Being home-schooled was isolating enough, but you add the the mixture that we moved every 6-12 months and you realize that socializing was a rare thing. I was surrounded by brothers, who after a certain point didn't want their sister playing with them. So I spent a great deal of time in my own head. I would walk the neighborhood or lay in bed day dreaming. I mainly dreamed about getting to meet my grandparents. We never saw my dads side of the family. When I was little I use to ask my mom why? She told me they weren't nice to us, and that she was protecting us. But I dreamed about them. I wanted to be held by them to be loved and to have a family. I dreamed about going to school as well. Having friends, and eating a normal lunch, having recess, but most of all I wanted to learn to read.
My mom spent more of her time locked up in her room drawing. She would draw houses, big beautiful multimillion dollar houses. When she was done we would show me, and tell me God had told her that we would have lots of money one day, and that she was designing our future house. As a kid I dreamed of living in a big beautiful house, but as I got older all I wanted to to stop moving and live anywhere as long as I didn't have to move.
To this day I don't know what the truth is about our moves... My dad was rarely home, and he bounced between jobs, but always went back to more for my Mom's dad. I do know they left a string of debts where ever they went and often didn't pay rent. From a young age I was scared. I was scared of being kicked out of my home, of not having a home. Home and family thats all I wanted.
But this leads me back to God... God was my best friend, I feared him, thats what the bible said "to be God fearing." But when you have to friends, and absent parents who do you talk to? God. I had so much faith in God, I prayed all the time. Prayed that I would get to see the Pedersen side of the family, prayed that we wouldn't move anymore, prayed that I would get to go to school so that I could learn, I prayed God would let me now how to read, that he would make me beautiful, that my parents would love each other etc. You see my mom taught me that if you pray God will send miracles. The part she left out was, the "after YOU have done all you can do." So I would pray and pray, and my little 11 year old heart would weep begging God for miracles that never came.
I was 12 the day I realized that God would never magically just send me the ability to read. I came home from church crying that everyone made fun of me for not knowing how to read. I went straight to my room, and began to pray, to cry and beg the Lord to let me know how to read. When I finished i felt empty. I didn't cry anymore after that day. I knew God wasn't going to teach me to read, and I set about teaching myself.
My mom told me a few months later when I was reading fairly well, she said "See I told you that when the time was right you would learn how to read. No point forcing kids to go to school and make them learn things before they are ready."
That was my mothers whole parenting style: Kids will learn when they decide they want to. HA! I think of the humiliations I suffered as a kid because I couldn't read, because I didn't go to school, because of how dirty we were, and that was her response. I was so torn as a kid, because I wanted friends so badly, but then I didn't want anyone to come over because of how disgusting the house was.
I think this is were the self loathing started was with the house. I hated the feeling of living in dirt, and I would clean and try and help, but I was also a kid that didn't want to clean. My mind had inner battles from a young age. I hated myself for not spending more time cleaning. I hated myself for not having the will power to clean the house everyday, and I only made my siblings mad when I yelled at them to help me clean.
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