I woke up recently remembering the events of November 20, 1992 and after. The tibia fracture was pretty important, but it wasn't the big issue. The concussion from the fall was, and the resulting headache caused a problem with the adoptive mother. (I had slipped and fallen down a short flight of stairs on my way to a church service--I was the pianist.)
After the visit to the ER where my leg and foot were set and wrapped, I was prescribed pain medication, and my leg and ankle were not hurting anymore,
but I had a massive headache from hitting my head in the fall. The medication made me
nauseated after I took a dose, and when I told her about it (when she asked why I was making a
“sour puss face”) and that I was going upstairs to lie down, she asked me why I
was nauseated. I told her it was probably from the medication. She asked me if
I took it because my leg hurt. I said no, and that I took it because of the
massive headache I had. She flipped out.
She called the hospital (or the pharmacist—I can’t remember)
and asked them what my medication was for. It seems crazy now that they would
have given her any information about me because I was 20 years old, and even
then there were privacy laws. That makes me think that what she told me they
said was just something she made up.
She told me they said I was NOT to take the medication for
my head and to only take it for the fracture. She was livid. I never took
anymore of the medication, and I wondered what happened to it because when I
saw it again, there was almost none left. I now think that my sister-in-law may have
taken it. I believe she was even then a secret pill head. She was way too
excited about my medicine and kept trying to push it on me and asked me
repeatedly if I needed any.
The older adoptive brother (husband of the pill-head) had been living with us. It was a good thing
because he was the one who picked me up and put me in the car after the fall.
They both waited with me at the ER and paid for my prescription. The adoptive mother did
not seem to care one bit about my condition and was on his case about the
insurance information and what he told the hospital. She and the adoptive father had gone to
some kind of family reunion in MS, which is the only reason they weren’t there
when I fell. I honestly believe that they would not have taken me to the
hospital if they had been.
After about a week, Pill-Head told the adoptive mother that I probably
needed to see a neurologist because of hitting my head in the fall and because
of the severe headaches I had been getting for several years. I was still dizzy
from hitting my head, and in those days, Pill-head knew that the adoptive mother was a tyrant
and singled me out for tons of abuse. She just didn’t care enough to try to
stop it.
The adoptive mother had no interest in taking me to some doctor in New
Orleans. SIL worked at a clinic affiliated with West Jefferson hospital and
was able to somehow get me an appointment to be seen pretty quickly. The adoptive mother took me. She made it clear that it was a huge imposition for her.
The neurologist told me and her that I did have a
concussion. She also was very interested in my years of suffering from
headaches that she diagnosed as migraines. She prescribed me Midrin to take for
them.
The adoptive mother let that prescription sit on the desk in her room
for 2 months before getting it filled. It wasn’t expensive.
When she was taking me to the neurologist, she told me that
the reason I was going was because she was "so sick and tired" of seeing me drink
coffee and take aspirin when my head hurt. She also told me on a different
occasion (before the fall) that she had read that my headaches were probably
migraines, and that "migraines are a perfectionist’s way of dealing with stress."
When I would get a migraine any time after that, she would
ask me what I did to "cause it." I got them at least once a month,
sometimes twice. Back then, they only lasted a day or two. They got much worse
in the years after.
I was never able to lie down and rest when I got them
either. I never missed school, and she forbade staying home from church if I
ever had one on a Sunday. One time in particular when I was 17 or so, I was
sitting in church, in the front because I had played the piano for the service
that morning, and she could see me. She berated me cruelly after the service
because I was not looking up at the minister during the sermon. I was in severe
pain and was trying my damnedest not to cry from it, and she told me how rude I
had been because I wasn’t looking at the minister constantly.
Any other time I tried to sit where she couldn’t see me. She
would stare at me the whole time and would have a look on her face like she had
smelled a fart, or she looked like she wanted to come over and set me on fire.
She used to frequently accuse me of giving her “go to hell looks,” and this was usually while she would scream at me or berate me for something that she had made up or blew completely out of proportion. Until I was about 15, she would strike me about the face and head, and then accuse me of giving her these "go to hell looks" while I stood there and just wanted her to stop hitting me and screaming at me.
Actually, she was the one who gave me the mean looks almost every time she
looked at me.
But really, how dare I ever have any illness, injury, or pain and steal attention away from her? How dare I be a human being with my own needs instead of merely serving as her repository of cast off shame?
But if you were to ask her--even today--what her issues with me were, she would likely tear up and tell you about everything she's done for me, tell you about all of my "emotional problems," and say I never appreciated anything, and that I never let her get me the "help" I needed. All she ever wanted to do was help me.
Yeah. Ok.
