The other Millers

So I had this memory today about The Millers. I was a Miller but these were other, non-related Millers. At 12 my parents got divorced and I chose to live with my Dad. My mother wasn’t too happy and moved out of our house leaving me for my Dad to come and get. He was an OTR truck driver at the time so it was a couple of days. She also left all of my belongings, childhood things, etc in the house but they were in the attic so I didn’t know. I can’t recall how I got to my Dad but I did eventually. The time frames for these events are a mystery like much of my childhood but at some point he bought a trailer in Enon and we lived there. My step mother was only 12 years older than I was and didn’t want me there at all. At some point she gave my Dad the “either she goes or I go” and I went. At the time, my mother still wasn’t talking to me so that wasn’t an option. I had been going to school there and had met a girl with the same last name on the bus. Not a friend because I didn’t see the point of making those. She was kind but I only knew her a a week or maybe up to a month on the bus.

She lived in the boonies up the road from the trailer park. She told her parents and they took me in. The school didn’t know, no-one really knew. Since we had the same last name no one questioned them signing my papers or what not. I don’t know how long I stayed there but the kept me and fed me. They seemed nice enough but for a 12-13 year old, even one overly exposed to adult issues like myself, it was uncomfortable. I’m not sure if I went straight to my sister’s in Canada from there or if I eventually went to live with my mother or how long anything took but it’s a weird spot in my life that I’m not sure how to feel about. Sometimes I think about how lucky I am that someone took me in. Others it reminds me how disposable my family has always treated me. Mostly it’s indicative of when the being “on my own” started. This was the point where my life became transient. I never stayed anywhere for longer than 6 months until I moved to Welland, Ontario. 12 is too young to not have stability or structure. Most people don’t know what a shock it is that I’m still kicking around. It’s also a miracle I had any parenting instincts at all. Life is weird.

Monsters are better than people

Ever since I was a child I have had an obsession with monsters. Vampires and werewolves were always tops but I dig zombies a lot too. As an abuse survivor and someone who would like to believe myself to be fairly self aware, I think I figured out why.

These bits of realization come when I'm ranting and I say things out load or type them up in a post without thinking. Then that AhHa moment happens and I think or sometimes say "Holy Shit! That totally makes sense." When you start to recover (do you recover or just become better adjusted?) from mental illness that stems from not only a wacky high IQ but also a childhood full of trauma you start to connect things. I find these reasonings or explanations for behaviours or trigger reactions help me to better cope with said reaction. My monster love was one of those moments. 

I realized over a decade ago that I preferred horror movie/story monsters to people because of my life experiences. The people that caused me harm as a kid looked like perfectly normal people. They looked like anyone walking down the street and they were monsters. Not the kind I like but as my oldest daughter referred to people that harmed other people or animals, People Monsters. They are scary. People monsters are horrifying. They play at being like everyone else, fitting the cookie cutter of what people expect but they have evil in them. They thrive on harming others. Fictional monsters not the least bit scary once you have met real people monsters. 

My earliest monster memory was at 8 years old. I was in our living room aka the red room. Damn near as ominous as it sounds. See, my mother worked a job that she didn't need to work and with her earnings bought this hideous red fur furniture, white wallpaper with red velvet flowers, red carpet, etc It looked like a 70s (well.. it was the 70s) brothel or something out of the movie Tommy. We weren't allowed in the red room unless it was a holiday. That was my mother's room. Anyway, I was on the floor in front of the TV watching this movie called Kiss of the Vampire. All I could think was that was what I wanted to be when I grew up. A vampire. No one abuses a vampire. heh So from then on when I went to bed I would go to the window and say "you can come in" just in case there was a vampire outside, then I would pull all of my hair off of my neck and go to bed. 

I found monsters way less frightening than the people I knew. Frankenstein's monster was mistreated and misunderstood so I really got him. He was reactive to the way he was treated. Many of the monster stories were about misunderstood creatures. That was me. It is still me. I will forever be more Morticia than Suzi Homemaker.

All of this drew me to the punk and goth kind of people. You see, people with tattoos, spiked collars, odd colours of hair, crazy jewellery, and other things society deemed odd or off putting felt safer to me. They wore all of their scary on the outside. Their buffer from normalcy made them less of a threat in my eyes. I always looked at it as normal folks or those to adhere, conform to societal norms can be hiding anything. Yes, I know this is not always the case on either side but that is where I found my comfort. Now, at 44 I still prefer people that are misfits, different, or unconventional. If some one is sugary sweet or claims to be all good or looks super normal I proceed with more care.