I awoke from my sleep abruptly at 4:50 a.m. this morning. I was suddenly remembering an oppressed memory from my childhood. I work hard to forget my past. Why does this still happen to me? Will it ever stop?

Over and over again during my childhood something very disturbing happened. I would sit motionless on the floor while my mother sat in a chair. She would rock back and forth with her upper body in the chair, her mouth opening and closing. She would stare directly at me while doing this. I had to sit on the floor, my head bowed and my eyes to the ground. If I looked up at her or moved even the slightest or made any sound, she would get out of her chair and start screaming at me and hitting me with her fists. This would go on for hours every day. I was kept out of school many days so that my mother could do this to me. I never understood why it happened. I guess it was a part of my mother's mental illness: schizophrenia with narcissism.

My two brothers and two sisters were usually not at home. They were at the houses of friends or at school or at after-school programs like band practice or attending 4-H meetings or at the county fair with their animals or out riding their horses or at horse shows. They had friends. They were allowed to go places and do things. They could talk with other people. They would go to the houses of friends and stay there, even sleep there overnight, for whole weeks at a time and on weekends. I was treated differently, and I don't know why. My brothers and sisters did not play with me. They did not speak to me. I still don't even know when their birthdays are or other details about them that I should know, because they never spoke with me. How strange that is, to grow up with brothers and sisters in the same family and never speak with them. I was not allowed to leave the property on which we lived. I was not allowed to speak to people in the neighborhood or at school. I was not allowed to run, play, laugh, have fun, or smile - if I was caught doing any of these things, I would be punished severely with beatings and screaming tirades that would go on for hours, and I would be denied food for the next several days.

My father hated me. We never had a conversation. He made it very clear that I was never to anywhere near him. I could not be in a room when he was in it. Many times I could not be inside the house when he was home. I had to stay outside and sneak back inside after he had gone to bed. Whenever my brothers and sisters had fights with each other over who got what bedroom in the house or other disagreements, my father would find me and punish me for it. It didn't matter that I wasn't a part of the fight. My father had a cruelty streak in him that came out whenever he was near me. I was his whipping boy and his scapegoat. He never played with me. He never took me fishing or to a game or did anything with me. He only expressed his hatred for me and his anger at me for my existing.

There was something very wrong with my mother that went far beyond mere mental illness. Her cruelty and her control over me was un-human. Whenever I had to go to the bathroom, she would burst into the bathroom within a few seconds after I had closed the door and she would insist on using the toilet at the same time as me, so I learned to only go to the bathroom when she was asleep. Later, during my teenage years, my mother developed the habit of not flushing the toilet, and after she would leave the bathroom, she would scream at me to go flush the toilet for her. When I would get home from school, I had to go to the bathroom and flush the toilet for her, because she would use it while I was away and leave it unflushed all day. This is all so disturbing and I wish it was not in my memories.

When we got home from school, my younger brother would talk excitedly with my mother about how his day at school had been. I had to remain silent and I was not allowed to talk about how my day had been. Not that it mattered. After all, I was not even a person in my family. I was this unwelcome thing that was only tolerated because it allowed my mother to get a bigger welfare check. I hate welfare.

I feel like a freak. I feel like a bad person. I feel so alone and lonely. I feel like life has punished me for something I did not do and continues to punish me even now. I accept that life isn't fair. It just seems that it shouldn't be quite this weird.

I had to get this all out or go crazy. I can't sleep. I probably won't be able to sleep again tonight.

I have a confession to make. I started another group on this website called A Laughter Club. I started it for several reasons. First, I am a lonely person with no friends in the physical world. The loneliness hurts, and having something to keep my mind off it helps me to deal with the pain. Second, I really don't know how to laugh and play and have fun, so I thought I would try to learn how by starting the group. I haven't learned much, as I had hoped to do. I am still just going through the motions of being a person. Nothing seems real to me. Life is a nightmare that I can't wake up from. I have had this lifelong secret wish that someone would rescue me from all of this, but at the same time, I know that I would run away from anyone who tried to rescue me because of my fear of people. At this moment I feel very damaged.