Therapist Homework..

To anyone listening,

So I had an assignment last week.  It was very hard choosing just 10 and I think the hard ones were too hard to write out.  Here goes nothing...

10 early memories before the age of 10 years old

Step 1 specific day when a specific thing happened

-Then describe the memory in as much detail as possible

-Then what stands out in my mind

-Finally, what feelings do I associate with the memory….

1) I was 4 years old and my mom was singing and dancing.

 -We were sitting in the backroom of the house and she came out in black tap shoes and danced on the tile floor near the backdoor.  My father wasn’t home so she could be goofy with us.  She sang “It’s the Little Old Lady From Pasadena” but dressed up a red balloon with a thin scarf in plaid colors around it’s head and drew a happy face on it and acted like it was singing to us.

-The balloon with the face & her acting super goofy in her black tap shoes

-laughter because she made me smile, fear my father would come home, sad because, for some reason, I knew she was drunk

  

2)  I was 5 and I was taken into a car by a strange man.  

   -I was walking home from kindergarten with a huge back pack on. It was               

pink. I took the busier way home next to the busy street along Grand                   Ave.  My mother was supposed to pick me up but I knew she wasn’t going to by then for some reason.  I was walking right past the local grocery store and a Hispanic man screaked up along side of me and came out of the driver’s side car with it still running.  I grabbed on to a light post near me.  He yanked me hard by my backpack.  I was crying so hard.  He opened the backseat and my mom was in it, drunk.  I remember thinking that I was happy she was there but how could she do this to me.  We drove to our house and he threw me in the backroom and they had sex in the front room.  I had drawn my mom a picture that day and tore it up and put my hands over my ears and rocked back and forth and cried.

-grabbing my backpack and hanging onto the pole, the picture I drew, and rocking back and forth in the backroom

-terrified when the guy pulled up, mad when it was another one of my mom’s “boyfriends” and I felt heartbroken and scared when all that happened at home

3)  I was 4 years old and my mom and siblings and I laid in the living room to go to sleep.

    -We were all sleeping cuddled tight on a thick, plastic mat.  We had no sheets.  There was a bar on one side of the wall. There were wood paneled walls with swords crisscrossed on the other wall.  The furniture was like a black velvet and there was some red in the room that I can’t quite place were.  There was shag carpet on the floor and the wall behind the bar was all mirrors with some cracked and I remember knowing they were from my dad smashing my mom’s head through it. There was a black rotary phone on the bar and an ashtray and jewelry box.  I remember seeing a shadow in the hallway with the outline of a man.  I knew it was my father but have no recollection of seeing his face prior to the foster homes. My mother whispered to us not to make a sound and to cover our mouths.  The shadow stopped and then went into his bedroom and my mom took a huge sigh of relief.

-the black mat, the shadow in the hallway

-I felt confused and scared

4) Hiding upstairs from my dad

-My dad came home and my mother told us to run upstairs and hide.  We all looked over the wall at the top of the stairs and watched.  My dad started screaming at my mom about alcohol and spending all our food money on booze.  He took her by the throat and slammed her against the wall closest to the hallway.  We couldn’t see my dad except for his hand.  He started throwing bottles of different places she his bottles and the last one was inside the organ we had. He threw it at her and swore he would kill her.

-the look on my mom’s face, finding the bottle inside the organ

-scared, I wanted to take her place and protect her

5) I was 6 and just got home from the foster homes.

- I remember not saying a word on the way home in the station wagon.  I remember my brother not speaking either and we both sat in the back of the car.

My dad brought us into the house.  It looked completely different for some reason.  He had us sleep on the bed in his room.  The only time I remembered being in there was going through my mom’s pretty purses or going in there to put cotton balls in my ears for an earache.  We were NEVER allowed in there. There was a black and blue comforter all made up.  I slept on the side of the bed and let my brother have the bed.  I looked at this oil painting lit up of the Last Supper. I just kept staring. I didn’t sleep all night.

-the painting stands out

-I felt scared and alone

6) I was 5 going in my second foster home with my brother.

