My father was, and all without the benefit of adding alcohol. He did it sober.

mine too. did it sober

Shummy Wrote:
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> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rageaholic

Sometimes...when I didn't get the part that I had gone on the cattle call for.

My Mom was depending on me to become the next national kid star so that I could earn the money that would bring with it a higher, and much easier, standard of living for our family.[*]

My uncle was a film director and knew "everyone" in "town," so there were several years when I went to every cattle call in the industry that was for a girl in my age range. I would do fine in most of those (sometimes REALLY well...I really DID have everyone "with me")...right up until the time (the close of the audition) when I submitted my photo portfolio, and I could see the adult faces around the auditioning "circle" fall. (Underneath my facial skin are my Grandma's German bones, and they photograph differently than I actually look, in a business where photography/film is the name of the game.)

When my Mom learned that, once again, I did not get the part, she would go ballistic with disappointment (she really thought that I would be a newly-revised version of Shirley Temple), and most of the time these episodes concluded with me on the kitchen floor and her kicking me (hard!!!) in the stomach, around the floor, as she screamed at me.

I am photo-phobic to this day. If "it" (whatever "it" is) involves photos, I will NOT do it.

[*] This has always been true in "Hollywood" (whether film Hollywood, or TV Hollywood, or recording industry Hollywood): When you see a child (means: under 18) actor or other performer, the chances are very good that their employment is financially supporting their family...and they DO know this, every waking second of every day (and frequently in their nightmares as well). If they lose a part, or their series gets cancelled, their family has just lost its (probably total, or near-total) income...and there are plenty of kids who start their careers as beautiful, or appealingly cute, infants.

That sounds worse than just child abuse, Tevai. As if that weren't bad enough on its own. Just horrible what you endured growing up.

My mother was an actress for much of her life, albeit a frustrated one who married young and had lots of children by the time she was 30. So she taught drama and speech as a substitute teacher at our local high school. Stake drama director for about a couple of years or so when I was a child.

She hated competition from her children in the performing arts. Just hated it if we ever outshone her in anything we tried to do.

One of my brothers got a walk through part as an extra in the Airport film shot on location in Salt Lake City, mid 1970's. Mom drove him to the audition. Then after he got the part she became just jealous that he got one over her (she'd auditioned for a part there and did not get one.) That she refused to drive him to the filming of the scene.

Another time he had a starring role in a local play in Ogden. She got really jealous over his stealing the scene in a play she did have a part in, and that put an end to his acting career rather abruptly.

What you experienced there are no words for. It would leave anyone with scars for life and PTSD at best. And yet you forgave your mother if that's possible, and was there for her throughout her life. That's resilience.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2017 08:27PM by Amyjo.

With child abuse like that, it's no wonder former child stars sometimes end up as drug addicts and even die young.

For me, my TBM ex-husband was the rageaholic, and I've posted quite a lot about what I went through, but I'm just glad I got out before the abuse became physical.

Raged against the Dying of the Light. He only lived to age 39. That is incongruous with one of the greatest poets of all time.

"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

`

The only weapon that Satan has to tempt humans with is dopamine.

Discuss.

Oh, good one. Or oxytocanine, maybe?

My Mom, especially when ignited with alcohol. Bi-polar, alcoholic, rageaholic about summarizes her. However, when my Mom was around, we didn't have the neuroscience of brain chemistry that we do now. I'm of the persuasion that modern psychiatry would have helped a lot.

Peace and hugs to others who experienced this. The Boner.

One of the first things I was taught was to ask permission before doing "anything." I learned very quickly that there wasn't anything in this for me, because the answer was always "no." So, being an enterprising child, I learned to scale the back yard fence and roam the neighborhood, looking for other kids to play with. (Being an "only" isn't always a piece of cake.)

Looking back, I think I often wandered so far away that I could not have found my way home again, but I didn't care, as long as I found a group of kids to play with. Besides, sooner or later, Mother would find me, and the reunion was never a happy one. Her face would be contorted with rage and she would grab me with one hand (digging her fingers into my skin so hard that she often left bruises), and beat the daylights out of me all the way home.

Was this a deterrent? Not at all. It was part of the package deal. I escaped for a little while and had fun with other kids, and paid for it all the way home.

She snapped out orders, expecting to be obeyed like the Army officer that she had once been. I often failed to comply, either directly refusing, or passive-aggressively foot-dragging. We fought all the time. I remember my father saying once, "Can't you two ever knock it off? Sometimes I dread coming home."

But he would usually back her up, because at the time, parents were expected to "present a united front" against the kids. I would sometimes try to ask Dad for permission to do something, because he was far more likely to agree, but then there would be Hell to pay for us both. He learned to counter this move with "What did your mother say?" And of course, I would have to admit that I hadn't asked Mother.

Dad died when I was 15, and Mother, in her grief, began drinking. She would buy a six-pack of beer on the way home from work (she was an RN, working the 7 to 3 shift) and she would have finished the entire 6-pack by the time my grandmother put supper on the table around 5:00 or 5:30. I can remember hearing her bellow out "Bring me another beer!" in an increasingly slurred voice. Grandma was already busy, preparing supper, and I was well into homework (I was a good student, competitive as could be.)

I remember telling Mother once to get off her dead a$$ and get her own d@mned beer, because Grandma and I were both busy. I knew I could get away with it, because she was already so drunk that I could have taken her out with a fly-swatter. But this kind of stuff would escalate into such viciousness on both parts that it would upset my grandmother terribly. So, the only way to keep Mother from turning on Grandma, who was temperamentally incapable of fighting back, was to give her another beer.

Is it any wonder that I escaped to an "away" university as soon as I could? It was paradise.

