More on normal in my childhood

I remember my mom shoving my head down into the toilet because I was crying when I was sick and throwing up. I don't ever throw up anymore now. I stop it from happening no matter how sick I get. I know she can't hurt me anymore but it just brings up too many bad memories so I don't let myself throw up.

Also when we were sick my mother would give us enemas. They were these huge things. This great big bag full of water. It would hurt really bad to take in all that water and hold it. But if we didn't she threatened us. We learned to do the enemas ourselves because then we didn't have to deal with her.

She would fill the bag and put the thing in , give us the tube with the little clamp and then she would leave. We (the we here refers to me and my siblings) would control the flow of water until we had all that water inside. Then we would hold it until we wanted to cry out loud and could no longer stand the pain before letting the water come out. That was the way we learned it was supposed to be. She would come back in and tell us how proud she was of us. We needed her to be proud of us to survive.

It wasn't until I was an adult after having my first baby that I learned this practice was abusive. A nurse told me I was going to have an enema and she came in with this little thing. I told her about the enemas we were given as children. It was then I learned how big and dangerous those enemas were.We were lucky we hadn't perforated our intestines and died. All of us to this day have problems with our intestinal tracts.

In Sybil her mother tied her to the leg of a piano and then did what the author described as a water torture enema to her. My mother taught us to torture ourselves. She must have really laughed at us all being so stupid! What control she had over us. Lots of people don't understand mind control. But I do, I lived with it and to learn to get out from underneath it's power over me, I had to understand it well.

So these are the kinds of things I have always remembered about my childhood. These weren't memories dredged up in therapy. I grew up believing that this behavior was normal. That everyone did this kind of stuff. That was part of power over us, the belief that it was normal and normal meant OK.

Today I think about this and it makes me very sad. My brothers and sister still believe that this is normal! They are the ones that let my mother tie up and gag my children. The reason I know is because they told me when I confronted my mother about her behavior. I told her that tying and gagging kids was not appropriate. That it could cause severe psychological damage. My siblings said I was the one that was not appropriate. They kicked me out of the family.

I'm sorry if this information is upsetting to anyone. I don't share it to upset people, only so that people will know you can heal from anything if you want. And another important part to me, I am who I am today because of my history. That's pretty important stuff.

multiple personality disorder MPD dissociative Identity disorder did