Autobiography part I

For my human growth class, I had to write an autobiography complete with developmental stages, bla bla bla. I've been working on my memoirs for, well, years. I haven't shared them with many people because I've felt, well, odd about doing so, so here is my practice run....

“I grew up dreaming a-bein’ a cowboy, and lovin the cowboy ways”. These are the words of Waylon Jennings, and they are words that are imprinted on my heart and my soul. I grew up dreaming my dream on a ranch in rural North Dakota. I was the youngest of my mother’s children, and my father’s only child. My father was a cowboy through and through, and I wanted to be just like him. My father wanted a little boy to take over the ranch, and what he got was me, and I did my best to be his “little boy”.
Prenatal
Prenatally, I was to be my father’s first (and only) child, so he eagerly anticipated my birth. His father was also eagerly anticipating his first (and only) grandchild from one of his sons. I was to be the son that would carry on the Robinson name. As it turned out, my grandfather did his best to live long enough to see me born, but he passed away from heart problems a month before my birth.
My mother turned forty a few months before my birth, and she was getting tired of having babies and taking care of alcoholics. My mother didn’t handle stress well, and her coping mechanism to deal with stress was to smoke lots of cigarettes, drink lots of coffee, and not eat, which is exactly what she did through her pregnancy with me. As a result, I was born with a low birth weight (5lbs, 2oz), and have had chronic allergies all of my life.
Infancy (Birth to 2 years)
‘Mutuality with the caregiver’, is the central process in this stage of life. My mother suffered from depression all of her life, and was always withdrawn as a result of her inability to deal with her ‘issues’. My mother was not the doting mother. My father, who had eagerly anticipated a boy, had to deal with the grief of getting a daughter instead. I know that he loved me, but he was still disappointed. The core pathology of this stage is that of withdrawal, which is certainly a pathology that I can relate to. I have known since before I had a verbal conception that I could only count on myself and no one else and that it was my job to entertain myself.
Toddlerhood (2-3)
I don’t a whole lot about my life in this stage. The little bit I remember is from the latter part of this stage. I remember being in the house a lot in the winter with my mom, playing by myself. I also have a distinct memory of one of the few times my mother left the house. We went to a neighbor’s house, and I remember her telling the woman “Lu Annie is such a good girl. She never bothers me and she always plays by herself”. Toward the end of this stage dad started taking me into town with him to “get parts” (read: go to town to pick up booze). Again, I was expected to be a good little quiet girl and entertain myself. I don’t actually remember it, but I have had several of dad’s old bar tenders tell me that he would always order a “shot of rye” for both of us, which I would drink. I guess that’s why I was such a quiet child.
I don’t remember any specific incidents that would relate directly to “autonomy vs. shame”, but what I do know is that I came out on the shame side. Even when I was very young I can remember always having feelings of shame. I was also incredibly shy. Whenever we did leave the ranch and I was around strangers, I was basically terrified of interacting with them; not in the sense of being afraid they would hurt me, but afraid that I would do something to embarrass myself.
Early School Age (4-6) Newman and Newman tell us that, “The lessons from early childhood about what it means to be a good person, to be a “good” boy or girl…to be cherished or despised are established at a deep emotional and cognitive level. These ideas are intertwined with feelings of being safe, loved, and admired or neglected, rejected, or abused. As a result, the basic beliefs about oneself and others that are formed at this time are often difficult to review or revise” (p. 230). If we revisit the line from my mother in the last stage about what it means to be a “good girl”, we can make some conclusions about why it is so difficult for me to have or state my needs.
The part about this stage that struck the deepest chord with me was the section on gender identity. The book speaks of how we learn what it is to be a boy or girl from community and from family. By this stage, my father had neutralized my gender by referring to me as “Pup”. I ceased having a gender in his eyes, as far as I could tell. Personally, I didn’t want to be a woman, because the only women I really interacted with regularly were my mother and sister (there were never women in the bar when dad and I went in the early part of the day), and as a result I didn’t have a very good picture of what it meant to be a woman. My mother was fragile and weak, my sister was, well, nuts. I couldn’t identify with either of them. My father on the other hand, in spite of his drinking problem, was still a hard worker, and by this time gave me the only attention that I got in my immediate family. My distinct thought was that I wanted to be a boy, not, however, that I thought I was a boy, and I certainly had no intention of meeting the social expectations for a girl.
