They Mess You Up, Part 1

For a long time now, I have been meaning to share my life story. Cause boy oh boy, have I been cursed with a life that has been, to say the least, interesting!

It all started pretty average. A boy meets a young girl at a party, they fall in love and just under a year later, boom! A little, screaming huge-eyed baby enters the family. Everyone feels blessed, the mother's parents just can't get enough of that childish laughter, the parents are imagining what bright future lays ahead of their little miracle. And a miracle she was, in her own little sense. You know all these stories your sex-ed teachers used to scare you into safe sex, the ones about that one little percentage of biological fuck ups, where you can get pregnant from just messing around? Yes, that's me. The ultimate accident.

My mother was only eighteen years old and, believe it or not, she still had just a vague idea about where children came from. Having been raised in communist Poland, by parents whose only concern were their many marital problems (a story for another time which I do promise to tell), she spent her teenage years climbing trees and building miniature furniture out of wood - a passion that later in life drove her to become an interior designer. My father, on the other hand, a true nihilistic escape artist with an overgrown Peter Pan’s syndrome, walked through life only caring about how to get high and where to look for new forms of excitement. How did they end up together, an innocent kid and a self-destructive junkie? That question I ask myself to this day. They were both still kids, and when two kids have another kid, that there is a recipe for a disaster. None of my grandparents ever approved, but none of them could come in between them, especially with a child on the way. But when I was born, things seemed to have fallen into place, and even the dog, god bless her wild, wolfdog soul, stood guard by my side and made it its priority to give me all the love and care that I need. Or so it seemed.

It didn't take long for things to go to metaphorical shit. For now, let's focus on my mother. For the purpose of this story let's call her Cate.

Cate had many, many unresolved issues, but say what you want about her, she cared. She cared even a tad too much. I could never blame her for the things she’s done in the name of motherly love, even if only for the reason that in her own twisted way, she thought that she's doing what's best. Maybe my life would have been different if I wasn't born with an utterly rebellious soul and obeyed her without question. Or maybe then things would have turned out even worse, I guess we’ll never know.

Cate has always been a hypochondriac. Believe me when I say this, you have not met a bigger one in your entire life. If I haven't experienced it myself, I’d say it's impossible to project your fears and paranoia onto people around you, but I strongly believe that's exactly what's happened. The very first big boom came when I was exposed to tuberculosis. I was only four years old and even though every parent would have every right to freak out, Cate took it to the extreme. She packed our bags, hopped on the train and there we were, on our journey across the country, last stop: children's hospital up in the polish mountains. A change of climate, I’m guessing, was supposed to be a bonus. As we arrived at the hospital and my parents waved me goodbye, my nightmare began. For every four-year-old being temporarily abandoned by his/her parents, the experience could be potentially traumatic, but what came in the next few days turned into a lifelong trauma of first childhood memories and a really messed up love for everything aesthetically disturbing. Being dragged around an old, eerie building, getting locked up in an old, yellow bathroom and forced to throw up by the nurses who’d shove a fork down my throat amongst many other doubtfully legal ways of handling underage patients—that shit can mess with your head big time. I could probably say all's well that ends well, if it wasn't for the fact that this was just a beginning of a childhood filled with doctor's visits, medical tests and ever-growing paranoia, that led to a creating a person so mentally exhausted they'd rather die a slow, painful death than pay any attention to their somewhat poor health. In fact, in my early teenage years, my defence mechanisms became so sophisticated that a severe depersonalization disorder got mistaken for epilepsy. Needless to say, that ensured even more tests and medication. Looking back at it, I understand that all of this, the monthly blood tests authorised by my mother and no doctors, where sometimes I would get eight full syringes of blood stolen from me; the fact that she was deaf to my screams and hysteria whenever I saw the hospital building, the fact that I still react this way and she continues to ignore it, that's her way of making up for the fact she doesn't know how to show love. Up until this day, she freaks out when I hug her, she becomes embarrassed whenever I use loving words, but keeps looking for ever better ways to ensure I’m healthy and sound. But sadly, she fails at that miserably, for no one who's sick as she is could ever help their own child. And just like that, after years of searching for new illnesses I might have, she constantly finds them. Unfortunately, she seems to ignore the most serious, chronic issue that I’ve been developing over the years and which got to a stage I had to be hospitalised - my mental health.

By no means do I BLAME any member of my family for what happened to me recently or for any other sign that things are getting to a stage where it's gonna be difficult to help me, but the way my life developed and how my family handled it...I guess you could say it pretty much explains it. I do not seek an audience, but I feel like sharing it all could be somewhat therapeutic. And maybe, if for any reason someone can relate to the story I’m about to tell after this big introduction, they won't have to feel like they're alone. What's more, if any parents-to-be come across my stories, let it be a guide on what mistakes not to commit when raising a child to be a happy, functional and strong individual.

Stay tuned.

They Mess You Up, Part 1