Crutches

My mother used to give her "testimony" at church. She would say that she'd believe in her "proud" youth that "religion was a crutch for those that need it". Then she would go on to talk about a night in her later thirties when she'd first committed my father, and was alone in a car after doing so, on the side of the road, crying, when she became a christian. She said she happily used crutches from that point on.

I actually believe that everyone has a crutch. Or several. But they scare me. You see, crutches can be used to hold someone up. They can also be used to beat someone down.

Both of my parents beat me with their crutches. My mother used her crutch of fear when I was a teenager to control me. Now, I'm not saying that parent's shouldn't control teenagers. I'm not. But there is a fine line between good parenting and controlling weirdo. My mother crossed it. She crossed it out of fear. She was terrified that something would happen to me, and I would die. I'm a diabetic and have been since I was 10. From the time I was diagnosed, she let her fear control my life. I wasn't allowed to play sports because I was a diabetic and could have a low blood sugar and die. I wasn't allowed to go on field trips because I might forget to take my insulin without her to tell me and die.She sat outside of every high school function I went to in case something might happen, and she'd need to be there. She told me repeatedly that I would never live a full and long life. It was her fear talking. But then her fear ruled her. She didn't live a full life, because she was afraid to.

My father's crutch was manic depression. And he bludgeoned our family with it. If the world got to hard, you could count on Bob to attempt suicide & get committed. When he wasn't doing that, he'd be on a "high" blowing the rent money on shirts & shiny presents, and then moving us when the landlord kicked us out. He also lived for a bit of illicit thrill. He enjoyed hanging out with "bad boys", and acting like a teenager. I remember one summer when I was little, we were hurriedly shipped off to my grandmother's & aunt's for a long time, and I don't know why, but I found out later (from what little my grandmother would tell me) that something my father did ended up with us having to move & the family receiving death threats. To the day she died my mother wouldn't tell me what happened. But that was Bob. He didn't stop to think about the consequences of his actions, and then when the shit hit the fan, he'd go mental until the coast was clear and someone else had cleaned up the mess.

Last night & this morning, I realized that I'm afraid of the crutches of those around me, whether they are poised over my head or not. The fact that they exist makes me afraid. And yet, I know that everyone has them. Everyone has crutches. The real difference is that not everyone hits other people with their crutches. Some people actually use their crutches to prop themselves up until they don't need that crutch anymore. Because of my childhood though, I live in fear that one of these days, that crutch might just get raised to whack me in the head.

Maybe that's one of my crutches? I wonder if the first step in the process of laying down a crutch is simply noticing that its there?