Newman and Newman speak of some of the factors that influence gender preference. First is how “closely one’s own strengths and competencies approximate the gender role standards” (p. 237). Granted I did have a distorted idea of what it meant to be a woman, but even if I had the right information, I still wouldn’t have wanted to fit the female role. I was always more comfortable do the “man’s chores” and playing the “boys’ games”. Another factor is “liking the same sex parent”. At this point I had definitely identified more with my father. An important event that happened in this stage involved my mother. One cold winter day I awoke from a nap to my brothers’ distressed voices. I couldn’t make out what they were saying but it was something about “mom”, “left”, “note”, and “freeze to death”. By the time I got out to the living room, my brothers and dad were in the car speeding up the hill. I didn’t know what was happening, but I could still feel the tension and fear in the house. I waited in front of the window alone for what seemed like hours. Eventually the car came back into the yard, and I could see my mother sitting in the back seat, her face drawn, eyes empty. My stomach clenched, I knew there was something very wrong, but I didn’t know what it was. I was afraid so I went and hid in my bed. I listened quietly to everyone’s voice to try to figure out what was happening, but it was time for everyone to pretend nothing had happened. I learned later that mom had basically left a suicide note, her intention to go out and freeze to death. Another thing I learned about my mother later in life, is that she likes to orchestrate fake suicide attempts to get attention. The point being, I didn’t want anything to do with my mother’s gender role.
The core pathology of this stage is inhibition. On page 269 the authors state that mothers who are “very depressed or psychologically unavailable, may be unable to engage in the kinds of consistent, rhythmic behaviors that produce early experiences of cause and effect…as a result some children have a very passive orientation toward play and social interactions…(caused by) a lack of basic early structures or schemes for the positive process of initiation”. The authors continue, “inhibited children are likely to emerge as shy, withdrawn, and often lonely during the subsequent period of middle childhood…they become increasingly withdrawn, not knowing how to impose their ideas into the ongoing activities of the group, and not experiencing the confidence-building effects of making suggestions and having them accepted”. Interestingly enough, this is a dynamic I continue to repeat in my adult life, particularly in my work life.
Middle Childhood (6-12)
By this stage, my father’s alcoholism had accelerated to the point where he wasn’t at all cognitively or emotionally present. My mother too was a walking emotional zombie. I knew that I was alone in this world, and I was terrified. By the time I started first grade, I woke up everyday with a knot in my stomach. I hated being around other people, and the constant shaming I got from my teachers and my peers reinforced that hate. My teachers told me directly and indirectly almost daily that I wasn’t smart and that I was lazy. In grade school I experienced every form of abuse at the hands of the older boys, as well as constant ridiculing from my peers. The few times I told on the older boys for hitting me, I was informed that, “If you would stop fighting back, they would leave you alone.” I didn’t care much for my teacher’s solution, and things continued on as they had until I was 15, and big enough to adequately defend myself against any of the older boys.
It would be safe to say that in this stage I experienced a fair amount of feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy. I certainly had an eagerness to acquire skills and learn meaningful work, but to me that meant staying home and working the ranch, not going to school to be humiliated and abused every day.
By about age 8 I had also developed a strong sense of Learned Helplessness. The primary lesson was that no matter what I did I couldn’t stop the bad things that were happening to me, and I surrendered. I surrendered my hope that anything would ever change in my life, I surrendered my hope that my life would ever be anything but painful, and I surrendered my will to try to make anything different. It was also at this time where my drinking went from the stage of drinking just because dad offered it, to pursuing alcohol because I knew it was the only thing that would change the way I was feeling. Let’s check off inertia as another core pathology for Lu Ann.
