One memory to sum up childhood.

[Bermuda]

I don't have lots of time, but I was just putting away groceries when I remembered this conversation with my grandmother. Rainbow pasta.

We were in the kitchen cooking together. I was probably five years old. We were making rainbow pasta.

Grandmother: (After pouring it into the pot) Do you like rainbow pasta?
Me: I know it's wrong, mother says they're the same and I know it's all in my head, but the orange ones taste different to me. I don't like the orange ones.
Grandmother: Your mother lied. The orange ones have carrot in them.

...That has stuck with me so long. It really sums everything up. I was putting away the groceries, putting away the rainbow pasta. I didn't like the orange ones, I ate them anyway. I felt shame voicing my opinion, even when asked to. My mother had lied to me. I believed that I was making it up.

[StartingHealing]

I feel you.  The person in the role of mother in the adoptive family that I grew up in did the same thing. "What about the starving kids in ____"  "it's all the same, it's just colored different"

Forcing me to doubt my own senses, and using shame and guilt to coerce me into "behaving" like she thought I should. 

[NarcKiddo]

Wow. My mother also had (sometimes still has) the ability to make me completely doubt myself.

I am interested that your grandmother was prepared to tell you your mother lied. I think it is good - so many adults might put the blame on the child, even just by saying something like "you must have misunderstood". Or they might say something like "oh, she doesn't know the orange ones have carrot it. But they do."

I have several memories that might sum up my childhood but sticking with the food theme, mine is bananas and custard. I hated custard as a child. Still don't much enjoy it but can now eat it without gagging. At my primary school you were supposed to eat all your lunch. They told your parents if you didn't. That's what they said, at any rate. The dinner ladies knew I did not like custard and if it was something like sponge cake and custard they would give me the cake but not pour custard on it. Bananas and custard were served in a huge vat with the bananas mixed in so there was no escaping the custard.

I must have been about 6 and was waiting in line for the dessert one day when I saw bananas and custard being ladled out of the vat. I don't know what else had happened that day to make me lose control, but I fled. I thought I would be made to eat the custard and had a total meltdown. I remember running out of the dining hall into the playground and running full pelt across the playground until I came up against the wire fence at the end of it. A teacher was chasing me. When they caught me I was howling through the fence in abject panic. I don't remember what they said, only that they were not cross or unkind, and they got me back into the dining hall and led me up to the counter for dessert. I had shut down and was bracing myself for bananas and custard. The dinner lady, however, who was the mother of one of the boys in my class, had remembered I don't like custard. She had kept a banana aside and had sliced it into a bowl and even put sugar on top. No custard.

And when I saw this bowl of banana, with sugar on top, which I liked very much indeed. I did not feel happy or relieved or grateful. I just felt shame. I would almost rather have had to choke down a bowl of bananas and custard.

[Kizzie]

This all makes me so sad. We were just children and yet look at how frightened and ashamed we had become at such early ages.  This is the kind of thing I wonder if many get; that is, you don't have to physically beat a child within an inch of their lives to get these huge fear reactions. Abuse/neglect can be almost invisible to the eye and yet overwhelm the spirit of a small child. It's all just so primal and HUGE to little ones that need protection, nurturing, love, understanding to grow into a healthy human being. I hope we can get this across in our book.

[Moondance]

  's for each and everyone one of us.

This so resonates with me as well. It is painful to think about.

[Bermuda]

I am so sorry that we can all relate to this so much, and I really want to hear more stories. The shame can be so intense. I don't know what triggered your reaction to custard NarcKiddo, but I was forced to spend the whole night at the table over split pea soup with ham. ...Did it make me become a better adult? No. It certainly did not.

StartingHealing: The starving children bit never made sense. When my mother spoke it, it felt more like a veiled threat.

I think why this memory has stuck with me for so long is because of my absolute shock when my grandmother told me that it wasn't in my head. She showed me the package and read it to me. I don't think I replied to my grandmother. If anything, maybe an "Oh.". It was the way I hesitated to answer her question. I thought my grandmother would think me stupid. She didn't. She never judged me for it. Instead my grandmother told me that there weren't any foods she didn't like, and I'm pretty sure I ate all my noodles. I do buy rainbow pasta for my kids now too, but I think about this memory every time.

Unfortunately, why I think it sums up childhood is just the vulnerability of children, how they can be lied to, shamed, and guilted into thinking they are wrong. Shame for having a thought, guilt for speaking, guilt for existing. It's just this one time that her lie was called out. The rest of the lies were brought to light much much later when the damage was more serious.

[marti.325]

I hate it when I hear adults dismiss something like that. I think they're miserable and their world, their senses are shut down and so they can't let anything in about it from others. They can't learn, they're not open, their bodies are so numb they can't feel much less taste. It's so traumatic for a child's reality to be around someone like that. Instead of exploring the world and getting validated for that, they're getting shut down as well.
I was so shut down from infancy on I was already dissociated and really couldn't explore like a child. I think that's why I can't take in a lot of information like while reading a non-fiction book or listening to podcasts or watching a documentary. I haven't been able to read much of anything lately.
I been in shock most of the day CPTSD symptoms. I think I'll put a cold pack on my diaphragm and put ice cold water on my face.
Glad to be back here on this forum. 

[Bermuda]

Welcome back marti. I guess it gives us lots of insight in what not to do.

[Blueberry]

Good to see you back, marti. 

[marti.325]

Thanks Blueberry and Bermuda. I'll have to change my email address for this site, otherwise I won't be able to keep track. Hope to be back soon!