Substitute Girl Mantra #4

It's amazing how saying this to someone can make the world seem less of an awful place, I said this a lot to myself growing up.

I'd kill the Rhinestone Cowboy in a heart beat.

So now my Dad is gone and my Mother is set for her vendetta against everything sane and I set that I will be OK and so will my little sister. So now my Mother has regained the confidence of her youth and is entering the dating scene. Now since sarcasm doesn't work well in the written form; my Mother never left the dating scene whilst she was with Dad  if you catch my drift.

So before I go further I thought it might interest you to know that I had to take a moment to write down all their names, the men I mean. 

Now the first man I remember was the Cowboy (I don't really remember his name) he worked on the cattle stations so he made infrequent visits to see my Mother and wasn't notable of character. When I think of him I remember that he told me one day when I was sitting on my trampoline that you could sleep on it and its better than a real bed if you have company. I remember that my Mother agreed, now at the time I new they were being crass but I didn't know the particulars. So from then on her became the Cowboy who slept on trampolines with girls.

It concerns me at such a young age I was already understanding sexual connotation and applying it in my own fashion, but I guess the snowball has to start somewhere.

During my Mothers period of dating the Cowboy my Mother went through a phase of playing country music in the car but she only had one tape so she played it over and over. She took us on a lot of long drives, mostly to rural places to go to outback pubs or barbecues, not necessarily with people we new just friends of the Cowboys. One particular afternoon she took us on a long drive to some cattle station, this trip developed my hate for the songs "Rhinestone Cowboy" and "You gotta know when to hold 'em" they  were both on that tape even to this day those songs irritate me, the tape went out the window that trip, whoops!

So we arrive at this cattle station and we were told to go play in the yard and were given apples to feed a young horse. I remember we weren't really allowed inside the house but there was a nice lady inside. This was where the Cowboy lived/worked. But this wasn't where my sister Kory and I would be staying the night. My Mother stayed with the Cowboy in the house and Kory and I were taken to a kind of dormitory, you know the ones for jackaroos and shearers. Now let me give you a mental picture of what that looks like; its basically a tin shed with wire frame beds and those old mattresses you see in prison films with the blue stripes on them. I sincerely wish I was kidding when I said that this is where she left us to sleep while she screwed the Cowboy back at the house but alas. We didn't have sheets on the beds so I found it hard to sleep and I was worried the multitudes of spiders were going to get on me as soon as I did. I was awake and wondering around at dawn and a man working in the shed next door told me I would make a good worker being up so early, but truth be told I didn't want to hang out with the spiders.

When I think about  it I really was in a state of wonderment for most of this relationship. This man wasn't like my Dad, he wasn't interesting to talk to, he didn't want us around and never really acknowledged us. But I guess that didn't really matter all that much, he didn't last long.

Then came Trimsy, this man was a complete idiot. I am not saying this will any real malice but this man was a few sandwiches short of a picnic. I think he was very much into drugs, no one could be that unhinged normally. He had wild unbrushed long hair and I don't think he worked. I have no idea what my Mother saw in him, I knew my Mother was clever and Trimsy wasn't. He was really the first person I realized I could manipulate.

Even as a child I knew I was different and saw things differently than people around me. I didn't think of this as being smarter than other people I just thought that I saw things different so I could reach different conclusions. All though school I would go to the teachers in grades above me and ask for homework from the higher grades, I'd take it home and return it before class the next day. When I reached high school I would borrow the text books for higher grades and read them at home, doing the exercises inside them to amuse myself. I was a straight A student for most of my schooling, perhaps if my parents had've been in a better position that would've lead to something.

So back to Trimsy, I think the incident where I learned I could manipulate him was when my Mother was no where to be found and we needed milk. Now it wasn't uncommon  for my sister and I to go to the corner shop alone and get lollies and groceries to get us out of the house. So my Mother being absent I asked Trimsy for money to go to the shop, he couldn't tell the difference between the coins he was giving us. I clearly remember that he gave us coins based on their size (for those of you not from Australia our smaller coins for the majority have the higher value) he divided them out as "here some big ones for you because you're a big girl and here are some small one's for you because you're only little". I then spent the walk to the shops convincing Kory that more coins means more money so I could swap my 20 cent pieces for her hand full of $2 coins.

