So incase you haven't read Pt.1: https://steemit.com/mentalhealth/@iamwoman/my-journey-through-koren-zailckas-novel-smashed-pt-1-preface or Pt. 2: https://steemit.com/life/@iamwoman/my-journey-through-koren-zailckas-novel-smashed-pt-2-chapter-1-initiation, this is basically just me going through a lifelong journey with the author of the book "Smashed". It's a lot of pondering and meandering over my life, and why I've done the things I've done. Going back and seeing what's happened to me, and how it's impacted me as a person ~ Not necessarily for the faint of heart. And as the Golden Rule states, if you don't have any nice to say, please don't say anything at all. Thank you! :)
It is starting to occur to me that the way Koren felt about alcohol after she tried it, is kind of the way I felt about sex. I would obsess over it. Replay every instance in my mind. His hands on my body. His tongue inside of me. I longed for it again, even though I was technically raped. I would perfect it in my mind like a well-created delusion. Like Koren, after I had it, I wasn't able to do it again for quite some time. It felt like forever until I would be able to have sex again. I would fantasize about it constantly. What boy might want to have sex with me. What his dick might feel like. I felt like I had only a taste of what "sex" was. I wanted next time to be better. A longer amount of time. With a nicer guy, or man. Better conditions. Someone I liked and liked me back. I will admit though, that the idea of having sex without being drunk, or having any substances was a scary idea to up this year. Probably because the first time I "lost my virginity/was raped", I wasn't sober.
Weirdly I wasn't super interested in alcohol in middle school though. I kind of just took it when it was around, but I did look for it often. I remember spending a bit of time with my grandmother after being expelled in the 7th grade, and I did a lot of drinking there. She had minibars in the house, and probably over forty different alcohol bottles, so I'd sip hard liquor or mixed drinks or beers all day and be completely under the radar. Mostly to escape and get out of my boredom. I had depression than too, and I discovered that when you're drunk, everything's really funny and life doesn't seem as bleak and serious anymore.
At one point in the chapter the author writes:
"During ninth grade, a mom who will not stand back is a nightmare...the type who says things like, "You are my full-time job", when you're pretty sure you're a dead-end vocation. She'll prepare for adolescence like the Y2K. She will scrutinize your grades, your friends, and your appearance, looking for headway, as though womanhood is a twelve-point plan and the big boss expects a progress report."
That was definitely my mother. Overly interested in everything I did. She was always around. I used to nickname her "my shadow". Parent teacher conferences. Outings with friends. It seemed as though she would just pop up.
This became overly exhausting because not only was she always there, but she was also extremely overly protective, needy, and concerned about my well-being or general appearance. It got to the point where I started to feel like she didn't actually care about me. She seemed to care more about what other people thought of me, which would go back to what people thought about her as a parent. I never felt like she genuinely cared growing up. I felt like she was being selfish.
Now as an adult I know that she still has her own issues to deal with, but I still feel at times like I was robbed of that part of growing up. We have a good relationship now as two adults, but I don't feel like she ever allowed herself to treat me like a kid, or like a teenager. The expectations were too high, and I was always a "disappointment"; something to gossip about to the family, or the church, or the principal at school. I guess nothing ever felt private, and she didn't seem to have her own strength to lean onto to help me one-on-one.
Another point in the novel, Koren says:
"...I've accepted I'm meek...In class, I will sit and watch everyone else chatter with great ease. And I'll think I should say something now because each passing second will only make it harder to speak without everyone turning to look at me with great shock, as though a chair, or a stapler, or some other inanimate object had sprung to life".
This was quite literally me at different points of my life, specifically 6th grade, 8th grade, and beyond. I became very quiet. I rarely ever talked in class or social gatherings, even though I really really wanted to. It got to the point where, like she said, if I spoke everyone was shocked, and it became something to make fun of. "Did you say something?" "Wow, she never talks" "What did the weirdo say?" I mostly kept quiet. Probably why it was so hard to make friends.
Even now, it's hard for me to get out of my shell and talk. Now it's more so about whether it's even worth the energy, because I feel like most people don't deserve anything I have to say anyways. Of course, that just stems back to all the fucked up "friends" I ended up having growing up, and the seemingly thousands of times I was stabbed in the back. It's hard for me to feel comfortable standing out in a crowd unless I'm drunk, or high.