My Story: Part one

First let me tell you about my family.  My dad has OCD and has rarely tried to keep it in check. My mother has always been the hard worker and sometimes she works too hard. Just has been hospitalized several times do to her irregular heartbeat that generally only surfaces when she is extremely stressed. My sister Anna is 5 years older than me and has always been the only family member I could relate to. My brother Tim has been diagnosed with Bipolar though acts more like he has PTSD. He also has ADHD.  My youngest sibling is Daniel. He has been diagnosed with Aspergers and a defiance disorder. Growing up none of this was known to me. I didn't know that my father had OCD and my brothers had not been diagnosed with anything yet. To my father all the symptoms of their respective mental illnesses were just refusal to behave and could be corrected my punishment.

Growing up I had very few freedoms and I lived in a bubble that I was told was there for my protection. I was not allowed to read a book or watch a movie unless my father had already reviewed it and found free of unsafe themes or content. Anything with magic or "dating spirit" was immediately dismissed and seen as evil. There was one computer in our house and it was only for use by the adults. The only TV we had was one that was connected to a VCR, we never had cable TV because of how "evil" all the TV shows were. We each had an enormous amount of chores we had to do before we were allowed to even think about doing our school work. Most days we never finished our chores let alone our school work. "Free time" was something I barely had especially because of how strict my father was when checking to make sure we had finished our chores. Breaking the rules was almost always followed with a spanking (where one could count on hearing the "I'm only doing this because I love you" speech), or at the very least a harsh yelling at. There were other various methods of punishments. I remember once that one of my siblings had taken a piece of chocolate out of my parents room. We were then all made to march up and down the stairs until one of us confessed to the "crime".