I didn't really have any respect for Trimsy  after that and realistically I lost the automatic respect for adults that all children have at that age. I started becoming aware of adult behaviors and assessing how they acted towards each other and what that meant in social situations. Even now as an adult I analyse people  on their actions rather than their face value personality. I started to view my Mother and her men with a critical eye rather than the blind acceptance  of a child.

Substitute Girl Card #6 The Anthropologist

This change as a child saved me from being a hate-filled adult that so many abuse victims are. Still to this day  I judge someone on how they act, not their reputation or impression. And I act accordingly.

Waiting in line for Heaven

Before I go onto age 9 and my Mother's parade of men let me retouch on my Mother and my Dad. My Mother was in a full swing of removing us from my Dad. He would call and she would hang up on us telling us it was the wrong number. I remember thinking that may be some restaurant had the same number as us because we got a lot of people calling us for no reason. Her other favorite was to get into arguments with my Dad when she came to collect us from his place. Screaming that we weren't going to visit him again, and if she got into an argument with him when she was dropping us off then we didn't get to stay at all.

My Dad had started seeing Anne at this stage. She was younger and much better looking so naturally my Mother hated her. I was in awe of her. She had long red hair and was like this big sister I never had. She liked flowers and painted my nails and she had body glitter, she was just all these nice things that  I had never encountered before. I think she was the first person who inspired me to let the little things be the food for my spark. See after everything I could find the hope to make a fire but I could make a spark for my little light and so long as I kept that I wouldn't die inside. She seemed to glow all the time and I wanted to be like her, to learn how to glow, to inspire other people the way she inspired me. I don't always think of her but she's one of the people who kept me alive.

But back to Dad, two things happened that year, my Mothers all out war against my Dad which culminated in her having me confront my Dad over missing my birthday party and my Dad leaving to live in another state as my Mother was relentlessly trying to have him arrested for anything. The birthday party incident was a doosy; My Mother sprang a birthday party on me, I knew my birthday was coming up but I didn't expect her to throw me a party, at times I was convinced my Mother was unaware of my existence. Now why the sudden party?  Well to make sure my Dad couldn't come of course! I remember my Mother sitting me down and telling me Dad was coming over after school the following week and schooling me in what I would say to him, how I would demand to know why he didn't come to my birthday party, to ask him why he didn't care about me. My Mother stood there staring at my Dad with a smile as I repeated what she had told me to say and not once did he say a word against my Mother. He took it, I think he knew what had happened. We all knew, even I wasn't actually upset or crying because the whole charade seem ludicrous to me. I knew Dad loved me and my Mother kept him away so what was the point.

My Mother won though, he really went away. Before my ninth birthday I stood in my Grandparents driveway and watched my Dad leave with Anne in their red mazda to live in Sydney, two states away. And then I was resigned to my Mother's antics winning. This was the world I lived in now and that was that. I didn't become empty so much as guarded. Even from that age I was going to be OK, somehow I knew the world was so much larger than just this and I was going to get out. I didn't know when or how but I would be OK if I kept going. One wonders if this was the time I had spent hiding in churches and talking to priests, no matter what happens if you are good you will go to heaven, so I just had to have patience and everything would work out. I didn't know anything about heaven except that you aren't sad anymore.

Thinking about that I guess my legendary patience to a combination of my Mother and the Catholic Church.

Substitute Girl Card #5 the Saint

My Dad did come and visit that Christmas though, he came and stayed in our house while my Mother stayed with friends. He spent the first few days cleaning the house as my Mother (shock -horror!!) wasn't big on the home upkeep. I remember my Dad saying that was ironic as she was allergic to penicillin and he was reasonably sure that's what was growing in the bottom of the fridge. My Dad tried, when he visited us that Christmas I knew he tried. After that trip my Mother really did start to get worse though. But hey, she got better on the neglect side of things, she knew I existed again because I had a target on my back as far as she was concerned. 

After my Dad left I think my Mother knew that I didn't trust here, I was over swallowing her poison about my Dad and I believed that my Dad loved me no matter what. I think my Mother knew that I had started to pity her, that nothing she did was going to detract from the face that my Dad was a good man in a bad situation. I realized that early, my first glimpse that my parents were human and couldn't save me from the monsters. I knew that once I thought they could, that my Dad was a strong as a knight and he could kill a dragon if one existed, I thought that no matter what my Dad would be able to lift me up and cuddle me. But that's the thing isn't it, things change I wish I had have learnt that lesson because I got to big for my Dad to lift up but it was that he wasn't going to be there he was his own person. And as for my Mother I thought may be the monsters already got her, they they were inside her and a part of her. I never really hated my Mother, she was just consumed by monsters, sometimes I got to see little bits of my Mum but mostly just monsters.

