Triggers

Sometimes when you are in a situation it triggers memories. Its not necessarily something bad happening but the trigger is there. Today as I watched my very beautiful 2 year old son play in his little kiddie pool at his grandparents house I had a vision. Well, several of them including water. I'm quite afraid of deep water. I can swim, I can actually swim pretty great. The scary part is still there though and I'll tell you why. When I was a little girl. I do believe it was at my Aunt Debbie's house (rest her soul) where I was swimming with all the other kids. My parents were drunk as were all of the adults there. My dad thought it would be funny to come grab me by my hair and hold me under. I honestly don't think he was trying to drown me but he almost did. I was panicking of course and me being so little I still remember it fully. Even if it was a joke to him, it wasn't for me. It scared me half to death and I have been scared of water ever since. I could never do Jace that way. I don't see how a parent could even let a thought like that cross their mind. Its just crazy to me.

I also remembered another incident while sitting there. I am not sure why this one came to me but it did. We were at my Aunts house again. There were quite a few people there including some strange man. My mom was carrying on a conversation with him to be polite of course because he was "new to the family group". This pissed my dad off. He started yelling and screaming and tried to fight the guy. So needless to say he yelled at us to all get in the car so we did. Very fast. When he was on these war paths as we called them we knew it was going to be hell. As we all got in the car my dad was driving like a maniac of course and accusing my mom of flirting and trying to get with that guy. He was yelling and screaming and she was trying to explain to him that she was just being nice and friendly to a new person that was there. He didn't care, he was jealous. He slammed on his brakes in the middle of the road and went to her side of the car and jerked her door open. He then started slapping and hitting her, telling her she was a married woman and a whore for flirting with this man. He finally got back in the car and drove all the way home driving like a maniac and cursing and screaming at her. I don't remember much after we got home. He was probably still calling her a whore and cursing at her. Probably even beat the crap out of her.

Yes, this is what we had to witness over and over again as young children. I could not ever imagine another child going through this.......