Favoritism Runs Rampant

by Cameron R
(BC CANADA)

I don't remember a lot of my childhood probably because I choose to forget it. My earliest memory is playing a game at an arcade with an older man. It could have been my bio dad or my step dad. The next memory I have is the birth of my baby brother. I remember I had a stuffed animal and I gave it to him. This would be the first gift my little brother received and the changing point of my life forever.

According to my mother, she was in an abusive relationship with my bio dad. She left him, and her family alienated him from my life and still do to this day. (Not the only person this has happened to). I am sure the abuse was going on but I can't remember much until my mom tried to kill herself when I was a small child. I remembering being with my dad, him getting really worried, racing us to the hospital and then taking me outside to tell me that it was my fault she is like this.

The next memory I can recall is me cutting my finger as a child. I remember knowing it was a bad thing to run a razor down the side of my finger. And when it started to bleed I knew that I would get in trouble for saying anything so I stayed in my room and bled all over. My grandmother tells me stories of coming over to visit and then leaving feeling guilty to leave me there because she knew I wasn't safe.

My parents lacked the basic skills to care for themselves let alone me. Somehow my brother turned out fine. I think that it's partly to do with the fact that even though I haven't seen him in 15 years, it's still socially acceptable to make fun of me. Which makes him feel part of it all, and on a subconscious level makes him feel good.

Nobody knows the truth of what my parents did to me. Yelling, swearing, and some spanking was what surfaced. But then the iceberg analogy comes into play.

I remember making macaroni and tomatoes as a preteen. My stepdad came home with my mom and I was shi**ing bricks. As I was not allowed to use the stove and I had to ask for food (forage for in my mind). He flipped his wig and went berserk; he beat me, then went downstairs with my mom and ate the food I'd prepared. "Can't let it go to waste."

I was always hungry as a kid. I understand if a child is hungry an apple is okay but after I ate that apple and was still hungry I was told I had had enough and don't need to be eating all the time. There were days I went to bed without eating and woke up with no food and went to school. There were mornings where in school my mouth still tasted like the bar of soap I ate the night before. To this day I still have problems with eating enough.

In school I had no real friends, people would tell me I look angry. I would get into fights with teachers to the point that they didn't know what to do with me. All the way to the point of a teacher placing me in a closet for an hour telling the class I was basically a waste.

When this happened at school I again was afraid to tell my parents. Not because I was afraid of what would happen to me about this incident, but because I was afraid of the turmoil that would come of it. Which it did. My stepdad stood up for me (i.e. I think he beat up my teacher). Then he probably came home and beat me.

I remember being out with my friends later than I was supposed to. My dad pulled up in his car, came and pushed me to the ground, hog tied me, threw me in the car, and again beat me while my friends watched. I don't know whether that was the catalyst for the botched CFNIS investigation or the time I had BBQ tongs puncture my ankle and probably caused my homophobia (considering the blood filled the kitchen floor.) To this day, I have a numb spot top side of my foot that pains while I sleep and is a constant reminder of what it's like to lose a pint of blood in about 5 seconds.

Needless to say I am writing this letter and the investigation somehow went nowhere.

From what everyone says, I was the happiest child, but when I hit my preteens I seemed to get angry. Maybe I was just getting sick of it all. I remember as a child not wanting to live.

One day, my little brother and I were roughhousing and play fighting and accidentally broke a brush hitting him with it (dollar store kind). It broke, he laughed and looked at me like this is fun, and I remember feeling at the time that I just hammered the nail in my coffin. I hid the brush. Which was eventually found, and when the story came out they asked me if I thought it was funny to hit my brother with things. And asked me if I'd like to be hit with something that wouldn't break. This was my first introduction to belts and wooden spoons.

At age 12, I started smoking, which my parents figured out. I don't remember whether this was the day my mother told me I have no conscience and no soul. Those words have stuck.

I have been thrown down stairs, forced to do military squats and push-ups, woken up at 4 am to shovel snow. Been forced to care for my perfect little brother while they were at work.

I have been grounded for extended periods of time and when grounded I am in my room. I was driven to school in the morning, picked up at night and then I was placed in my room. That was my schedule, and sometimes it lasted for weeks. My room was bare. A bed and a dresser.

As I got older, I started to use drugs. All my friends had jobs but I didn't. I wanted one but was not allowed to get one. I didn't find out why until I was 18. It was because my whole life up until this point I was under the assumption my stepdad was my bio dad. Turns out I am not the only one who lies. Just when I lie I get physically beat, and when they do nothing happens.

Not being able to afford the only thing in the world that makes me feel better forced me to start stealing from my parents. I took a lot of their stuff to the same pawn shop, bought my drugs and got high. Then my parent's realized what was going on. Found the pawn shop, and got all their stuff back. Really, in the end, they probably didn't lose very much. But still to this day 15 years later, I am still paying for it.

My parents kicked me out of the house the day my dad caught me stealing. He has a bum knee and it was the first time I ever stood up to him. He pushed me to the ground and started to come at me. I stood up and I told him if he touches me I will kick his knee so hard he will never walk again. This was the last time he ever touched me.

Being high as a kite and a kleptomaniac, my parents thought it would be good to send me to my grandmother's house, because problems don't follow people when they move. I am sure they told her I was a perfect child and they just need some time, and left out that I was addicted to drugs and stealing to pay for my habit. Needless to say, my strongest relationship to a family member quickly deteriorated. I half think they sent me there so I would burn those bridges, as favoritism runs in the ranks of my family.

I am now not only the black sheep of the family, but I am also the one who destroyed it. All of my siblings have houses that were paid for by their parents, they have cars, were able to go to school, taken to the dentist and the doctor. My parents and grandparents take boyfriends and girlfriends on trips overseas, they offer to pay for everyone. When these trips happen, everyone unfriends me and pretends like they are going about life as normal.

I have a step child now and a bio child who I will try and treat fairly. Recently, I was talking to a family member and said that if they want to spoil my baby they are also going to have to spoil my son. In which they replied he was not my son. Which pretty much summed up my life.

Today I am not being physically abused. I am not abusing anyone.

Tomorrow will be the same.

The next time I meet with my family it will consist of me being humiliated through my lack of success, followed by my parents bringing up everything they ever did bad, but putting a gold seal on it and prettying it up. Never admitting fault in themselves, but always the mistakes I made to lead up to it. And everyone else who knew exactly what was going on, will be agreeing with them and stroking their egos.

I have been living with rotted out teeth for the better part of 20 years, and now I am told they all have to be ripped out. A personal blow to my ego, and an opening for hell among my family and general life. I am 30 years old.