During grade school, my mother started having “nervous breakdowns” that would land her in the psych ward at St. Joseph’s Hospital 80 miles away. My siblings were gone by this point, so it was dad and I alone at the house when she would go away, and it was my job to take over the household duties. And once she got home, my brothers reinforced something I had already internalized: It was my job to take care of mom. Part of taking care of mom was not stressing her out by telling her anything that was going on in my life. When I was 11 or 12 and it had been a while since my mother’s last hospitalization, I got fed up with being my mom’s keeper. Everyday since the first trip home from the hospital, I would ask my mother how her day was when I got home. And my mother would tell. And everyday I would want her to ask me how my day had been. So I decided to do an experiment at the beginning of the week. I would ask her as usual how her day had been, and after she had told me every detail of how bad her day was, I would wait expectantly for her to ask me, figuring she would pick up on the subtle hint. By the end of the week, she hadn’t taken the bait. I couldn’t confront her directly, so I wrote her a note pointing out that she spent all this time growing a jungle in our house of exotic plants, and she always had time to groom her dogs, but she never seemed to have time for me. Her response was to run through the house picking up every planter she could lift, carrying it outside and smashing it in the front yard, all the while screaming about how her plants were the one good thing in her life, and I wouldn’t even let her have that. Once again I was reinforced not to have needs.
Fortunately, for the first nine years of my life, I had my grandmother. She was the one person in my life who was really interested in me, for me. She showed me unconditional love, and she was the only person in my life who gave me physical affection. After she was gone, I eventually developed an aversion to touch, which I relate in part to the lack of receiving any ‘safe’ touch.
Early Adolescence (12-18)
On page 335 the authors state that, “having a depressed mother increases the risk of depression during adolescence. Teens whose mothers are depressed are characterized by more anxious attachments, more suicidal thoughts and more frequent episodes of depression…”. I can certainly say that this statement rings true for me. By junior high I constantly had a stomachache from anxiety. Even in the summers I was anxious because I knew I would have to go back to school in the fall. I had experienced depression while still in grade school, but as I got older, the symptoms and severity progressed. My one saving grace was that I was going to quit school as soon as I was legally old enough and work the ranch full time. It was a good plan until we got foreclosed on when I was 13, and we lost the ranch. I was completely devastated because not only was it my refuge from people, but it was also the only place I ever wanted to be. I had no plan B for my life.
I also had to deal with puberty in this stage of life. I was dreading developing breasts and getting ‘the curse’. I wanted my body to stay as close to a boy’s body as possible. More than ever I was much more inclined toward the male gender role. My mother wasn’t exactly the type to discuss puberty, so everything I learned, I learned from my friend Charlene.
I didn’t date in high school. I was one of the losers; no one was certainly going to ask me out, even though I hadn’t come out as a lesbian yet. I wasn’t particularly attracted to any of the boys, but not dating certainly added to my feelings of being an outcast. The authors tell us on page 354 that some degree of alienation is important for development, however, “in the extreme…the lack of social integration that may result from negative resolution of this crisis can have significant implications for adjustment to school, self-esteem and subsequent psychosocial development”. The authors also tell us that alienation-related problems “occur when adolescents are unable to form interpersonal ties that provide feelings of acceptance and emotional support”. If parents are distant or neglectful, “children find that they cannot count on the family to serve as a source of emotional or instrumental support. They lack a template for experiencing the foundational benefits of belonging that are associated with group identity.”
Emotionally I wasn’t particularly stable as a teen. On page 338 the authors state “youth who are exposed to violence experience higher levels of symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder including difficulties regulating emotional reactions, difficulty concentrating, and difficulties inhibiting aggressive impulses”. Although I never threw the first punch, I was often doing things that I knew would start a fight with the older boys, because I wanted to get my ‘aggressions out’ so to speak. I constantly flew off the handle and had little ‘flip-outs’ because I couldn’t deal with stress…or anything really. My grades suffered because of my inability to concentrate, combined with learning disabilities that weren’t diagnosed until I was in college, as well as my belief that I was truly stupid. To make matters worse, it was more and more difficult for me to get alcohol, so I spend most of my adolescence being a dry drunk.
My one saving grace in adolescence was after we moved into town. I started hanging out with another girl whose father was alcoholic. We were able to bond over our dysfunctions and she brought me along to the Dungeons and Dragons group she belonged to. Our group totally accepted me and I finally got to be a team player, and I got to leave the reality of my life behind for one night a week. In the group I was able to really feel like I was a contributing member, rather than someone who was just in the way. My Dungeons and Dragons group didn’t totally cure my social problems, but it certainly gave me an outlet to do some healing and to feel like a part of something.