Something else happened after that though, I decided that my sister Kory wasn't going to be like me and I would look after her. I would protect her from the monsters. I knew already that I was damaged, that I wasn't like the other children, that I didn't see the world as a nice place and I wanted my sister to be OK, I didn't want the monsters to get her. I would be brave and hold her hand so we could make it to heaven together.

Substitue Girl Mantra #3

This really was a double edge sword, it helped me move forward when I felt like I couldn't anymore but I think it also helped me detach from my current reality.

Let's march out the boys!

Before I start my next entry I wanted to say thank you t everyone who has been so supportive and encouraging. I still find it amazing to think that my silly ramblings can make it across the world! Hello to everyone in the US and Canada as the seem to be my biggest readers.

Carrying on.

The next year I clearly remember I was when I was in grade three, I worked out that this makes me 8 years old. I often find I remember times not by my age but by what grade of school I was in. School was very much an escape for me. Out of the chaos of my home life and into the routine of catholic school. After my Mother left Dad we moved into a housing commission home for single mothers.  It was a nice enough house when we moved in it was a three bedroom house with the main bedroom off the combined lounge and dining room. The kitchen was a little alcove room and down the hall was the bathroom, laundry and other two bedrooms. The room at the end of the hallway was my room and the one to the right was my sisters but this seemed to be be quite sporadic.

At first it wasn't just my sister, Mother and I though, Dad came to stay. My sisters bed was out in my room and my Dad put a double bed in my sisters room and he stayed for a while. My Dad wanted to make it work, he loved my Mother and he loved his children, so he tried to fit into her crazy sideshow. I knew that he wasn't going to stay though, that is wasn't going to work. So my Dad left and my Mother's slide into delusion and unpredictable angry picked up momentum.

I remember Dad moved in with an older woman first, all I remember is that she was nice and made me pumpkin soup. Once Dad left My Mother started her law degree again, the one she had left when I was born. This made her more distant as she was working hard and focused on proving she didn't need my Dad. I remember she had her desk set up in her room and she would shut herself in there, often until late.

As with I imagine, many people when they start at university she started getting involved in social groups. My Mothers group of choice was a women's rights group focusing on domestic violence. This fed my Mother's delusions, she had a flare for drama and adding props and people to her performances is something my Mother has had a talent for from a young age. My Mother has been through many a group, church and social stereotypes all to reflect her perceived victimization.

This is when my Mother meet Allison.

Substitute Girl Card #4 The observer.

Now I think Allison was a nice person, looking back on it I think she was really trying to relive her youth a little and her and my Mother shared the same views on parenting. Allison had three daughters (now I will make a note here, she may have had four daughters I can't quite remember) Tessa was the one aged closest to me and I remember I was a little in awe of Renee, one of the older girls. It seemed that every other weekend we had a sleep over at her place, there were no rules and my Mother and Allison would drink wine and listen to music while us girls would entertain ourselves long into the night.

I think Allison's philosophy was very 60s focused, on the free love and spirit side of things. She had left her husband and identified as a lesbian. Now, I had grown up with homosexual Uncles so this didn't really seem so much of an identifier for me in a person's personality and I still feel that way today. But I didn't understand Allison's relationship with my Mother an the influence she had on her. Allison was an active advocate for women's rights and got my Mother involved and as a result my Sister and I often tagged along. And this is when I developed my distaste for the way men are made out to be monsters, just because they're born the wrong gender.

Now on a side note before you all jump down my throat about the men comment, I have been abused I am not inexperienced and as far as I am concerned; I was abused by people. I don't hold a gender responsible for actions of a person. I believe in equality, not in gender or sexuality or any of that bullshit on the basis that a human being has a brain and choice and they chose to be an arsehole to me. I'm not ignorant.

Now I am getting towards grade 4 and I am 9 years old, my Mother has gained all her confidence regarding men back and is jumping head first into the dating scene. What could possibly go wrong right?

