Childhood Trauma: Part V - Scapegoat

When I look back on my terribly traumatic childhood, I don’t know how I don’t spend half of my income on therapy or the rest of my life incarcerated due to an emotional string of serious crimes… I guess there’s still plenty of time for both.

Anyway, I was the youngest of five jack wagons of varying levels of intelligence, big personalities, and their own emotional scaring from our parents’ laissez-faire child-rearing practices.  I’m kidding (sort of)…  They were great parents.  But with the five of us, my parents' primary goal in raising us was ‘don’t have more children.’

So, being the youngest, I didn’t get the full experience of being spoiled until I was in high school because I’m pretty sure we were borderline destitute.  I was only spoiled with blame for anything and everything that went wrong in our lives. 

I mean, in reality, I was probably only 80% responsible… (I was a real A-hole growing up).  Nevertheless, my adopted German family reverted to their 1940s ancestors and made me the scapegoat for the full 100%.

This cruel truth was never more apparent to my parents than one fateful day when I was displeased with something, and I ran to the living room to pout while they continued to ignore me in the kitchen.  In true John form, I threw myself down on the couch with a dramatic slump.  The next thing I know, the ceiling is falling in on me like an avalanche.  Cheap popcorn texture, insulation, and probably a lot of other random carcinogens came crashing down on my 5 year old body.

I immediately bolted for the kitchen screaming “I DIDN’T DO IT!  I DIDN’T DO IT! I DIDN’T DO IT.”

As they washed my eyes out with water in the bathroom sink, I hoped they would be overcome with guilt and reevaluate their parenting that led me to believe I involuntarily destroyed our house!  But in reality, my dad was probably just excited to get to remodel the living room…

This stuff is real.  If I could make it up, I would be a fiction writer, not a blogger.