My parents were... odd. My mother suffered from bouts of paranoia and schitzophrenia. To treat her paranoia, she drank. A lot. My father dealt with her irratic behavior by withdrawing into himself. They had no friends. They had no social life. They lived an incredibly isolated existance - the island of odd. Not knowing any better, my sisters and I believed what they said was true, factual and real.
Of course, it wasn't.
Ten 'facts' I grew up with that are complete and utter bullshit.
1. Most accidents happen in parking lots : Hello? Why do they rate dangerous INTERSECTIONS instead of dangerous parking lots??
2. Bay leafs are poisonous: But of course, no one thought to either 1) not use them or 2) take them out before serving. Dinner was always like - who got the bay leaf? Whoever got the bay leaf was doomed to some horrible, but unexplained, death.
3. My mother was a gourmet cook: My brother-in-laws tell stories of my mother's cooking. While pouring her meal down the garbage disposal, they would feed the kids. Of course, always keeping this a secret from their spouses in order to avoid the 'my mother is a gourmet cook' conversation. Truly, her food is uneatable.
4. Married women never wear underwear to bed: Now this is a bizarre one. I asked my mother once and she told me I'd find out when I was married. I thought there was a book that would tell me this mystery - why do married women not wear underwear to bed? When I asked my newly minted husband, he said 'because most accidents happen in parking lots.' ;)
5. People have diabetes because they are too stupid to prevent it: There's not much I can say to this. My father told his sister that she should have known better than to get diabetes. His lack of compassion stuns me to this day.
6. Someone can 'give' you cancer: One of the lovely post divorce insults was "Your (mother/father) gave me cancer." Neither explained this phenomena, nor did they provide scientific evidence. Yet they were confident this was the case. My mother use to ask people, "Who gave you this cancer?"
7. Only angry people have high blood pressure: This is a big fat mind fuck for me. I have high blood pressure because I'm genetically programmed to have it. Yes, diet and exercise help. But only to a certain extent. I've spent a lot of my life ashamed of my high blood pressure.
8. My chronically schitzophrenic sister always 'knows' what's going on: The last conversation was about my mother's 'cyst on her womb.' (My mother had a complete hysterectomy at 28 years old.) She came out of her 'cyst on her womb' surgery with a face lift and new size D breasts. But crazy sister says the cyst was cancer mother caught from.... (You can see how this goes.)
9. Boys only like girls who never eat: I heard over and over again, "No boy will like you because you eat." How does that make any sense at all?
10. Every one is out to get you: If something is lost? It was stolen. If something is broken? It was done on purpose. If something doesn't work out? Someone is intentionally doing this so that you cannot get ahead.
I guess this gives you a tiny bit of insight into my upbringing.
Thanks for reading.
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