Substitue Girl Mantra #2

I think this was my way of reminding myself not to give up, the whole "world doesn't stop for you" thing. As I got older this evolved into me looking forward to tomorrow if today was too hard.

Substitute Girl Mantra #1

This is about setting an example, treating others the way you want to be treated and not letting someone take advantage of you. Do the right thing, but don't let it hold you back.

--And I'm on twitter now, internets eat your heart out @SubstituteGirlK

Hobbits have nothing on my Rollerblades.

Yesterday we were at age 6, my Father had an mining job and was absent and my Mother was left unattended. No while my Father was away my Mother reverted back to her indifference but she also started sending me away. Not far away but I wasn't allowed in the house, or I was told to go to friends houses. Often she would have me take naps which went on until I was older. At the time I thought nothing of it but now looking back I realised that my Mother was laying the ground work of having her own life.

I remember nights not being able to find my Mother in the house when I woke up during the night. Now I don't know where she went but now that I'm older I don't put it past her. This is probably the last period in time I stood up to my Mother, the specific incident I remember was when I wouldn't eat a piece of cucumber (to this day it still makes me gag). She gave me the same piece of cucumber 3 days in a row for dinner. Realistically this is probably a bit extreme but I provided an outlet for her.

Soon my Father was home and things changed. My Father arrived home from working solidly to no savings, a wife with a drug habit and nothing to show for his pay check that he sent home every week besides a computer and a up to date mortgage. He suspected my Mother was cheating, she had changed and started to alienate her friends. There were a number of small fights, sniping at each other until my Mother got stubborn and pushed for a big one.

Now I have no idea what this fight was about, I assume all of the afore mentioned. I remember it was dark and I was in my pyjamas with my care bear standing between my Fathers old chipboard, wood patterned lino speakers watching my Mother scream in my Fathers face while she blocked him from the front door. I remember watching in awe at these two people who seemed so much larger in that moment. I remember my Father trying to move me and my Mother insisting I stay and watch. My sister Kory awoke crying at some point and my Father stalked down the hall to get her my Mother like a cat, was in front of the door telling him that he couldn't go in there near "her" child. All the while Kory keeps screaming. My Father's frustration and sheer need to get to Kory became to much and he punched the door next to my Mother's head.

That was what she wanted, to be validated in her screaming. I am not condoning violence but there is such a thing a soliciting and my Mother is an expect at that. My Father left immediately in horror at his own actions, hell he only ever smacked me once and even though I clearly deserved it (I was being a cheeky little shit) he was so traumatised he never did it again. I don't remember the series of events that lead to us moving out but it didn't happen immediately. I remember that my Father turned the door upside down and around so the dent was behind the door so's not to bother everyone. I remember this because the door didn't close.

It was about that time that my sister started to sleep in my room. My parents couldn't manage to get her to sleep in her own bed no matter what they tried. First they moved both single beds into one room and she'd still migrate during the night. Then they tried a camper cot between the two bed so she was next to me with the idea that they could separate the camper cot and bed until she was in her own bed. That didn't really work either. When we moved away from my Father by the time I was 9 my Mother had given up and got me a queen bed so we could sleep together.

For me there's a bit of a gap between ages 6 and 8 I can only remember that somewhere in the we moved away from my Father. I remember this because my friend and I were staying at her place and I recognised the main road we turned off when my Mother dropped me off that if you went right instead of left it went to our old house when I knew my Father was still living. We go on our roller blades and some how made it across that rather large main road and half a suburb. My Father wasn't home so we waited for his ute to pull up. He was beside himself and I think this was when I realised that they were apparent. My parents weren't a single unit any more. Why couldn't I see my Father, he's my Dad, I can see him any time right? Not so much, I remember thinking we were all going to get in trouble from my Mother, my Dad included.

So this is when I resigned myself to my world changing and I have no control over it. I stopped worrying at this point as I realised I couldn't do anything and I became all accepting. Of my Mothers rage, my Dad's place in my life, sheltering my sister Kory and waiting out the storm.

Substitute Girl Card #3 Rock

When I think back on that I remember we did a project about Australia's neighbours in school and they had the Easter Island stone heads. Something about their steadfast safe expressions inspired me to have the same. I felt comforted by them and if they lasted so would I.

Pacman ate my hope.

