Things you hated about your childhood.

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In no particular order ...

--Growing up in abject poverty. There were periods where our mobile home did not have heat or running water and to my brother and I this was somehow normal. There were holes in the floors and walls and once a friend of my brother's actually feel through one and got stuck. Knowing what I know now from working in social services, I realize that if any social worker had ever set foot in that home, it would have been condemned and we would have been sent to foster homes. So ... it's probably good no one ever did!

--My father's alcoholism and losing him at a fairly young age, as a result of its effects. Caused a lot of problems I still don't fully understand.

--Not knowing about Asperger's Syndrome until I was 23. I think a number of you know all about the comic (and not-so-comic) mishaps that can go along with having undiagnosed autism!

1991
-Seeing my sister born with problems resulting from S.L.O.S. Around this time of year I always get depressed about it. She would have been twenty on February 15th.
-April 27th, 1991. She died. Her life was too short.

1993
-Leaving for daycare in the morning from my old house, and when my mom came to pick me up we went back to the house. When I got back, I found all of my things packed away in boxes. We unexpectedly moved to another apartment.
-My mom and dad divorced.

I saw my father go from being someone who was fatherlike to an alcoholic in a matter of a few short years.

I forgot to mention a biggie about my childhood that I hated.

Being the only one in my family to have to change schools every year for 5 years straight.

# of times we moved during this period: 1

It's relentlessly annoying how I have to explain this to people everytime I switch schools. We lived in a bad neighborhood and elementary school was no problem. I just went to the one that was right down the street from my house. I wanted to go to the public magnet school that my sister was at and I got to go there for 6th grade. However they wouldnt let me stay there since I wasnt within bus route distance and the nearest middle school to my house was considered a "bad school" (despite being in the same school system). So that's when my family came up with the "brilliant" idea of sending me to Catholic School in 7th grade. Well this Catholic School was going to be demolished and the school relocated at the end of the year. My parents decide that the new school would be too far a drive to take me and found another Catholic School closer to our house that I went to in 8th grade.

And just when it seemed like we were about to continue this insane cycle again (as I was rejected for admission to a magnet high school that my sister was at...and the nearest public high school was too dangerous) my parents decide that Catholic High School would be too expensive and that it would be cheaper to move to a nearby city with a better school district for high school.

Of course my sister was spared from all of this insanity as she got to stay at both the magnet middle school and the magnet high school because she could commute to school (and because she was a talented musician).

There are just no words...no words for the messed up insanity that I had to be put through because of the idiocy of my parents who brag about every single school they mindlessly throw me in (even when it turns out to be a stupid one). Even my sister was in on this ridiculous bragging and choice making of my future. My dad just likes to brag about how we would never be living in a nice town if it wasnt for me (more like if it wasnt for my lousy grades and lack of talent). To think that if we had just moved to the better school district in 7th grade I would've been spared alot of hellish grief that the Catholic School experience caused for me (not to mention save my parents A LOT of money).

Ah childhood...most of it was pretty bad. I learned to do my best to avoid my parents (verbal &/or physical abuse-beatings, cussings, sleep deprivation, etc). We moved on average of every 2 to 3 years too, & I had to change schools often too. I had very few friends, my peers had little tolerance for me. Got in trouble even when I was just trying to defend myself from others. Bullies...lots of bullies...in the neighborhoods, at school, & everywhere in between. Mom always reminded me that I was a mistake, 1st with my birthmom b/c I was the product of a tryst, & 2nd, mom reminded me that adopting me was a mistake. Then there was the sexual abuse that I put up with for several years. Even in special ed, the teachers were mean to me. I had so many reasons to be depressed, but no one cared. I often cried when I was alone or into the fur of my dog or cat.

About the only good things I can remember were my pets, books, & Star Trek. I used to fantasize that my real home was the USS Enterprise, & my family was the crew members. LOL I guess I was pretty weird back then...esp for a girl.

Myself

Having to go to a crappy inner city public school certainly sucked. Living in the city sucked in general as a kid. My fondest childhood memories are from staying with my grandparents far out in the country. I'd wake up at the crack of dawn and just explore nature and play with the few neighbor kids until dusk without needing supervision.

