My Life Unknown Reading Jeannette Walls’ memoir, The Glass Castle, I really got a feel of what one person’s life is about, of someone who I do not even know. That may be the reason why the book interested me so much. Hearing about all of those crazy experiences she has gone through and the way she overcame them is really something special. Talking about personal issues and overcoming challenges in life is something hard to do, but writing it all down and making a book about it for the whole world to read, is something I probably could never have the courage to do.
While I am currently a senior in high school at age 18, I am now discovering that more people than I thought have their own little life secrets. People always think that I seem well off, which I am, but I do not think that they ever expect me to have anything interesting in my life. Overcoming adversity for Jeanette from having a bad relationship with her Mom parallels to my life due to not having a “perfect” relationship with my parents either; in addition to bad relationships, having confidence issues is something I have really struggled with and have had to also overcome in my pre-adulthood.
When I was born, my Mom became supermom. My Dad had absolutely nothing to do with me from birth to when I turned 15 years old. I grew up with my Mom, and my one older sister. My Mom always had a really good friend whom I called my aunt, who helped her out for years and years. I became very close with her, and she would always help pay for expenses and would always come to extracurricular activities. Let’s rewind to my Mom’s life before kids. My mom did not live in a very good situation. Her Mom had 3 different men in her life and 4 kids from 2 different men. My Grandma slept with a guy at a party hen she was dating somebody at the time, and got pregnant with my Mom.
My Mom never knew her Dad and grew up thinking that her step dad was her actual Dad. When I was 4, my Grandma was dying of lung cancer when she told my Mom about her real Father. I never knew my Grandma, but I wish | had because I think I would be a different person today if I had a relationship with her. My Mom had 3 girls with 2 different men. Her first husband, was a no-good Father who went to prison so they got a divorce. My oldest sister left my Mom to live with her Grandma who bribed her into living with her, and my Mother was too young and dumb to stop it.
I was an oopsy. At my Mom’s current job, she met a man who she must have had an affair with, and that is how I got here. I guess at the time my Mom thought she could raise me on her own and did not even try to get my Dad to be in my life. My Mom has had multiple boyfriends and potential husbands walk in and out of her life, but still has no luck with guys, and I keep hoping to myself that if she did, then she would be completely different. So, I guess you could understand why my Mom is not very loving towards me. She expresses feelings in a very odd way, and never really expresses her feelings to me face to face.
From what I understand, she treated my Grandmother poorly when she was young, and her regrets have affected her from when I was young, and still today. She faces depression and anxiety every day and is always on all sorts of medications. Because of this, we do not have a very good relationship. My older sisters were not exactly good examples on me, so my Mom really pushed me throughout school to not turn out like them. She was always on my case about absolutely everything I did. She would not even let me do certain activities that my friends were allowed to do, and this is what started our less than normal relationship.
I never understood why it seemed like she never trusted me. I was constantly always striving to be the best; I always had good grades, and I never did anything bad as a kid, even in high school. I felt like I earned her respect, but she was not giving it to me. We would fight almost every day. There has been times where she has hit my face and even pulled my hair. To be honest, there was not much reason for it other than she was always so stressed out when she got home from work and I was the only one living at home at the time because my older sister moved out after high school, so I was the only one she could yell at.
It came to the point where it would not stop at all. Even though I knew my Mom wanted what was best for me and only wanted me to make the right decisions, it never felt that way. On top of physical abuse, she called me names. I know she didn’t mean the words she said to me, but it started getting to me. It sucked because I had absolutely nobody to run to when me and my Mom got into huge fights. Yes, I had friends, but their lives were no less than perfect, so what was the point? I think going into High school freshman year was when the fights started to affect me more, and I seeked for love from someone, even though I knew my Mom loved me.