So last post I left at age 4 and my Mother's poised hatred for my existence. My Father wasn't distant but I don't remember as much of him as my Mother at that age. He was there when he was and he made me happy. I remember helping him in the garage and going in the truck with him for work. My Father always made me feel loved and I think that comes naturally to him.

So now my Mother is pregnant with my younger sister Kory. My parents made the decision to move from Sydney to Darwin while my Mother was 6 months pregnant to live with my Mothers parents my Nana and Poppa. The drive was uneventful, my Father says I must have been the most well behaved 4 year old on that trip. I remember being stretched out along the back seat with my juices and muslibars reading along to my Disney cassette books, I wonder if he realised it was because I was so used to amusing myself? I do remember one night where we stopped along the way at a caravan park, I played with the owners boy in the vacant caravans. I got carpet burn from a chair helping him get into a cupboard where we found a toy gun. I remembered getting anxious because I wasn't even allowed to make a gun shape with my hand due to my Mother's concern about violence, as I got older this became laughable.

On arrival in Darwin my Mother's turbulent relationship with her parents seemed to be relatively calm from what I remember. My Poppa and my Mother seemed to be able to avoid each other spectacularly and I just remember spending most of my time with my Nana, who I'd like to say is a wonderful constant in my life. I do remember my Mother, Father and Poppa getting into a fight one afternoon I don't remember what it was about but my Father came to my Mother's aid. I do remember that this was the first time I really saw my Mother yell and she looked quite wild. This happened not long after my sister had been brought home.

My sister's birth was a bit odd for me. I remember my Mother walking up and down the hall in the dark that night like she was in pain and in the morning when I awoke the house was empty. I had some how managed to miss my Nana being asleep on the couch and walked though the whole house before accidentally sitting on her mistaking her for the couch and deciding I was alone and would have a cry. My Nana woke up and assured me everything was fine and I had a little sister. I don't remember ever going to the hospital to see my little sister and my Mother but I do remember watching my Mother with her and being quite puzzled at my Mothers display of affection. Not jealousy, but I just didn't get it, she didn't act like that. So I didn't really want to play with my little sister as a baby I was too confused.

So after Kory was born and that fight between my parents and Poppa we moved into a caravan park whilst we were waiting for our house to be built. I don't remember a whole lot about my time there. I do remember that that is when my Father taught me to ride a bike. I thought at the time that he did it quite harshly but it was effective, basically he took my training wheels off and pushed me down a small embankment - I didn't fall off. And I had a classic child moment of sheer panic quickly forgotten after realising a sense of excited accomplishment. I spent so much time out riding my bike around the car park. One day we tried to see if I could ride backwards and I think this is when I got my first scar from tearing open my elbow on a rock, my Mother didn't really let me play with those kids after that.

After that we moved into our brand new house in Palmenston a new emerging suburb about 20 mins from Darwin. For the first little while things were quite good. My Mother and Father got along, I started school and I got a big girl bike. I started to become a big sister to Kory and my Mother made friends with Katie a lady who lived not far. I don't know how they meet but I know they played netball together. She had two daughters the same ages and Kory and I so it worked out rather well. My Father had a good job, my Mother had friends, there were kids to play with and I had the coolest cubby house (that my Father had built) out of all my friends.

And then my Father got a job working on an island for 8 months, my Mother came undone without supervision. My Father tells me this is when my Mother got back into drugs but for the most part I remember being yelled at and being in trouble often and listening to my sister scream unattended in her cot. I can remember my Mother drinking wine a lot and cider. I am guessing this is when her drinking habit started. She wasn't violent yet but I remember leaving to go to school early and help the school priest tend his rose garden. I vividly remember my Mother dropping me off at school one morning and she forgot I was in the back of the car, if took me a good 5 minutes after passing my school to get the courage to tell her I was still there so then I was screamed at. I made it to class before I started balling and was sent to the office I remember begging the principal not to call my Mother and I spent the rest of the day with the school priest helping him for the day. When Father Ted died I lost my first safe place and roses still make me angry.

This is the point in my life when I felt alone. Not just alone but my own person. My Mother treated me with indifference veering toward loathing, my Father wasn't going to always be around and people in my life weren't there to stay. Some dark little realisation pacman-ed up some of my childhood at that point. That ignorance that a child has that makes the blissfully unaware of grown up problems eluded me from that point and I became an individual. After that I didn't need anyone to hold my hand.

