Welcome to "What the fuck Wednesday"
In this week's edition I'm going to talk about my crazy parents and my childhood. Honestly, it's just my mom because my dad hasn't had a spine or an opinion in my life. I'm really tempted to tell you my real name because honestly it is a great starting point to how my life got flip turned upside down. I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there. I'll tell you how I came to be the fresh prince of ... wait what? Oh yea where was I? I will say this, my name and all my siblings names don't start with the same letter. No my parents thought that was too cliche. Nope, my parents decided that they were going to use my last name as a theme.
So add one weird fucked up name, and my childhood perspective is getting ready to be seen from the patch of skin between the balls and the brown eye, also known as the Chode.
I know what your thinking. There is no way a weird name is responsible for how fucked up I turned out. I know.
What do Salt Lake City Utah, Palmyra New York, Nauvoo Illinois, and Cardston Alberta have in common?
Mormons.
I'm not going to give you a history lesson on the Mormons because well it's boring and involves a whole lot of religious persecution which I used to think was unique but it turns out anyone religious in that time period was pretty much lynched. What changed? Can we go back to lynching or tar and feathering religious nuts?
Anyway the Mormons ended up in the Salt Lake valley eventually making it into a city. Then they go and send their 19 yr old sons out to the world to try and sell Joseph Smith's particular brand of Jesus.
"Mormon Jesus: Now with more sin cleaning power, Look as we compare Catholic Jesus to Mormon Jesus. The sins come right out without any guilt residue."
(I tried to get the sham-wow/slap-chop guy to do the commercial but it turns out he's still in jail for slap-chopping a whore. I guess he was looking at targeting the prison population for sham-wows. I'm pretty sure everyone on the outside has one)
So one of these 19 yr old Jesus salesmen gets sent to Toronto, Ontario. Where, as my mom would say, "God arranged for him to come into her life and show her the light."
My mother was converted and then went back to her home town and told my father, her boyfriend at the time, that if he loved her, he would convert for her. In one swift motion, she removed my fathers spine. I don't even think he noticed.
Fast forward to the good part. I was born on a cold November morning in 1984.
I am going to tell you something that will show I've had disdain for my mother since the beginning. When I came out, my little baby fingernails were peeled backward. I had been trying to claw my way out of my mother. She says the last trimester was very uncomfortable.
Being raised Mormon is different than being raised normally. For instance, I didn't have any more than 2 TV channels my entire life. I was only allowed to watch 3 things. Hockey, Disney, and Saturday morning cartoons. Not the good ones either, no transformers, no GI Joes. Nope I was left with shit like Wishbone, Care-bears (I still don't like crab apple pie), Teddy Ruxbin, Fraggle rock, and Inspector Gadget.
The Church did such a good job making certain things sound so evil. They gave things so much negative stigma that it became tantamount to death to even consider doing these things. What things? Caffeine, masturbation, sex, booze, crude language, fighting, and doing "anything" on a Sunday. I was, however, allowed to eat bacon, and for that I am grateful.
By the time I was in school, I had been barred from so many normal socializing experiences that I was already considered to be eccentric. How many eccentric 5 yr olds do you know? It didn't take long for me to get a solid punch in the face. Literally. Like day 2 of kindergarten.
When I was six yrs old my parents thought I was retarded. Like really really stupid. They got me "hooked on phonics" Which I finished in record time. A hollow victory, kinda like winning the Special Olympics. This confused the hell out of my parents.
Why did they think I was retarded when I was 6? I drew a picture with the sky purple, the sun green, the grass red, and the tree a different color red, with brown leaves. It turns out I am color blind. But thanks to hooked on phonics I was now able to read the crayons so I knew what colors I was using.
This next bit is a little touchy and I'm not sure how I feel about letting the world know about it but whatever I'll deal with it.
I lost my virginity around that same time period aged 5 or 6. I can't remember exactly when.
OH MY GOD!!!! I can hear coming from all over the world as people read this. First, no I wasn't abused. I've went to see a therapist about this and he agrees. I wasn't abused. People seem to think that because I was so young that I must have been abused. Wrong. I was told about sex and masturbation by one of my best friends at the time. Now my therapist figures that my friend may have been abused. I think he just came from a liberal household. I still know him and the family and I'm 99 percent sure there wasn't any abuse going on. He said he found his dads "Better sex" book, with pictures and stories and I believe him.
