I don't feel like I was abused...not really. They were just doing what they thought was right.
I will be silent I think after confessing this....a couple of days...just to pretend I never really told you.
The sleep phobia thing was rather sickening...this will make me vomit.
But, it's got to be done. (I don't need your sympathy. I'm just offloading okay!)

I bite my nails.
I always have.
From when...I cannot remember.
Why..I don't know.
But he wanted perfection: always.
Again...she silently hovered in the background.
Young so young.
Same bed.
Same room.
Same year as the sleep phobia initiation.
So..I was young. Younger than my daughter and that horrifies me.
Every Saturday, I had to stand, hands outstretched (god this is harder than I anticipated..just wondering...should I go on...)
Yes.

Hands and fingers outstretched..for him to check.
Two pennies a nail.
Twenty pennies to aim for.

I never succeeded..it was stress and more stress...anxiety and doom and complete reluctance to face a Saturday morning.

The strike over the knuckles was hard and painful and I would build myself up for it; determined to withold my anguish....hence my inability to sleep ( See Sleep Phobia post),..hence the dragging out of bed, hence my further inability to sleep, hence my anxiety, hence my biting of my nails.

Hence my writing now...when you all sleep...and I am still awake.

One night...in bed....trying to sleep...again he marched in.
'Put these on.'

White, ivory maybe...cracked gloves...not leather...they cracked and I can still smell them; I can still remember the texture, the feeling, the smell.....
She'd worn them on her wedding day...I put them on and remained silent....at six you kind of just do that...but the sweat and the wetness of my hands was unbearable.
When I thought the coast was clear, I took them off, late at night, pretending they had 'fallen off.'

His wrath was mighty and hurtful. I can't explain more now. But, he then tied the gloves on...around my wrists with string...
And the sweat seeped through.

I can't remember when this all ended, but once again it put a firm wall between the sisterly love that should have been.
I was a rival for his love.
She won.
I have had no contact now for 15 years.
With none of them.

I feel anger.
I feel pity.
And from him, I still feel fear.

It takes so much for me to trust. When I do, I give all.