My 2 brothers were very sickly growing up. Middle had a congenital heart defect at birth and got pacemaker at about 5, youngest had pretty severe ear infections and had to have like a tube put into his ear, both had epilepsy pretty bad, and were dyslexic. My father also suffered from epilepsy and dyslexia as a child so I guess I was pretty lucky to not inherit it like my brothers. So I ended up getting quite a bit less attention than they did. It didn't really effect me much at the time but looking back it seems pretty traumatizing.

Saying that, I don't think I had a bad childhood, I'd certainly wish I could go back, but it's hard not wondering "well, what if things were different?" and how my life would be now because of it.

oooh....Well...at home my family was rather volatile and unstable....There was a lot of fighting and a bit-o-poverty....and I was a really sensitive awkward and backwards child...I turned to overeating as a means of self-comfort..so in addition to being very oblivious and vulnerable to bullies and teachers who disliked me, I became overweight...I did not know how to dress myself properly, I did not have a proper hygiene routine, I wet the bed i had ragged hair, ugly clothes, became overweight up till high school...I needed a lot of help with various aspects of self-care...my parents were too busy being unhappy to really know what on earth to do with me...and they were perhaps in denial...and this was a time before labels...teachers did not know what to do with me as I was obviously not ret*d..though it was obvious I had trouble connecting with what was going on in the class...
I regressed to an extent...once I entered school...Before I entered school, I was a lot more outgoing and adventurous...almost too adventurous...I really came to be more of a "space Cadette" after starting school....I still attempted for a while to interact with other kids...there were a lot of kids on my street...but I was the "Weird" girl...Hispanic parents were generally hospitable towards me (it was a mostly Hispanic neighborhood at the time)...but Caucasian parents seemed to detest me...I had no manners..overstepped boundaries...didn't know anything about manners or boundaries....blah blah blah....i could go on, but won't.

I hated going to public school...and having low self esteem..and feeling like there was something wrong with me..as was frequently re-enforced, but being powerless to do anything about it....
I hated that I became paralyzed over homework..I hated being overwhelmed by the sensory disturbances in the classroom and just basically felt perpetually frustrated and uncomfortable...

I am perfectly happy that my childhood is over and the further I go away from it, the better. It was a nightmare.
There were, let's see: a dysfunctional family, domestic violence, death of close family members, bullying at school (though it wasn't that bad, I must admit, people have had worse), slow and painful realisation that I'd always be excluded from any social groups, wrong choices, do I need to list more? Nah.

After reading these posts about how bad some your parents acted let me know I how good I had it when I grew up. My mom and dad grew up in War West Virginia where they grew up very poor. My dad wanted to make sure his kids did not have to go without things like he did. My father always bought us the toys we wanted and in our teen years my dad bought us mini bikes, dirt bikes, and atv's to ride around the property he bought. Halloween, Christmas, and Easter was the only time I was happy when growing up so I spent my days counting down the days to the next holiday.

My school years were spent in special education from first grade until tenth grade. I was beat up and spit on from seventh grade to tenth grade everyday without let up I was smaller than the other kids and in special education. When I was in the special education classes the kids I was stuck with were the same kids from 1st grade all the way up 10th grade so they knew what buttons to push to make me have a meltdown. Funny thing is when I gor evaluated for Aspergers the doctor said he saw no signs of a learning disability. I had no sanctuary from the insults and abuse in school. My freshman year of high school my t-shirt was set on fire by a kid sitting behind me. One of my regular bullies put the fire out and pinned the junior arsonist against the wall. All the studyhall teacher did was take the kid's lighter away from him. He also told me he never has trouble with students until I show up.

Other kids told me the reason I was getting picked on was because I dressed dorky so I told my parents that so they bought the same clothes and sneakers my bullies wore but they beat up just like before. I started hanging out with these new friends in hope being with a crowd of people would protect me from being bullied. All I succeded in doing was hooking up with a bunch of guys who wanted to be trouble makers but they were all too chickensh!t to do anything bad. When I joined the group they had me hit people just to see the look on their faces. The people were too scared to do anything back to me because I was with a large group of people. They also had me throw baseballs through people's windows in the middle of winter so we could all run away after I did it.