The summer I was fifteen my mother decided that, because of my dad’s delusional behavior as a result of his progressed alcoholism, we would move out of state before he actually shot her. We moved to Wyoming for a few months, until she informed me that “because you’re so unhappy here, I’m going to have to quit my good job and we’re going to have to move to Texas” (I learned later that we actually moved because she needed to get away from her other ex-husband). The move to Texas was a difficult one. We were in what was for me a very large city. I was surrounded by strangers and paralyzed by anxiety. During our time there my mother was constantly telling me how we didn’t have enough money, so to help out I wouldn’t eat lunch. At the time I didn’t eat breakfast either because my stomach was so upset from anxiety that I couldn’t eat, besides I was convinced I was a “fat cow”, so I needed to eat less. Even though we didn’t have enough money, mom kept sending expensive leather vests, jackets, and Harley T-shirts to her boyfriend back in ND, but still I didn’t eat lunch because I knew I was low man on the totem pole when it came to money.
After a few months in Texas I became very suicidal. I couldn’t deal with the constant stress and anxiety, and besides, no one gave a damn about me as far as I could tell. I had a plan to hang myself in the shed where we were living, the only problem being I didn’t have a sturdy rope. On the weekends I would walk through the neighborhoods hoping to find a rope. After a few months, I finally decided that it didn’t matter how I killed myself, I just needed to do it. I was finally at peace because all the pain was going to end. That night when I was sleeping I had a dream that for me was a spiritual experience. I don’t know if I actually was visited by a Divine Being or if my psyche was just trying to save my ass, but this dream brought me an intense peace I had never known and it also brought me a knowledge that killing myself would leave me feeling more alone than my life did. Although the anxiety and the stress were still there, I had a little bit of hope that things would work out.
When we had moved to Texas, we had moved in the middle of a term, and as a result I had really poor grades when I started school again, so I was put in remedial classes. This didn’t help my thought that I was stupid. During the spring one of my teachers took me aside and told me how smart I was. Being a teacher I really respected, I thought that she might actually know something. Not long after, another teacher also told me that I was smart, and I opened up to the possibility, that I might just be smart.
My senior year my mother and I moved back to ND. For some odd reason, even though I had pretty muchly hated all of my classmates before, I decided that if I wasn’t going to get to graduate with my old classmates I wasn’t going to graduate. So, my mother let me move in with my father, and I attended my old high school. I don’t why, but that last year I was able to have some relationships with my peers. I didn’t turn into little miss popular, but some of the popular kids were actually hanging out with me, so I managed to get a little piece of group identity before I graduated. Having gotten a little encouragement from my teachers in Texas, I came into my last year with an attitude that I could actually learn something from school. I generally hadn’t gotten really poor grades, but my senior year I got almost all A’s. I wasn’t fully ready to believe that I was smart, but maybe that I wasn’t as dumb as I had thought.
During my senior year, I mainly lived alone as my dad worked “in town” during the week. We were leasing the ranch, so I got to go back to the place that was “home” for me. My father didn’t want to loose me, so he actually stayed sober when he was around me. When I first moved back with him we did all kinds of things that I had always wanted to do with my father. He taught me to hunt, to repair the saddles, to break a horse-all the things a good rancher needs to know. It was the first time I got to really know my father. And her regularly told me that he had wanted a boy, but he was so glad he got a girl because boys were nothing but trouble.
About mid-way through the winter, dad found one of my bottles of whiskey and that gave him permission to be drunk around me, and our relationship changed. He still wasn’t as bad as he had been, but he wasn’t as present as when he was sober either. On the good side, I thought, he started buying my alcohol for me. During the school week my day consisted of getting up at 5:30 to get on the bus at 6, riding the bus for an hour and a half, being in school all day, riding the bus for another hour and a half, getting off the bus at 4:30, doing the chores, having supper, having a couple shots of Jack Daniels, doing my homework, and falling into bed at 8:30. It was a hard life in some ways, but I loved it. I still struggled with bouts of suicidal ideation, but I knew there were some people who cared about me, and I ended my adolescence feeling a little more stable than when I had started.