u/ValoraTCas

I was born in a large city. My parents 21f and 24m were both university students when I was conceived, my mother was in 3rd year. I'm not sure what year my dad was in. I always get vague answers when I ask. My parents originally planned to become teachers after completing teachers college.

Instead they married largely due to family pressure early in the pregnancy. Immediately after that they backpacked around southern Europe and Morroco. They drank considerably and smoked Marijuana as often as they could. Their original intention was to teach English in Spain, but apparently changed their mind because of the hospital, cost seemed to be the main factor. They returned to our city with my father going back to school and eventually getting his teaching degree and his first teaching job when I was 3 or 4.

My mother seemed to resent having to care for an infant. During my childhood, she would complain about the awful diapers and mixing formula, etc.

When I was approximately 2 -3 years old, I was diagnosed with cerebal palsy. Immediately after I was diagnosed, my parents started trying to conceive another child. By the time my sister was 1 year old, my parents decided she wasn't as perfect as they thought she should be, so they conceived my youngest sister.

My kindergarten teacher wanted me to repeat kindergarten because of my very poor motor skills, mostly cutting and pasting, but also my printing was very messy, which was mostly due to the tremors. I was intellectually able to do all of the work, and I could already read. If had gone to senior kindergarten, I would have been able to enter French immersion, which started the year after I entered school. Also, I was the youngest child in my class because I was born late in the year.

The French immersion schools were much better funded and had much better teachers and resources. I stayed in the original school, which was one of the 2 worst schools in our region. My first grade teacher made me stand in front of the class to evaluate my reading, I was very shy and soft-spoken, so I stammered slightly. From this alone, she put me in the bottom reading group even though repeatedly showed her that I could read any book in the room.

Standardized testing in 2nd grade showed that my reading and math skills were at 6th grade level. I know this because the guidance teacher showed my scores and explained what they meant when I was frustrated with the pace of the classroom and lack of mentally challenging work. My teachers would make me write things over and over because of the 'messiness'. This never worked, and my printing would get worse because of fatigue and pain.

I was bullied by most of the kids in my class because I was small, clumsy, physically weak, and somewhat odd looking, the fact that I was very smart also didn't help.

My teacher wouldn't allow me to use the washroom when I needed it, since I had a bladder disorder related to my cerebal palsy, that meant I would sometimes wet myself. This only happened when I wasn't allowed to use the washroom when I needed to. This led to the other kids calling me diaper queen.

Eventually, I was exempted from most of my in class subjects and allowed to work independently in the library on whatever I desired. When I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, my arm was badly sprained by a bully, and I was prescribed a tensor bandage to support my hand and wrist. I noticed that my printing was better with it, and I tried to keep using it. My mother found out and angrily took it away from even though I explained that it helped me. She would not listen, and there was no explanation at all.

She would send me to school no matter how sick I was, and would only let me be at home when the school said I was too sick to be there. Our house never had a thermometer or bandaids or any other health related items, not even a hot water bottle or heating pad.

When I was in 5th grade, I developed a ganglion on the inside of my middle finger. It was very painful and made it even more difficult and painful to write. I saw a hand surgeon who said he could remove it easily and quickly. My parents, mostly my mother, refused to allow me to have this surgery even though it would be completely paid for through our canadian health program.

Every few months we would visit family friends in the city each time before we went home my dad would go to a bank machine, except we always parked at the far edge of the parking lot and my dad would walk away and then be gone for 30 to 40 minutes. I realized later that he was buying amounts of Marijuana about a pound or two each time. He and my mother would smoke it regularly, they I thought I wasn't aware, but the air currents would waft the smell to my window.

Even though I asked repeatedly to be moved to a different school, my parents made no efforts to do so. I could have been moved based on my disability and also my intellectual giftedness.

I was not taken to a dentist until I was 8 years old. By this time, I already had decay in several of my teeth, partly because our water wasn't fluoridated. My dad could have added flouride to our well water for a very low cost, but he was too cheap to do so. Another factor was I did not have a child size toothbrush, so it made it much more difficult to clean my teeth effectively.

My parents were home most of the time but spent very little time with their children. There was very little affection shown.

I had very few clothes, with one or two items bought for back to school. And sometimes, none since I was failure to thrive and grew very slowly. At Christmas, my mother would buy the same toys for all 3 of us even though I was 4 1/2 and 7 older than my sisters. One year, she bought all of us cabbage patch dolls. This was even though I had never had any interest in dolls or girly stuff. She did this again when the cabbage patch dolls came out.

My grandfather died when I was 9 years old, and my grandmother remarried suddenly when I was 13. She lived with him in England for several months, but then they moved back to town close to us. There were frequent family gatherings that included him. From almost the beginning he would find ways to trap me and sexually assault me by pushing me against a wall or into a corner he would then force his tongue into my mouth and rub his penis against me. He would also shove his hands into my pants...

During my adolescence I was misdiagnosed with depression, when I actually post traumatic stress reaction because of the many things I'd dealt already, I was sent to a psychiatrist who didn't listen to me and wasn't competent, she kept prescribing different drugs when I didn't respond to them the way I 'should ' have. She put on lithium with no sign of bipolar disorder. I very developed severe lithium toxicity. She took me off it eventually.

At some point, she decided that since antidepressants weren't working, it must be because I was psychotic. She put me on antipsychotics even though I repeatedly told I was not psychotic and I never was. She wound up convincing my parents to send to this inpatient program for adolescents with psychosis. I talked to the psychiatrist there once, and he knew I had never been psychotic. He stopped my medication immediately, and I was the only one there not on any medications and was not mentally ill at all. But I wound up spending 8 months there.

There were other things that went on with my family, but this is about as much as I can write right now.

Am I wrong to distance myself from my family ? I feel little connection to them, and they usually want to draw me into some drama that I don't want to deal with.

tl;dr; childhood experiences, neglect

Cervical surgery

Distancing from my family