Spanking

When I was...eh, three or four years old? This woman walked into my house while I was watching TV with the people I called mommy and daddy. I was stressed because strangers don't just walk into people's houses like that, but they didn't seem to mind. When it happened a few days later, they greeted her by name, so I did, too.

"Hi, Vickie."

She gave me the most shocked and incredulous expression, kind of laughed a little, and said, "No, you call me Mom."

Ohh...

I don't remember being surprised by this. I know that I had never seen her before that I could remember, but maybe I had some unconscious memories because this just explained the mystery for me. So she was mommy, and my other "mommy" became grandma. It was quite a bit longer before I got in the habit of calling my "daddy" grandpa.

My grandmother believed in corporal punishment. Here's the weird thing. I don't actually remember getting spanked. I remember she used a fly swatter. I remember this one time that she threatened me with a belt, but I don't know if she ever actually used one. I don't think so. I remember that it didn't really matter what room we were in, but it was usually either the kitchen or her bedroom. The kitchen was where she spent the most time and where the fly swatter was. If we were in her bedroom, she used her hand. I don't remember ever fighting back or trying to defend myself.

Back then, even at that young age and having lived like that forever, I knew that this was wrong. Spanking was abuse. I was abused because I was spanked. At the time, that came from a very limited understanding of what abuse meant. Abuse was when a parent hit their kid. I was hit with a fly swatter. Therefor, I was abused.

In practicality, I was not physically abused (other forms of abuse still totally happened.) She never did worse than sting me. I'm pretty sure I never had to take down my pants. I don't remember her ever punishing me unfairly. Unless you consider any punishment unfair, which I kind of do, but that's a different blog post. The point is I had always done something. What those specific somethings were, I don't remember now. But if you are the type to believe in spanking, then my grandmother always was justified in spanking me.

It wasn't awful and abusive, is what I'm trying to say, and she didn't spank for every perceived infraction.

My mother quickly became a kind of ally to me. She was my mommy, my real mommy, and that meant I could talk to her. Right? Well, apparently not, because when I tried to complain about this abuse I thought I suffered from, she thought it was funny.

I remember that I complained that my grandmother hit me with the metal part of the fly swatter. That wasn't true, but I thought it sounded worse and would get a better result. I thought my mother would be horrified that my grandmother hit me. Instead, she laughed a little and told me the metal end would probably hurt less because it was thinner.

She knew. She already knew my grandmother hit me, exactly how she did it, and had no problem with it. I never complained about punishments again. At least, not until I was much, much older.

When I got too old for spanking, my grandmother resorted to grounding. I have actually met some people who don't know what that means, so let me just explain real quick. Grounding is, at its core, when you have to sit and think about what you did for X amount of time. In practice, this usually means no TV for a day or two, going to your room for the rest of the night, or other things like that. Everyone does it a little bit differently.

In my case, the rules were no TV and no video games, but I could listen to the radio in my room or watch TV with the family or go outside to play. I usually chose being in my room because I could close the door, turn the TV down, and play video games to my heart's content because my grandmother was sitting down, and that meant she didn't have to stand up again until it was time for bed. As I mentioned in a previous post, I was on the third floor, and she was on the first.

Grounding doesn't sound that bad for a night or two, right? But as I got older, the amount of time I spent grounded got longer and longer. See, she grounded me for everything. Didn't wash the dishes because no one told me to and I didn't realize that was my permanent job? Grounded. Forgot the laundry because I hate doing your job for you while you sit on your ass and watch soap operas or go shopping? Grounded. Got a B in class? Grounded.

It was that last one, especially. I don't know when she realized that being grounded didn't improve my grades, but her answer to this was to ground me for longer. It's like she thought if she could just ground me for long enough, I would suddenly realize the error of my ways and start getting straight A's. I don't know, maybe she thought I'd study or something if I couldn't watch TV, but if so, she never addressed that with me.

So by the time I was in 6th grade, or maybe 7th, I was grounded for the school year. Literally. And in practice, this meant I spent pretty much my entire life alone in my room. All my social interaction came from class, and there were only like a dozen kids in my class. I same that same dozen or so kids from preschool to 8th grade. I was able to interact with other people during recess times, but, you know, I didn't. I was the bottom of the pecking order, so only a couple other people really even wanted to interact with me. Once I discovered books, I stopped interacting with my class almost entirely.

When I got home, I went straight to my room, closed my door, and watch Power Rangers or played Final Fantasy until dinner. Then I came to the table to eat, but I always brought a book with me or stared into my plate and ignored the people around me. Then I went back to my room until it was time for bed. That was my day. For seven years.

By the time I escaped to Washington, it was just my life. My mother didn't understand why I didn't want to spend time with "the family", by which she meant her and our roommate. I tried to tell her, but she just didn't get it. She didn't understand, and neither did I at the time, that spending my time isolated wasn't really a choice for me. I couldn't enjoy other things. I didn't know how to go without video games. I didn't know how life worked without video games.

But I couldn't articulate any of that except to complain about how I spent my life grounded and alone, and so she would turn the whole conversation into a pissing match about who had it worse. She would make me feel like I was being unreasonable, like it should have been easy to just come out of my room now that I wasn't being punished anymore. I don't even know if she meant to do it, or even realized she was doing it, but she manipulated me into feeling guilty to bring me out of that room. If I didn't come out, I'd sit in there unable to have fun because the guilt would have me in knots. If I did come out, I'd sit there, miserable and resenting her, and the guilt would still have me in knots because I was miserable and resenting her.

To this day, I have trouble putting down my games. I don't even like watching movies or TV shows on Netflix with my girlfriend. I want to, and I know I'll have fun once I get into it, but my initial reaction to her asking is a resounding no. I have to stop and try to figure out if I don't want to because habit or because I'm really just not in the mood. And sometimes I say yes when I don't actually want to because I couldn't figure it out. That old sense of guilt just starts tying me into knots, and even though she says I can say no if I want, I really can't in that moment. I can't say no, and I can't say yes, so I say yes because maybe I'll be able to relax and enjoy it. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.

I had a goal for this post when I started writing it. I don't remember what it was now. It was all leading into a coherent conclusion, but that's gone from my head now. Usually writing these posts makes me feel better, but this hasn't. Maybe I'll revisit the topic in the future. I'm just going to stop writing now.