Today I was cleaning in my daughters bedroom. We were cleaning out all the things that collects under a bunk bed. The mattress was off the bottom bunk, and only
slats remained between me and the under bed junk. I climbed right into the bunk, sat on
slats, and started pulling out junk from in between them. As I did this I kept thinking about my pink bunk bed...
You see, one of the problems of living a life of abuse, is that you get so
use to anxiety and stress that you get to where you don't notice it. Often times it is not until I have endured allot of anxiety or upset that I
realise I am upset.
So I keep thinking about the pink bunk bed. I
realise that this bed was a lie, as was my entire life growing up. My dad never did honey-do's, well actually he only did them after being nagged continuously, and when he did them my mom felt completely indebted to him. In
addition there was never a time in my life when my parents enjoyed "spoiling me" giving me gifts, and
us kids had grown
use to going without.
So for some unknown reason to
me I am the lucky one to get my own room.
Well it was not really my own room, I got to share with the new baby, which was even better. We had an old ugly metal bunk bed. This thing was so well built nothing could have ever broken it, it was solid as could be, much more solid
then the make metal beds today. The bunk bed was ugly. It seems it had some old bright colored paint, like maybe red or blue, that was chipping off and gray metal could be seen beneath it. It was ugly, but we did not notice, or care, it just was.
One day out of the blue my dad decides to paint the bunk bed pink. His reason for it seemed to be some accusation towards my mom about not keeping things looking nice. I was a young girl, maybe 6ish, how do you think I reacted? I got a pink bunk bed, and I did not even have to beg for it... Cool! But I thought it was curious that it was being painted when I had never even thought to ask for it.
Dad made a big deal about painting the bunk pink, and I felt very special indeed.
Now I look back and I think that he painted the bunk pink for his own sick fantasies of what a pink little
girls bed
symbolised to him. Because it was very unusual for him to put that much effort into something, and it clearly was not for me.
After a while of thinking I
realised that remembering the pink bunk bed was about to throw me into anxiety shut down, and was having significant physical side effects on me. I decided I had better stop sitting
inside a bunk bed, because it was too much of a trigger for me.
Do you know what it is like to have everything in your childhood turn out to be a sick lie?
And then there was a
doll house...
I wanted nothing more for Christmas
then a doll house. All I talked about for months and months was how much I wanted one. My dad decided he would help me make one out of an old
book shelf. He started the
doll house, but after only a minimal amount of work it sat unfinished
on our garage. I kept asking him about my doll house and he kept getting frustrated at me. But he had PROMISED he would have it done in time for Christmas and as Christmas approached it remained just as
baron and unfinished. Dad then promised me that he would help me work on it on Christmas day. I imagined and dreamed of my doll house we would finish on Christmas day. Then on Christmas day he got sick. He was not able to help me with my
doll house. I cried and cried.
Later for my birthday or something my mom had ordered away
for a large cardboard doll house. It was not the same, because I did not
gt to help make it with my dad. But she meant well. The doll house became my imaginary safe world away from my house. When I was in my
room I felt anxiety because that is where the abuse happened. But when I went inside my doll house, and closed the house around me, I was somewhere safe, I was in a new world. I closed myself in there, and I slept, because that was a safe place...
