Just Be There Blog

1) The making of a Throwaway Person

The throw away person. (1) Creation of the Throwaway Person.

According to my mother, I was a very deeply loved child. Yet,...

One of my earliest memories is so Freudian it makes me laugh. It has to do with "potty training." Actually, the memory isn't as Freud described it, it had nothing to do with sexual impulse, per se; but everything to do with personal control and ego. My earliest training did have to do with personal power. Recently, I made a joking comment that my potty training was beat into me by my mother. I laughed about it, but took notice that the person I said it to didn't laugh. I ignored her response and we went on to other topics of conversation.

My memory is such that, I think I was between four and five years old the last time I "wet the bed". Is that pretty late? I know, for all intents and purposes, I was potty trained enough to not be wearing diapers at that age, not even to bed. But, accidents do happen...right?

I remember the dream I had before I was rudely awakened by a frustrated screaming mother with a belt.

In my dream, I'd gotten up and gone to the bathroom like a good little girl, only I forgot to pull my pajama bottoms down before I sat on the toilet. My maternal grandma was with my mother in my dream and I was getting cleaned up with the admonitions of, "don't cry, it is easily cleaned up."

Then I'm awakened by my mother pulling the covers off of me and screaming that I've ruined the mattress and I'm too old to be wetting the bed. She starts hitting me with the belt and the last thing I remember is trying to hide under the bed to get away from the belt. As painful as this memory is to read, I can tell you I've never wet the bed again. Whenever I had/have that dream, which has proven to still happen to this day, I wake myself up before I sit on the toilet still wearing my pajamas.

This memory is from fall of 1959 or the spring of 1960. (I think) My 1-1/2 to 2 (?) year old sister was sharing the bedroom with me and I think my second sister was brand new and sleeping in Mom's room. My first sister still wore diapers to bed and slept in a crib that didn't have the side on it. My Mother was between 20 and 21 years old with three babies. The perfect "environmental conditions" for emotional volcanic eruptions.

I don't remember my sisters all that well at this age. I can barely remember them being around. I know they had to be there, though, because they were born in 1957 and 1959.

I do remember my Daddy Jerry, my second sister's daddy. Once, he rescued me from the driveway after I stepped on a piece of glass, and I remember when he tried to teach me how to swallow a 1 a Day vitamin rather than chew it.

The point being, I don't remember "my" father first...He was out of my life before I was 2 years old. And, my first memories of my step-father are all fun and good memories. So why, if my mother loved me so very much, why are my first memories of her so brutal? She never had (took) the time to show me her boundless love. I was either another burden (in which case I'd been bad in some way) or, if I was being good, I wasn't in need of attention.

I can remember my two cousins, Donny and Kenny, more than I can remember my sisters. Donny was older and Kenny was born a month before me. We pretty much grew up together. I think I've always been closer to my cousins than my own sisters.

At my age now, this is what I get from this memory. 1) I can see where my own temper (my expression of rage) comes from. I have inherited my mother's 21 year old, out of control temper. She taught me, literally, how to behave when enraged. 2) My mother taught me the consequences of what happens if I misbehave. The result wasn't to encourage me from doing things I knew would displease my mother, but rather to get pretty sneaky about doing things I thought "might" displease my mother. (That brings up a whole other set of memories.) 3) She didn't beat down my ego. I admit, I have a very strong and powerful ego. The more she tried to dominate me the more I resisted her domination. Yet, like I said, I didn't wet the bed after that last "whipping." Instead, I learned that when my pajama/toilet dream happens I need to wake up and make a bathroom run. At age four that is some awesome personal power!

As an adult, I once asked my mother, how hard was I to potty train? Her answer was, not very hard at all; it seems, she remembers that I disliked having wet diapers so I was eager to use the toilet and learned quickly. Of course, she doesn't remember ever "beating" me for wetting the bed. And, from her perspective, my spankings probably weren't beatings. But five or six or more hits with a belt on wet pajamas would be a more intense memory for a toddler than the enraged adult delivering the punishment.