Growing Up Misty

I am going to level with you. Part of the reason I decided to start blogging was to blow off some steam anonymously. But before I can do that, I suppose I will have to lay some history for you to understand where I’m coming from. So here goes…

I had an okay early childhood. I suppose it was fairly normal. My folks raced dirt track cars we stripped and built ourselves. We cleared land, built things, camped and fished.

Around 1993 (when I was in the third grade), my father completely lost his sight. He had a macular degenerative disease from birth called Lebers Disease. This disease slowly eats away at the optic nerve until there is nothing left. It hits in stages, so you lose chucks of vision out of the blue every so often. I recall him panicking several times saying “it’s hit, it’s hit again. I can’t see.” It always made him really nautious,  because it throws off your equilibrium so badly. It was blurry, then it was faded, till one day it was just blackness.

In 1993, when it hit and left him legally blind, he lost his sight, his job, his license and his independance. He was a sergeant on the county police force, a carpenter, a mechanic…It was pretty hard to witness. Understandably,  he changed after that. He became bitter, angry, and a complete asshole. It wasn’t long before he started directing all of his disdain at me.

He was always angry. It did not take much to set him off, and he looked for things to be pissy about. It seemed like I was always in trouble. But not from being bad, just not following his rules. No nail polish, no makeup, no pony tails, no book bags, no books, ridiculous things like that.

Once, I had forgotten to take down my pony tail when I got off the bus in the 7th grade (it was windy and my hair was down to my butt). I walked up the front stairs and out the screen door he flew. I had forgotten to make my bed correctly that day as well, apparently. He went to snatch my hair back for my imperfect sheet tuck and grabbed my pony tail. After being tossed around and yelled at for a while, he informed me that if I did not want to do as I was told, I would suffer the consequence. The next day he took me to my mother’s salon and had all of my hair chopped off. The woman didn’t want to do it, but he cussed her out and she did as she was told. My brother’s hair was longer than mine after this. (The opening photo is of me at school a few months after my hair cut.)

It was like he was testing the waters with what he could do to me. That’s when he started getting brutal. His favorite thing to do was get right in my face and yell till he was red, then ram my head into something. A tree, a car, a wall, a cement floor. My head even dented the refrigerator door handle once. Smacking across the face, kicking me when i hit the ground, nothing was too far for him to do.

Once, he put me in a choke hold to show my brother how to do it. I woke up on the floor a while later with fuzzy vision. When my eyes finally focused, I was laying on my side, and my brother was rolling on the floor laughing at me with tears in his eyes. Father thought I faked passing out, and cussed me out for struggling. Last thing I remembered before awaking was fight to breathe. I did not fake anything.

I tried to stand up for myself while eating cereal at the table one moring. He rushed over behind me, wrapped his hand around my head so he was holding my jaw, and rammed me face first up against the wall. My jaw was stuck open for a while. I guess it was dislocated.  I still pops to this day when I try to open my mouth too wide or chew too much. Another time, I went to block a hit and he jammed my pinky finger really badly. It was black and blue and green for a long time. It is still double it’s size to this day. I guess it was dislocated too.

And the humiliation tactics… if I did not finish my after school chores, then homework last, by 8pm, I was not allowed to take a shower that day. He would make sure I had no time for a week at a time sometimes. Little did he know I would sneak into the gym showers in the morning before classes started. He would also make me wear the same thing every day for a week at a time. But I had good friends that brought me things to wear.

My first day of high school,  I had a big black eye. My brother and father doubled up and beat the shit out of me the day before with a rake handle. I was always going to school with some scratch, or bruise, or something. No one (adult wise) ever offered to help. Not once.

My father arranged for me to start a job at a local Hardee’s when I was 15. They would not hire me until I was 16, so they agreed that would be my first day. I was an awesome worker. It kept me away from home, and I was so good they gave me all kinds of hours. The downside was, I never got one of my checks while I lived at home. My parents came and picked them up and cashed them. I never even knew what I brought home.