So, found out what sex was, decided to try it. Neighborhood girl was into it. The rest is history. INB4: "You can't have sex that young!" Umm yes you can, so shut the fuck up.
My parents never had a clue any of this was happening.
This was also the time period I learned that lying was easy. It also allowed me to get in less trouble.
I continued being raised Mormon and hated just about every moment of it.
My older sister, when I was younger, used to thrive on tormenting me, and manipulating my mother at the same time so that it would be my fault. When I mean my fault, I mean I got in deep shit for stuff I never did.
For instance my family was driving across Canada to go see my grandfather in Ontario. My sister decides that she is bored and wedges her shoe under my seat so that it is pushing up on my ass. I growl and groan till my mom turns around and tells my sister to stop it. My sister than shows my mother her feat saying she can't be doing it. I get pulled out of the car and spanked for lying and trying to get my sister in trouble. I rode the rest of the day with a shoe being shoved up my ass, after all, I was just "imagining" it.
This started when I was about 7 and went till my sister moved away when I was 14. It was a daily thing. My mother would always side with my sister because she was the good little angel that never got in trouble. I hate when parents play favorites. (this is the time period that I tried to commit suicide)
My teen years were spent living 2 lives. I was the Mormon child my mother wanted me to be at home. However, at school I was a little tyrant and did whatever the hell I felt like. I was a good student as well so I got away with just about everything. (I'm talking about drinking rye and coke then having sex on a Sunday type everything)
Every once in a while those lives would run into each other and I'd have to do damage control, lie here, manipulate there. It all got so very tiresome.
When I was 14 I started fainting. I know "Manly" right. Well, they couldn't figure out what was causing it. So my mother accused me of faking it for attention. 2 years later, still trying to figure out what is wrong with me and my mother thoroughly convinced now that I'm faking it. I roll my parents mini-van off of a cliff. (The firemen, first on the scene, were getting the jaws of life ready, when I told them I was the only one in the vehicle, the paramedics laughed a lot when they saw I was wearing a superman T-shirt)
I was diagnosed with exercise induced
Neurally Mediated Syncope. I'm way to lazy to explain it but, the doctor wanted to give me a pacemaker.... at 16. I said no and lost my license for a year till I went back and passed the tilt table test. Which I had failed, with record time, the first time through. (the test takes an hour, I failed in 46 seconds the first time through,)
I grew out of it and eventually turned 19.
I was called to serve my mission in London England. I went to the Preston missionary training center in England. I lasted roughly 11 days before I said "Fuck this! I'm sick of doing things to keep my mother happy." and ended that second life and just continued on with the other one. I also decided that lying was something I wasn't going to do anymore.
This is where my relationship with my mother becomes strained. This is when I told my mother the truth. This is when she cried a lot. This is when she started telling me that I'm going to hell. (I know Mormons don't believe in hell, but it's the same thing)
My mother has openly told me that as long as I'm dating a woman that isn't Mormon she will not approve. My mom writes me a letter every year trying to guilt trip me to going back to church. My mother blames me for my sisters leaving the church. My mother won't let my 9 yr old brother out of her sight because she thinks that he will have the same sexual experiences I did as a child.
My mother has openly admitted that she is delusional, but likes the delusions because without them she wouldn't want to live.
My Mother is sarcastic but not in a nice funny way. My friends and extended family consider her a bitch. One of the biggest, she isn't very good at veiling her hatred. I don't even know if she tries to. She doesn't like anything or anyone that fucks with her family. Which is awkward when it is me she says is fucking with her family.
I love my mother because she is my mother and did a decent job of raising me, but I don't like my mother because of what and who she is.
I don't' know if I did a very good job about explaining my Mother. I guess all I can do is tell you about my childhood from my perspective and hope you understand.
My father, however little of a parental influence on me he had, was awesome. Still is awesome, he took me camping, fishing and all the normal stuff fathers are supposed to do with their sons. How such a cool guy got stuck with my mother I will never know. I'm pretty sure my father would have left my mother a long time ago if it wasn't for us kids.
