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My entire childhood sucked. It wasn't one day or one event, it was the whole thing.
I was raised by my grandparents. My grandfather, a WWII vet, was extremely short tempered and very southern baptist. He was also a little suicidal and obviously suffering from untreated PTSD. One crazy sonuvabitch. He was short too, made him real bitchy (little man syndrome).
I was beat with a limb often. A "whipping". Sometimes monthly, sometimes more, sometimes less. It was often in front of my friends. The typical limb was 6 feet long and fresh off our elm tree. They left blood stripes that my grandmother took pictures of once to turn him in, but they were discovered and, well, that plan backfired. One time it was a flexible grappling hook. One time it was a rake handle. I would get jerked around, choked, yelled at, and if they were drunk, I was the one mediating the fight that ensued, which they forced me to mediate. At 6 years old. I remember being told I was "a damn bum like your father" when I was 12 or so. He was a damn bum, actually. He lives with my grandfather again now. They can have each other, I'll never see them again.
My grandmother died when I was 13. I got thrown in an orphanage when I was 15. That was more pleasant, even if I did have to fight to establish pecking order. Things got better after that.
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We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill
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