The first few weeks, I had to walk about 4 miles each way to and from work (sometimes at midnight). So, my parents bought me a KE Kawasaki 100 street and trail bike to get to and from work. This gave me more time to do chores at home before and after work, and still make the money for them. They charged me for everything, saying that it ate up my checks and I still owed them.

One evening, I was cooking dinner, and my brother asked me where the spatula was. I told him it was the same place it always was, a bit sarcastically. My father came stomping into the kitchen and told me I was to answer my little brother if he asked me a question, and to not give him an attitude about it. He swung me around by my clothes a few times, slammed me into a few things, and then slammed me right through a kitchen wall. Then I was in trouble for breaking the wall, of course. It was added to my running total as well.

I started having panic attacks on the bus when we hit our road. I was terrified to go home. But not just because of the beatings. I’d rather of been beaten than what he had been doing to me since not long after I turned 13. I had been frequently molested my that piece of fucking shit from 13-17. I got on the bus the morning of my 17th birthday, and I never returned.  My boyfriend’s mother allowed me to move on with them, and she was my miracle for it. I knew I had to wait until 17, or they would have just dragged me back home. I wanted to tell someone so badly…but no adults were interested in helping and he had promised to kill me if I ever did tell. And with the severity of some of my beatings, I believed he probably wasn’t lying.

I was free! Free at last! But I was a bit screwed up in the head. It was a drastic change from being beat down every day to having someone actually care and nurture you. Getting to pick what I wore to school. Actually getting to hang out with friends and DO stuff. It was a different world.

My boyfriend’s mother was amazing. She had kind of a home for wayward kids. I did all of her house work, kept her kids out of her hair if I could, cooked. She wanted a driveway to the main road, but the movers said it was too thick. So I cut her a driveway with an ax, a hand saw, and some cutters by myself with my own two hands. I did whatever I could to show her how grateful I was. I still had my job, and worked hard. It was wonderful.

I did not see my parents again after that (aside from the few times they came to school and cussed me out, and demanding my checks still at work) for several years. I recieved a call a few years later that mother was ill. I was leary, but I actually thought that maybe they had changed. So like an idiot, I started to speak with them again.

My mother found out that she had colo-rectal cancer, and it was bad. She had to have chemo, radiation, and surgeries. Of course my brother was never available to help, but I was. By this time, I had a new job that I was established at and had accumulated a lot of sick and vacation days. Which benifited them greatly. Since father could not drive, they had me take off days to take them to doctors, appointments,  shopping, to get meds, you name it.

It progressed until they were having me come over for hours after work every Tuesday. I did whatever housework they needed, cooked, and was company to them. They had no friends. Most of their families would not speak to them. It was just me and my family, and my brother and his. This became draining after about 9 years. He was falling back into his old ways with me, and I could not stand him. Had it not been for my mother who needed help, I’d have not had a thing to do with them.

Last Easter (2014), I snapped. My 6 year old son and my 7 year old nephew where playing in my father’s house and making a bit of noise.  My father yelled at them to keep it down. A while later, they had gotten a bit loud again. So my father calls my son over, gets right in his face like he used to do with me, and cussed out my 6 year old son right there.  That was it! No more. We started packing up our things, and headed toward the door. My parents followed us out, yelling and cussing how I need to raise my kid with respect or some bullshit. I was seeing red.

We got our things and sobbing son in the car, when my father came at my husband. He got in his face and called him every name in the book. My father wanted my husband to attack him so he could report him and have him thrown in jail for beating up an old blind guy. But my man stood his ground, and took it all without laying into him. We got in our car, and drove away. That was the last time I saw them.

That was one of the best and hardest things I have ever had to do. I miss and think about my mother everyday. But I realized, if she wanted to see me, she would. She just hasn’t. If she would rather continue to spend her days with Bud (weiser), her nights with Jack (Daniels), and being controlled by that piece if shit of a human being, so be it. It’s her life. She has already surpassed the 5 year life expectancy for her cancer. I could not deal with the negativity any more.