My first year in mainstream classes was in 11th grade in 1986 in one of my English classes there was a new girl who was always talking to me and thought I was funny. She was a new girl to our school so she never new I was ever in special education so I thought I had a shot with her being my girlfriend. My group of misfit friends and I would hang out with the English teacher after class and he told us that the new girl was a foster kid so she would probably "put out" to us if we were nice to her. He said "Todesking" is nice to her and shje is all over him. So this idiots invited her to hang out with us she said yes only because I was going to be there. When we went to pick her up in our one buddy's who car they told me they were get her good and drunk or too high to say no so we all could have a turn with her. We picked her up and they decided to go buy some weed so they asked me to stay with her while they are scoring the weed. When I sat in my friend's basement with her she started to tell me how hard it is to make friends when she getting bump from foster home to foster home. I started to feel bad about what the idiots were going to do to her so I told her they were going to get her drunk so they all could have sex with her. She freaked out and went into a screaming fit about how nobody likes her and how everyone is trying to f##k her over. She was out of control tearing my friend's basement up I went up the stairs to wait for my so called friends to show up. When they did she was daring me to come back down in the basement. They made us both leave and they blamed me for everything. I was lucky we had two different directions to our homes so I did not have to worry about her attacking me. That was my last day hanging out with those idiots ever again. The girl quit school I never saw her again.

In my 10th grade year of high school a 15 year old kid that lived in a duplex on the street behind ours raped an 11 year old girl that lived down stairs from him. Everyone in school treated this kid like a pariah. He was beaten up worse than I was so it took some pressure off me thankfully. One day a bunch of the cool kids were wishing they knew were the rapist lived so they could beat him up outside of school too. So like an idiot I tried to get the cool kids to like me so I showed them where the kid lived. I made sure to let them know the houses were duplexs and the victim lived down stairs so do not do anything to the down stairs. They waited for him to walk home from school and we all beat him up. Later on the cool kids told another group of kids where the rapist lived and someone threw a metal garbage can through the downstairs window where the rape victim lived. They claimed they did not know the house was a duplex. I have never felt this level guilt before in my life and I hope I never feel it again.

my childhood.

that is all inclusive.

The preschool I attended labelled me as "mentally ret*d" because they tried to get me to write with my right hand, instead i wrote my name backwards. They seemed to think that my parents were doing something wrong in raising me because of my peculiarities, and i lost count of how many times the Child Protective agency showed up at my door because of something stupid i wound up doing that the preschool encouraged. I had Echolalea(i dont know how thats spelled) and the school knew that, so when the school questioned me as to why i got hurt doing one of my clumsy activities, the first thing they would ask me was not "how did this happen?" but "who saved you?" i would repeat the phrase "mommy did it" well into the questioning.
I was the prime target of the students pranks in elementary and middle school, and fourth grade was the worst. I had a real jerk for a teacher who regularly labelled me "compulsive liar" "lazy" and one time had the balls to call me "fat pig" in front of the entire class. This same teacher once singled out another girl in my class for punishment because she was being friendly with me. I once missed a doctors appointment because the jerk assigned me to do detention that day.
In high school, kids would throw things at me during lunch, their favorite item was actually their spare change, because it was light yet heavy enough to cause pain when it hit me. One underclassmen sexually harassed me and called me "ugly fat b***h" on a regular basis. another one threw gum in my hair and mooned me on the school bus.
To top it off, my paternal grandparents had it out for my dad and my mom. They would regularly call the police or the child protective agency on us because of lies that they told. They especially had it out for my younger sisters. One time my cousins physically attacked my second-youngest sister, and my third youngest sister stood up for her. My sister got suspended, but my cousins got nothing.

I didn't hate my childhood, but I would never go back to it. There are several things that were pretty $hitty. Having to live with an abusive father who yelled at me and hit me regularly was one of them. Also, getting in trouble all the time and getting suspended and expelled from schools, without even understanding what I was doing wrong. Emotional problems, mostly anger issues. Being bullied and made fun of by other kids, and always excluded from whatever they were doing. Those are just a few of them.

This website hasn't the bandwidth to list everything.