My first husband was also an abuser, but I'm not up to writing about this any more. It hurts too much.

I never loved my mother. The kindest thing she ever did for me was die and leave me a fairly substantial inheritance.

I've tried hard to be a better mother than that.

Hi Catnip, I'm sorry you had to go through this! Yes, permission was a big deal for me too. After about 8th grade, I never dared bring friends home unless I cleared it--there were many embarrassing moments.

I don't know why I remember this so vividly, but one day I came home from high school hungry. For whatever reason, I decided to make some biscuits. We didn't have any Pillsbury, so, I decided to make my own as there are only a couple of ingredients.

I didn't hear my Mom come in, but she saw me and grabbed the bowl out of my hands and snapped, "That's not how you do it!"

When she was drunk, she'd snort while talking to herself, and her lips would curl up as she snapped. And, her eyes! I still remember the look. Although I don't remember the rest, I'd surmise that there had been a big blowout when my Dad came home.

Well alcohol isn't necessary at all, dry rage is plenty.

Me own farmer Poppa took his out on hapless beasts sparing me his infrequent backhand.

Hugs, Man! I know what it was like, and it was abuse. Boner-Man.

My dad had no problem killing livestock. To this day I have never been able to butcher an animal.

My mom could as well. She butchered the only goose to survive two flocks of geese getting massacred by the neighborhood pack of dogs, when she needed the meat for Thanksgiving one year.

He was our pet! He wasn't any goose. And smart.

My parents raged at each other throughout their marriage. They loved each other. They hated each other. Our childhood was anything but idyllic. Mom's and dad's fighting skewed that for us kids.

It was really a relief when they finally decided to divorce. As hard as that was on our family with all the fallout - it was better because they were no longer at war with each other.

My dad was. To this day, I have very little way of knowing if he was mostly an abstaining, untreated alcoholic (and that pissed him off), or, if the reason it typically took him a couple of hours to make the 20-minute drive home after work because of "other" women, hidden booze, or both.

I could never figure out why he would tear the house apart and beat us. One day it was because the creamed peas mom made weren't hot enough, a condition that couldn't even register in my little girl mind (7-8 yrs old) as we cleaned dinner off of the walls and floor, broken glass and all. It didn't matter what or who he blamed; if he was in a bad mood, I knew how it would end.

It took years to really learn how to hate him properly, and by then, he was dead.

Keep in mind that me Pop was of another era.

Horses were more like machinery than the way we treat them actually. He once plowed with horses and detested them. I had to borrow a neighbor's horse to learn to ride as he would have none.

Besides slaughtering animals to feed his family with, when dad had a sick, injured, or disabled livestock he would shoot it with his rifle.

That seemed very cruel to me.

I tried to stop him from executing a piglet who was crippled, and he killed it anyway. It was very upsetting to have to witness that.

I was able to save two bum lambs one year - one was fine to be bottle fed. The other couldn't swallow. So I worked with it to get her to drink her bottle. Dad would've killed her otherwise. Because I saved her, she became mine to sell. So I traded both bum lambs for my AKC Pomeranian puppy.

Only time I witnessed dad raging over an animal was when my Siamese cat ate his prized canary. He must've blamed me too, because he made me carry the cat in a box on my lap with her kittens to the mountains near our home, where he turned them all loose. I never got over that. I had her from a kitten. That was cruel and unusual punishment to us both.

He apologized after I was an adult, but as much as I forgive him, the damage was already done. Muffy wasn't coming back.

The cruelty that some parents have inflicted - just because they COULD - is staggering.

I remember my best friend telling me back in 8th grade that she had to stay in her room for hours at a time because her father didn't feel like wearing clothes that day. He was one VERY weird dude.

but now that he's developing dementia, it's really ramping up. He can be fine for days, but then any little thing can set him off, mostly losing things. He's forever mislaying everything--TV remote, glasses, keys, wallet, you name it. The longer he searches, the more belligerent he gets. His paranoia takes over and he accuses me or another family member of "hiding" things from him, insists he's going to move out of the house, threatens to "get even" with us. These tantrums can last for hours, and because of his odd sleep habits, he can be up and feisty late at night or early in the morning, before you have a chance to get your wits together. Really is taking a toll on my elderly mother as well.

My parents had their times they were mean. My dad could be very mean. I was afraid of him when I was really young. Two of my brothers got the worst of it. My disabled brother was pretty much spared. He made peace with one of my brothers, but not the other.

My mother was unpredictable. She had too much on her plate and I know she suffered from depression and anxiety, but wouldn't take medications as she was from that "era." But to act like some of the ones above, hell no.

Now, my kids think I'm a rageaholic, at least my daughter does. I rage about once a year when they push me so far that I just lose it. They used to use my work computer when they weren't supposed to and get viruses on it. I'd ask them and ask them and ask them not to use it, but they would anyway. Then when I'd get upset, they'd think I was the bad guy. It was my way of earning money and yet they wouldn't listen. My daughter told me once to just tell them before I lost my temper and I said, "I DO!" I've found that my kids don't hear me no matter what I do.

My sisters yell everyday. My older sister is a control freak and did yell everyday at her kids. They all ran away from home in high school. One never did go home after running away as a senior. My mother yelled quite a bit, but nothing like my older sister did and does. She doesn't realize she yells as it is just her regular self.

I think I should have yelled more. Maybe they wouldn't have been so shocked when I did. I worked really hard at not losing my temper with my kids. So much for that. I'm not allowed to tell either of them when they do something that bothers me. I do believe I spoiled them in trying to compensate for their dad leaving.

I'm sorry for all the abuse you guys suffered.

((((Tevai)))))

Angry grandpa, anyone? great example of a bipolar rageaholic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angry_Grandpa

My ex-wife and her father.