So, call me a sorry excuse for a daughter,  or an ungrateful bitch. Whatever makes you feel better.  I know I made the right call for me. I would love to say I am over this. But my crazy ass sister in law keeps texting me the most fucked up shit. She is not the sharpest pencil in the box, by far. But she is a relentless parrott. I will be sharing these texts with you all soon, for sport. But for now, I need to breathe.

These events are not the only ones that occurred,  just the ones that stand out the most to me. Everything kind of poured out of me on to this post, so please excuse the shoddy writing. I can’t believe I am about to post this, my life of dirty laundry…so please be kind if you feel you must comment. This is supposed to be closure for me, not more heartache.

Thank you for reading,

-Misty

When it Rains, It Pours

It’s been a crappy last couple of days…

Took my 7 year old to a new dentist in town a few days ago. He hated his old one. I can’t blame him for it. The guy is like a hundred years old. He has these thick, scary glasses and the personality of a rotten stump. If it were up to him, I’m sure he’d be using the old fashion torcher devices of days gone by.

We were pleasantly surprised with the new place. The receptionists were nice, the office was newly renovated and very modern. And they were great with kids! The dental hygienist explained every tool before she used them, and made it fun for him.

Then the dentist entered. She was very professional. As she began looking over his x-rays, a cold stone started sinking in my gut. She started point things out to the hygienist and started spouting off terms in her toothy jargon. She looked up, and told me to come here.

She gently peeled back my son’s lip and starting pointing things out. She explained that he was 2nd degree tongue tied. I was a little taken aback. I had not realized this was a real thing. I thought it was only a phrase people used when too many words tried to spew out of their mouths at once. But apparently is is a real affliction.
She began telling me how the tongue is what basically forms the jaw. So when your tongue is “tied” to the bottom of your mouth, the jaw can misform. It can cause dark circles under the eyes (which I had assumed was from his refusal to sleep), breathing issues, sleep issues, and most obviously eating issues. Things started to piece together in my mind. Could this be the reason for all of these little issues?

She then asked if he had problems latching as an infant, which he had. She informed me this is why. She said they could have made a few snips while he was still in the hospital and they would have healed by the end of the day.

That’s when I became angry. You mean to tell me that, first off, all of the horrible times I had trying to nurse were due to the oversight of the doctors and nurses at the hospital? And that every doctor and dentist that evaluated him for the last 7.5 years had overlooked this as well? What the hell kind of health system is this?

She explained that the correcting procedure was done by a laser, in office, with a small general anesthetic.  It would only take a few minutes, and would feel like you burnt your tongue on some hot pizza. Meanwhile, my son is lying there with her hands in his mouth cringing in fear. Lasers? Burning? Surgery? Noooo way, Jose! Not him!

She finishes up and moves along to her next patient. Our hygienist leads us to the check out counter and gets our bill together. I asked if she could give me a quote on the procedure. She clicked away and printed the quote. $4000! I looked again. Yep. Still $4000. WHAT?! (say it like your best Lil Jon impression) Ok. Hellooo, shit creek! Why, no, I don’t own a paddle. (Did I mention we don’t have insurance?)

Yeah. You read correctly. No insurance for us. Apparently, when the president said that his insurance was affordable, he didn’t have families like mine in mind. We make just too much for assistance,  but not enough to swing it on our own. Which would be $500+ a month with a $12.5k deductible and a 50% copay after deductible.

Basically, if we did forgo some things (like food, water, or heat), we just might, maybe, be able to afford it. But we wouldn’t be able to afford to go to a doctor, because every dime of the money we would use to go would be tied up in insurance we wouldn’t be able to use. Then, says our government, let’s add insult to injury and fine you people that can’t afford insurance.  Because that makes sense, right? Fine those that don’t have the money to comply. That will solve problems, right?

So, now we need to start a dental credit card to cover his procedure. But, they did say this included a mouthpiece that would be good until he is about 12. She said if we did not do this, he would probably need braces in a few years. So it is happening. Somehow or another.

