for days at a time.

I recall many other incidents involving that woman abusing me over the years. I honestly don't recall a single time in her presence when something awful did not happen. Usually it was just tactless, psychologically damaging remarks, but a lot of the time it was frightening shouting and blaming me for things I had not done.

Out of her earshot, I was always telling people I hated her - hate is a very strong word, but in the case of nana, I truly meant what I said. I HATED her. I HATED the way she treated me. I HATED how powerless and belittled I felt around her. I HATED everything about her aside from the fresh country air, the horses and the other fauna and flora. I tried to play nice. I tried very hard to be the good granddaughter and get along with her for the sake of my father and his family. But every time I had to interact with her another small piece of my soul detached itself and drifted off into the ether!

On my mother's side of the family, as a young child I always felt like I belonged, but at the same time I felt like I was being judged for my every action and spoken word. I always felt like I was surrounded by good, kind people, and I put the insecurities down to just me over reacting (because I had been told so many times that is what I was doing). But as I got older, it became apparent that I'd been wearing rose coloured glasses there as well! I was not over reacting. I had instinct; intuitive feelings for a reason. I was trained not to trust them...

None of us are born perfect. Humanity is born to be imperfect. We all have flaws. It is meant to be that way so that we can learn as we grow. But as I reached my teens I realised that I was often the subject of gossip and back stabbing. The perpetrators will never admit it. But I have not been the only person to notice this. The older I got, the more apparent it became that certain members of this side of the family were bullies too! Everything from drawing assumptions on little to no information, to making false accusations, to dishing out put downs behind my back, and occasionally to my face. One in particular is renowed for medling in everyone else's business, gossiping about each person with the next person. This person, whom I once considered to be a nice person, has proven over the years that they are not nice at all! 

Another person; a cousin, whom I was once close to got to the stage that their stuck up, self-important friends were more important to them than I was. The person is younger than me, but they all are - I am the oldest of the grandkids on that side of the family. At the time period I am referring to, I'd say hello to them and I'd be met with nastiness, "Can't you hang around with people your own age?" It wasn't like I was trying to be joined to their hip pocket, I was just trying to be polite to them. Turns out certain elder influences in their life had guided them to push me away. One such person was heard saying, "Just because she is your cousin, doesn't mean you have to hang around with her!". These are the words I am told this person said to my cousin. I was very hurt. I'd already faced a lot of abuse and bullying by other people prior to that harsh remark. I did not need it from those I had always considered close allys as well!

There always seemed to be rivalry amoung the ranks of the family. Everyone talking about everyone else out of ear shot - but it always had, and still has a habit of getting back to the person the gossip is about.

Sometimes things would get back to grandma from other sources (usually from bingo), but I would still be blamed for telling her things about my cousins. I do not recall a single time I shared information about my cousins to my grandmother, or anybody else, unless someone else mentioned it to me first, indicating that they already knew about it. I wasn't someone who liked to break other people's confidence or trust since I had been well aware for many years what it was like to not be able to trust others.

There was issues I faced during primary school, and issues I faced during high school as well - but those are stories for another installment of my memories.

Even trying to tell the story of the dreadfully violent bullying I was subjected to during my first couple of years of highschool on Facebook once led to certain members of the family riduculing me - one in particular, whose spelling and grammar was seriously attrocious, even telling me to ask myself why I was bullied in the first place - as if to imply that I was a bad person who had asked for the abuse - like that person had no flaws at all - when infact they did! Another member of the family jumped on board the slinging match and I felt backed into a corner and trodden on. I felt trapped by their harsh, horrible words. I felt like the intention; the reason behind why I shared my story in the first place was over shadowed then, by the harsh, cruelty they had begun to inflict onto me. I saw red! I snapped! I wrote something harsh right back to them, something that I can never take back. I told them to "drop dead and rot in hell". Of course, it was said in the heat of the moment out of frustration at the fact that they had totally bulldozed my good intentions to belittle me and make other people reading the comments think I was a drama prone, attention seeking fool!

My intentions at the time had been to start up an anti-bullying campaign; to get kids interested in music and art and, with the help and guidance of a few knowledgeable people in the community, to get the kids writing music, writing scripts for a play, putting together a show that would be all inclusive and not only would it teach them a message of why not to bully whilst they were creating it, it would also give the strong message that bullying is not ok to the audience - which I had hoped would be the broader local community. I had just wanted to draw on my own experiences in order to help vulnerable kids who may be experiencing similar, and to raise awareness to attempt to limit the bullying that I knew was going on in the local schools. But, no, these two family members, accompanied by their partners latched onto my story and somehow got the idea into their shallow mindsets at the time, that I was trying to drum up attention for myself. This hurt. It was painful. It was emotionally draining. It was psychologically damaging. Most of all, it simply wasn't true! I do not enjoy being the centre of attention. Years of having my self esteem stripped away destroyed any confidence I may have had as a small child and the only reason I embarked on this goal was to help others. When I stated this, I was not believed. 

What was even more damaging was the six page document yet another member of the family compiled as a letter addressed to me, that they first showed to everyone else in the family before it was sent in the mail to me. They were ALL talking about it behind my back. They all believed every word that was in that letter. But the author of that letter knew as well as I did that the majority of that letter was LIES! 

I won't detail what was written in the letter. I will just say that it was merely the fictitious fantasies the author concocted, based around the thinnest thread of truth, that they spitefully used as a tool to hurt me. Apparently I had not been hurt enough in my life!

I never replied straight away to that letter. I wrote back several years later as a part of my psychological therapy, to get closure by telling the author that they knew as well as I did that the letter was not entirely truthful, but also to let them know that I forgave them for it. Unlike them, I did not pass a copy around to the rest of the family to let everyone else know what a liar they were. I made peace with them; with the incident; with the family war that had broken out over my initial good intentions. I bare no negative thoughts or feelings now about things within the family that transpired in the past. I don't live in the past, I live in the present. But, none the less it is all still a part of my story. 

I will write more in the next installment. I need to get ALL this written downso that I can properly heal.