Simple answer, nope.
Why not?
The household that I grew up in wasn’t conducive to having interests in things.
But Bobbie, lots of people grow up in neglectful households.
True, but it wasn’t just the neglect.
It was the intergenerational trauma.
My grandmother’s bout in Indian residential school obviously fried her noodle. And she passed her anger, her hatred, and her alcoholism down to my father.
My father picked up his mother’s trauma, and he exhibited her anger, her hatred, and her alcoholism. But he also picked up something more. He was so bound and determined to prove to everyone that he wasn’t 1/2 Indian that he had to pretend that he was something that he wasn’t. He had to be someone so flawless and faultless that he couldn’t possibly be 1/2 Cree. This turned him into an absolute asshole.
My father brought his mother into the PMQ on CFB Summerside to raise my brother and I after he had our mother booted out of the PMQ. When she moved back to Edmonton in the spring of 1978 to be with her husband my father got a compassionate posting to CFB Namao in 1978 so that he could get grandma and her husband to come live with us on base while he went off on every training exercise he could sign up for.
He did this even though just a few years later he would tell Alberta Social Services that he blamed his mother’s cruelty towards his children as well as her alcoholism for the problems exhibited by his children.
And then he brought his girlfriend in to live with us in the summer of 1980.
Sue was okay at the start. As my brother said to Alberta Social Services in 1981, “when Sue first moved in she promised not to hit us, but she hits us all the time now”. There were two things that Sue promised to do when she moved in. She was going to stop our father’s drinking, and she was going to stop our father from hitting us.
There was a brief period of time when Sue and Grandma lived with us simultaneously in the PMQ on CFB Griesbach. Grandma was still pissed off at my father for booting our mother out of the house. Whenever my father would bring up how much of a “bitch” my mother was for running away my grandmother would always fire back that one day us kids would learn the truth.
Sue blamed my grandmother’s drinking for my father’s drinking. And Sue was 100% certain that grandma was trying to sabotage the relationship between our father and Sue.
And I guess that my father never told Sue about his kids being sexually abused for 1-1/2 years on CFB Namao. When the school for military dependents got Captain Totzke involved, you can sure bet that neither Totzke or my father told Sue about what had happened on CFB Namao. And let’s face it. In 1980 Sue would have been around 20 years old. My father was 34 years old.
From the limited history that I have been able to piece together my father met Sue via his paternal stepsisters that lived in Oshawa and went to the same high school as Sue.
I can see my father telling Sue that I was the reason our family was involved with the military social worker, and that it was my fault that our family was involved with Alberta Social Services.
So yeah, it wasn’t just that the house in which I lived was dysfunctional. It was that I had to endure the anger of adults who were misdirecting blame in my directions.
Captain Totzke blamed my apparent homosexuality for me having sex with the babysitter for over a 1-1/2.
My father blamed me for being a pervert and for allowing the babysitter to molest my younger brother.
Grandma? I think grandma was just pissed off at everyone.
And Sue? Sue was pissed off because the perfect little family that my father had promised her was obviously never going to be realized.
Neglect would have been one thing.
But what I had was (Neglect + verbal abuse + sexual abuse + physical abuse + mental abuse + psychological neglect + abandonment).
That’s my life.
.That’s all I’ve ever known.
There was never any encouragement for hobbies or interests.
Which is why I have no hobbies or interests.
Surely there must be something that you like, something that sparks an interest in.
Nope.
You’re just not trying hard enough.
Nope.
You’re being melodramatic.
Nope.
What about sports?
Nope.
Photography?
Why, so everyone can tell me how much my pictures suck. It’s always so funny how taking pictures isn’t just about taking pictures. Nope, you’re supposed to criticize and chastise people for the wrong film speed and shutter speed and aperture setting. Oh, and gotta ridicule people for choosing the wrong lens for the task even though the person likes the effect created by the “wrong” lens.
Fashion?
Fuck no.
Music.
Nope.
Films?
Nope.
Theatre?
Nope.
Concerts?
Nope.
Travel?
The fuck for? I can be as depressed at home without having to spend a metric shit ton of money to go some place else and be depressed.
Electronics?
Fuck, I hate electronics. I have my self taught skills, but I get ass raped at work for not “teaching” others how to be as smart as I am. I have no degrees in electronics or building automation, but fuck do I ever get ragged on for not giving everyone else the skills it’s taken me a lifetime to accumulate.
Computers? Again, fuck no. Computers are a tool that I use. They are not a toy, or a source of pride, or enjoyment for me. It drives me fucking bonkers that people who should run circles around me with their degrees or diplomas can’t even do the basics. I used to ask new applicants if they had computer skills with Word, or Excel, or Open Office, or if they’ve ever used a PDF editing program like Adobe Acrobat or Nitro PDF to put together a PDF from single pages, or to create a fillable PDF file. Yep, sure, of course! Without exception it turns out that they can’t but their computer module they took as part of their diploma program or certificate program taught them how to create a blank Excel sheet and to give it a cute name.
Why don’t you get involved in community activities.
Massive fuck no! Society has done a very good job of telling me to fuck off and to leave them alone, so I’m happy to leave society the fuck alone.
Beeshive 