-We came in and when the social worker left, they were very mean and immediately told us to make our beds and if it wasn’t straight enough, they hit us.  Especially the father.  We ate dinner and it was duck.  I threw it up and he made me eat the vomit and then I he banged my head into the corner of the wall to stand there.  After dinner, he watched Days Of Our Lives and our dessert from the mom was candy canes.  The father told us we couldn’t eat them and put them next to his grey recliner.  We had to stay behind the recliner everyday and I still hate that tv theme song.  I remember trying to reach for the candy cane because I was so hungry and he yelled at me and hit me.

-The TV show theme and the hour glass, the flowers on the kitchen table, the brown kitchen chairs and cabinets, the bedroom sheets, and the candy cane

-scared, worthless, stupid

7)  I was 7 going to a family reunion.

-I was wearing a white shirt and shorts that matched and had white flowers along the borders.  I remember really wanting to wear it because it was new and pretty.  It made me feel pretty.  My sister didn’t want me to wear it because I might stain it.  I was standing in the backroom by the backdoor and my father looked at me and said that I looked so ugly.  I was so fat and would embarrass the family.  Who would want you if you always looked like that for the rest of your life.  At the party, I hid behind a try with just a small piece of fruit on my plate.

-the white outfit, the look on my dad’s face and his voice when he said those things, staring at the Styrofoam plate

-I felt like he was right about how I looked, I felt ridiculous, small, like I wanted to hide myself

8)  I was 5 meeting the new foster family all by myself for the first time.

-The social worker sat next to me on the protruding lip at the bottom of the fireplace.  I wouldn’t dare look up or say a word.  The mom tried to give me some vanilla ice cream with fudge on it in a glass little bowl.  I had my head down and just watched it melt.  I was too scared of being punished for eating it.  She sat across from us with her hands grasped together and sitting on a short chair trying to ask me questions in a very sweet voice.  When the social worker left, I cried.  I was incredibly scared and didn’t have my brother this time to protect me.  She had me change into my pajamas and put me on the lower bunk of her son Zach’s bed.  His room was full of Legos. He would ask me from above what toys I liked and I didn’t answer.  She came in shortly after and tucked me in.  She took out a Dr. Seuss book and she read to me.  Something I never thought anyone would actually do.  She read the book with the animals with the yellow stars of their tummy.

- The book, the Legos, and the ice cream

-scared but safe

9) I was 5 years old and leaving the foster family’s house.

They dressed me in this beautiful red velvet dress, told me how pretty I looked, and played Hungry Hungry Hippos with me.  They let me keep my favorite white elephant stuffed animal and this little brown bear pin holding balloons in a green velvet box that I had told her I loved before.  We got into the car.  She was in the front seat with her husband and she started to cry.  He reached over and grabbed her hand and she looked back at him.  She looked back and me and with tears in her eyes, she smiled.  The last song we heard together was Stand By Me and when the car door opened, I looked at Hepzibah and didn’t want to go and hung on to her so tight.  The song was still playing and she told me she will always love me and I was grabbing her hand so tightly when someone pulled us apart and led me inside.

-the dress stands out, the song stands out, the game stands out, and they way they held hands in the car

- I felt sad, confused, lost, scared again, and I was leaving where I finally belonged

10) It was the first day at Hepzibah.

-I went up to the building.  It was white inside and there was a cafeteria in another room to my right and a sitting area to my left with a couch and tv.  They told me to sit down and gave me coloring books and beads.  The social worker whispered with staff about me.  I remember this older, thinner man being my favorite counselor because he was funny and sat with me. I mad a clear beaded necklace and a drawing that read on one side.. “today I am sad” with frowny face and then on the other side it said “and soon I will be happy” with a smiley face.  I was taken into the room with all the other girls and bunk beds.  They tried to steal all of my stuff and one girl took my red velvet dress.  They made fun of me and said how ugly and fat I was.  They were very mean to me.  I put that drawing pinned on my side of the bulletin board.  The girls kept trying to tear it down but I protected it.  My brother came and he said so he looked cool in front of the boys, he had to ignore me.  I wasn’t cool enough.  I had never taken a shower before, only baths.  I was terrified of the water hitting the top of my head like that too. I remember them very forcefully removing my clothes and pushing me into the shower and holding both sides of the curtain so I couldn’t get out.  I had no idea what to do in the shower so I just stood under the water crying.

-the girls making fun of me, the necklace, the counselor, my brother, the shower

-scared, rejected, worthless, stupid