Then, he brings home a letter from school today saying he needs to go have his eyes checked. So we get to do that now, too. I guss his doctor didn’t catch that either. Gotta love the timing!

From our poorhouse to yours,
-Misty

Welcome to my life

Hey!

You!

Yes, you! Welcome to my life. But don’t get your hopes up. It’s far from extraordinary. It’s pretty ordinary, in fact. But, it’s my life, ordinary or not, and I am allowing you a small door way into it. Just think Being John Malkovich, minus the literal small door, of course.

I, Misty, am a married 30 year old mother of one from a growing city in the south. I was born and raised here, and commonly refer to it as “the black hole,” since any who are lucky enough to leave eventually find themselves back one way or another. I won’t tell you which city, though. If you’re that interested, I’ll give you some hints. If you’re not interested, no worries, but you may want to skip the next three paragraphs…

We are the horse capital of the south (but what southern city doesn’t boast this, really?) We have Steeplechase, Polo tournaments, and are one of the top retirement communities in the nation. We are home to Palace Malace, the largest intercity forest, and some of the most stuck up and self righteous horse folk there are (who ironically are mostly from up north.)

Our county sheriff was mentioned in “High Times” magazine once. But not for what you may think. He happens to have a hilarious name that made his election campaign signs some of the most sought after and stolen around. “Mike Hunt for Sheriff!” Yes, Mike Hunt. Now say it again a little faster. See why he was so popular? No? Try again… Got it? (If so, mind in the gutter much? If not, come on, live a little!) Needless to say, he now uses his full name, Michael Hunt, in all materials.

Our state governor is just like any other crooked politician, with boobs. She is from one of our poorist counties and only seems to be worried about keeping the Boeing factory from unionizing. And jacking up our gas tax $.10 a gallon.

The Augusta National is about 40 minutes west across the river. We have had a few famous people too.  William “The Fridge” Perry hails from here. Both of his houses are here (one he lost to an ex-wife and his current one.) James Brown was arrested here (probably multiple times), but probably because he lived here, or it would have been somewhere else. One tends to get arrested often when they are on large amounts of drugs and doing whatever they please. Oh, and some of  Who’s Your Caddy was filmed here. Actually, we had to keep the restaurant I was working at open way late one night because they wanted to have a private party afterhours. Saw Andy Milonakis, Tony Cox, Jeffrey Jones, Andre 3000, and some other rappers and actors.

But I digress. Back to the introduction. Like I’ve mentioned previously, I’ve been married five years to the awesome Gavin, and mother seven years to Apollo. (If you are wondering, yes, I have changed our names, but they are directly related to our real names in each’s own, personal way.) And no, your math is not off. Well, at least for this equation. Gavin and I have lived together for almost 11 years now. We had our child three years in and married five years in. Don’t judge me.

Gavin and I are both employed full time. Gavin makes handmade tile from scratch (or in his case a box of raw clay.) He does everything from extruding, to cutting, glazing, baking, and packing. He’s lucky to have found such an artistic job, and he loves it (but wishes they would hire some help; he is the only employee!). I run a non-profit 501 (c) 3 call center for community resources. It is flexible, and I work mostly on my own, but I am spread pretty thin. (My position is actually 3 different full time positions consolidated into one to save money, which is definately not reflected on my paycheck.)

We are not religious, even though we live in the freaking bible belt. And no, we are not interested in conversion, thanks. I will no doubt talk about my views on religion throughout this blogging adventure. I am not out to offend anyone, or step on any toes, but I will express my opinion and how it makes me feel at the time. You can take it or leave it, but you are not going to change my mind. And I am not trying to change yours, so put down the hate mail and back away slowly. Remember these are my opinions, which I am free to express, and which you are free not to read if they bother you.

I believe that about covers all the basic introduction topics. This is my first blog ever, and hope it was at the very least humorous or made you smile at some point. I’ve been seeking a way to get my thoughts and feelings out without burning any bridges and bruising any relationships. This just may be the ticket, so long as there is some level of anonymity in place.

Thank you for reading and I hope to write to you again soon!

-Misty