shandydann

Parental chaos

When I was a child my life felt rather chaotic. As one parent strived to give me stability the other could not. Chaos had happened in their life, and even as my non chaotic parent strived to give us all stability. Somehow, life was still chaotic. Even doing the weekly grocery shopping for a store that was a five minutes walk away was difficult.

This was partly because one of my parents was disabled. But it also was partly because of the chaotic nature of that parent. There was narcissism in that parent even before her life changing event. She'd inherited the chaos gremlin. Sometimes I suspect I have a little chaos gremlin in me too.

My mothers maternal side had an almost elemental side to them. They seemed to be earthy, exuding some form of raw sexiness that was utterly chaotic. People seemed to be unable to resist some of my family. On occasion there was torch bearing.

When I was at university I seemed to have it as well. Someone once said to me “I hear you're an animal.”

Which was strange coming from a girl I'd only just met. Aberdeen's a small town like that.

Family chaos

I possibly have relatives that I will never meet, but who in turn were abandoned in Argentina. My great uncle, hopped on the nearest boat when he got a local farmers daughter pregnant. This was during world war two, it was how he ended up in the Merchant Navy. Goodness knows how many women he bairnt. [1]

He'd chat in Spanish to his Uncle in Keith after the war. Hidden testimony and shared experiences. Decades later, he charmed his nurse in an old folks home and she moved him into hers. Integrated him into her family. We visited him and his second family when I was 11. Granny was puzzled but was grateful we were welcomed by the family.

Oddly my Granny never seemed that chaotic. Angry. But not chaotic. Having family responsibility forced on you does that I suppose. Her life was a life of looking after others. Managing that chaos. Saying that her red hair seemed to facinate men. She didn't have a license for herself. She remembered being confused when a medical student brought her into the student union and it was full of couples kissing. Awkward when she met him years later and he was her gynecologist. That earthy quality wasn't always tied to the gremlin.

Perhaps it's like Targaryians in A Song of Ice and Fire, flip a coin and you get the chaos gremlin.

My grannie's family seemed to be elemental chaos in human form. Her husband's side sober hard working fishermen. My Father's side hard-working folks who'd move for work. The rest of the family seemed stable, normal. Dependable.

I possibly have another relative that was good at football as a kid. Who my uncle knew about, but wasn't in the kids life. I loved my uncle, but I know there's probably a good reason he wasn't in that kids life. Sometimes I wonder how old that kid was, did that kid get the chaotic gene? Does that kid know about their family up north? Does that kid know about the football connection?

Dead beat dads, much like whoever it was that was the father of my great grandmother. Leaving women to carry the can. Her own mother, in turn had been abandoned by her baby-daddy as well. Two generations of girls, let down by their fathers. Or perhaps kept safe from their fathers, who brought chaos into their mothers lives. Then took no responsibility whatsoever.

Like I said chaos gremlins.

The Living Doll

As a child I resisted all attempts by my Mother and Grannie to shape me into my mother's successor. I mean I would try to please them for a while. But it wasn't me. Before her accident my mother won several prizes for her Highland Dancing, I hated Highland Dancing. I wanted to be in the tap class with my friends. But no, I had to do Highland Dancing. So after a while I stopped going. I refused and then the fact I had stopped, was then used to justify me having no hobbies.

I had no staying ability, other than my need to read a lot of books.

But the impression that my Mother wanted me to be her mark two stayed with me. So I resisted quietly. I read and when she used to scream at me that I was just like my father, I'd say nothing. Until suddenly I was big enough at thirteen to scream right back at her pointing out yes, she married him. So of course I was like my father. She had to change tack. Pretend to be softer, to cry crocodile tears.

The day I left she was calm. She knew it was coming and tried to influence my Dad to agree I couldn't live with him. But we'd planned this for months. I had to get away. It was a shock when my Grannie cried. The only thing I feel guilty about was leaving my little brother behind. But I needed to be clear of the chaos.

I left that year to live with my Father. But the chaos drew me back in, I'd left my brother there after all. My brother was weaponized against us, we'd go up to visit and he'd refuse to see me. So I stopped visiting, while knowing full well the chaos he'd have to live with there.

My father did the job of putting me back together. I was chaotic and angry. So we'd go on walks to town, to the library. My father always asked how school was and ensured I told him. He'd give me options and supported me. In those years before University I had stability, despite us being on child support. We were poor and living on state handouts. Yet I got to university, I wouldn't have if I hadn't been living with my father.

The Chaotic Catalyst

By the time I was fourteen, I had a theory of me. I'd had some odd times in my friendships over the years from the age of 10. Situations between friends would seem to escalate around me. I asked myself if I had caused it somehow.

I didn't think I had. I'd go through interactions days, weeks, months later. I'd try to figure how I caused it. Eventually I came to the conclusion that somehow I was a catalyst. I'd try my best not be. But chaos seemed to happen.

Cracks in friendships became chasms. If the cracks were there, inevitably my presence would catalyse all those held in arguments. I'd talk to my father later about it, usually on the day just trying to understand my friends. Neither of us could figure it out.

As I struggled with my sexuality, I was a little chaotic in my dating life. Doing my level best to not cause chaos in my friend group. Chaos was always there, partly because there were other chaotic folks in it. I was stalked for two years. Had I caused that somehow?

I hid my chaotic self in my class. I was naive perhaps, but I wasn't weak. The boys in my Computer Science class were great allies though. On nights out they ensured I was safe. They kept an eye on me.

But did I cause chaos? Was I an utter chaos gremlin? After all, my family had form.

I had family history to go on. While my Father and my Maternal Grandmother weren't chaos gremlins, my maternal uncle was. My grannies brother was. My narcissistic mother was. Just how far back did the chaos go?

Were we to blame or is it circumstantial?

My partner worries about bringing chaos into my life. But the truth is, chaos is a huge part of my family history. It's a part of a lot of folks family history. We grow up managing our own chaos and what chaos other folks bring. It's humanity. On occasion I've indulged the Gremlin in me.

Societal Chaos

How much of it was to do with how our society is setup? With the class system, with an idea of how people in the decaying empire were meant to act? There's no space for outsiders, no space for those who act outside the norm, and aren't rich.

In my maternal family, men appeared to get away with being chaotic. Whereas the women were judged and punished. Fallen women, being lucky enough to have some familial support. Even as everyone else considered them less than dirt.

Society doesn't cope with fallen women who don't beg on their knees. Society likes to claim that somehow it's a woman's fault for being sexually free. That the chaos is our fault, rather than where some of the responsibility should lie.

Why else do we have such a Victorian policy of the two child limit for child support in the UK? We love to judge women with lots of kids who aren't married. We judge women for fucking up. Rather than supporting them and uplifting them. Our governments have systematically stripped support away from us. We aren't the deserving poor after all, and voters cheered those policies on until it bit them in the arse.

You start picking who you think are the deserving poor, no one will be eventually. It's an abusive attitude. You choose to support the outwardly respectable family, trapping women and children in abusive environments. You choose to not support women who leave, or you give lip-service to the idea of solidarity to women. It's why in the UK abortion is decriminalised and officers can still harass women. It's why we have women dying in the US as life saving healthcare is denied to them.

There's nothing better than the scapegoat of a loose woman.

Anyway to break women, eh?

[1] Got a woman with a child. Local doric term related to bairn which means child.