Substitute Girl Card #2 Stand alone

I don't resent this development, if it hadn't happened when it did I do not think I would've made it this far. I may not have always been able to stand straight but I've always been able to stand. I hate that it was when I put hope in a box though. I didn't really pull it back out for a long time either. I somehow knew that things would be as they were and to change them was pointless and to get through them was a practical goal.

Oh and we're up to age 6.

Public masturbation.

People viewed my vague verbal vomit yesterday, so I will follow through with my self satisfying rambling.

I feel like in order really justify any of my own opinions I should really explain myself and how I came to be of the position I am these days. But that's not really short so I think I will start at the beginning today and do something of an instalments process on me. Lets think of them as the "Substitute Girl's Collectors Cards" you know, like base ball cards but imaginary and all proceeds can go to my ego.

(See now you can see where the title of this entry comes in I feel like I'm publicly stroking myself, my egotistical self that is.)

I was born in Sydney to parents who weren't ready to be parents. Now this isn't to say that they were to young, just not parental material. My Father took to it all pretty well but my Mother, well she's nuts you see. We didn't really get off on the right foot, she was told she couldn't have children and had resigned herself to that fact and embraced university and the extra curricular 18+ activities that came with it. I imagine with the view of living her life to the fullest. The problem is that she already had screws loose so throwing in alcohol and drugs made for a delightful individual of emotional kaleidoscopic abilities. My Grandparents have often told me stories of how my Mother caused havoc when she was younger. Her mood swings are legendary and with the whole world being against her and her tremendous sense of entitlement she really does struggle to have everyone one on the same page as her needs.

I feel that I should point out at this point that I don't hate my Mother, I find a relationship with her tiresome and pointless but I don't hate her. Her and I have nothing in common so we don't talk, there isn't and has never been a bond and I think these days neither of us  is interested in pretending there is.

So that wrong foot I was talking about, it wasn't just a personality thing it seems to have been a snowball effect. See my Mother wasn't expecting children so she made a a life plan and started on that path, then she was pregnant. Well isn't that just like the world to fuck up her life goals, no consideration at all! That's ok though cause she is capable of anything, being that she knows everything (another of her special talents). So she'll be a mother and a housewife now. And enter the infant. My birth went badly I was a dramatic forceps delivery and by the time it was over she didn't want to touch me (her words). I was taken away so she could sleep, no time for bonding. Then came the breast feeding, oh dear, I had to be lactose intolerant didn't I? And my Father still wonders why he would come home to me crying in my cot because Mum wasn't interested, shocking I know.

Ok so may be babies are just not her thing. Perhaps once I start t become a little person we'll have something to bond over? Not so much. I remember spending days playing under the house and my Mother leaving my lunch sandwich on one of those old tin pub trays on the back table. She'd just put it out and leave me to it. I remember thinking to myself that I had managed to go the whole day without saying a word to my Mother. Now I know you might be thinking that this sounds odd, remembering such details but I do remember quite a large portion of my childhood in vivid detail. I remember the indifference my Mother treated me with as a child. Right up until my sister was born that was how you'd sum up our relationship, one of indifference. She was never cruel but she wasn't loving either. We both just existed together like the unplanned awkward convenience that happen-stance had created.

I think my Mother would love me if she could but she can only love me as a reflection of her own achievements and recognizing that was upsetting and a blessing. This is because is she can love me for that she can hate me as a reflection of her  own failures, and that is why we don't talk. I make my Father proud, I learn and grew of my own accord, I have sanity and people like me these are factors my Mother has some serious issues with. See apparently I make it look easy and that makes me a little Bitch. See I must not love her, if I did I wouldn't treat her like that.....you see where I am going with this.

Substitute Girl card #1 Whipping Girl.

For my Mother I will always be another reason why things didn't work out, why she couldn't a good wife and a good mother. I took away my Fathers attention from her, ruining her marriage. And as for being a mother, I didn't give her a chance. I wasn't a normal child, I made everything hard. As the years went on this role would flourish into a full fledged hatred my Mother had for my existence. That's the key word here though, "existence" she didn't hate me personally just the role I played in her life.

That is a common feature of the Substitute Girl though, it is never personal.

And that is about age 4, so that seems like a good start.