What I Got From My Parents

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From the earliest years, as long as I can remember, I have known that my mother was a drug addict. I do not know exactly when in life I began to have a conscious relationship with it. It probably happened little by little; it was like looking at an onion being peeled, leaf by leaf, until I got to the bottom, to the core - and I saw that there was nothing there. Nothing but a core that was put together in the same way as the rest of the onion. Leaves on top of leaves.

Early in life I came to the understanding that my mother was not quite like the other mothers. There was something special about her, and as a little girl I soon understood that it was not entirely good, what mom did in her life.

Grandma had been married for 15 years with grandpa - my mom's dad. It may have something to do with mom's childhood. When grandma and grandpa got divorced, mom was 12 years old. After the break-up mom was not allowed by grandma to meet her dad because grandma said that her dad - that is, grandma's ex  - was not good for mom to meet. According to her, it was harmful for mum to visit her dad.

So, when mom was 12, grandpa had then found a new lady to marry, and Grandma did not like it. Therefore, for several years, mom was allowed to have almost no contact with her dad. Grandma refused mom to travel and visit her dad and his new family.

When my mother was 15–16 years old, she traveled to the city and lived with different people. That was when she started using drugs. Later, mom returned to grandma's house. It was after she had met her my, had become pregnant with him and had a child (me).

I remember very little from my childhood and the first years in grandma's house. I know that dad and Mom lived there together. I also remember that there was a lot of mess and noise because they were like dogs and cats; they quarreled a lot.

I remember it was that spring before I was going to start school, and then we were still living in grandma's house on the basement floor. Dad was there too and he and mom quarreled more than ever before. Then I remember my mom and I moving in with grandpa, and I started school while I was with grandpa and his family.

It was nice to be there. Mom was calmer and dad was not there. We were almost like an ordinary family, a big family. 

But of course it did not last long. Nothing good in my life has been allowed to last. Mom started traveling to the city center again. She was away occasionally for several days. Grandpa and his wife were worried, but they said nothing to me. The adults almost never said things to me. They probably thought I did not understand what was happening.

After my mother had been away for several days, she returned. She was a little changed. She was full of energy and full of words, and spoke incessantly. She was angry with my grandfather and his wife, and did not want to live there anymore. One day not long after, she took me and traveled to the city center by bus. She had a sack and a bag with my things, including my cuddly teddy bear Nufse. My mother said that we could no longer live with my grandfather and his family, because the child welfare service wanted to take me away from my mother and that the child welfare service had decided that I was not allowed to live with my grandfather.

The last thing I heard was that grandpa said that the child welfare service was with dad against mom. Mom said it was best for mom and me to go, and then we left.

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Mom and dad lived together again for a few months when I was 8–9 years old. We lived in a basement apartment in the house that grandma and grandpa had built before grandpa left. There was a lot of horror, arguing and chaos between mom and dad. What I remember is almost only that mom cried and dad roared and was angry. Then my mother took me away and lived with a man named Serge. He was ugly to our dog, mom's dog. Then there was a violent quarrel between mum and Serge, and I remember that he ran out the door from the apartment and mum said: "Good. Done with him!" And it was true what my mother said - that was the last thing we saw of Serge.

Then a new man came and started living with my mother and me. He was not like Serge, because he did not shout. Mom and he did not quarrel in the way mom and Serge had done. The man's name was Nils-Gunnar, and my mother used to say to him: "You are completely nils, you!" Or she asked, "Are you all nils, or? - Are you HIGH, or?" And then they both laughed.

I looked at my mother and Nils-Gunnar when they talked like that and said strange things to each other. After a while I started to relax a little more, because it did not seem that mom and "NG", as she had started to call him, were angry at each other, as it had been before between mom and dad, and later with mom and Serge.

Mom and NG took me to a meeting. It was in a big hall, and there were a lot of people there. A man spoke long and loud into the microphone. And then there was singing, and then new speech. And in the middle of the speech of the gray-haired man with a huge belly who spoke into a microphone, suddenly everyone got up and stood and started waving their hands while shouting: "Yes-a-a! Hallelujah. HALLELUJA. Yes-a-amen!"

Mom and NG decided that Mom and NG and I should be baptized. It was because mom and NG had been saved. I asked my mother what it meant that they had been saved. Mom said it was just like that. It was best that way. When I did not give up but asked again, she was annoyed and shouted at me. She was as voiced as she was when she and Dad had quarreled when I was little, so I said no more.

The congregation had set up a large plastic pool and filled it with water out on the lawn in front of the house. There were lots of people around the pool, and there was a staircase up to the edge and a small scaffolding next to the pool edge where the preacher was talking with a microphone in his hand. Mom took me by the hand and led me to the pool. She said I had to climb up, and I started by setting foot on the first step. When I stood on top, my mother said I should jump into the water. I did not want to, because I had a dress on the outside of my swimsuit.

Mom took my hand again and pulled me after her, and we landed with a big splash. I got my head under the water and I felt the panic was about to take me. But then I felt that my feet got stuck, because the pool was not as deep as I had thought. Mom took me by the hand again and took me to the poolside where the preacher stood. He held the microphone with one hand and lifted the other and spoke loudly and seriously. The herd that stood on the lawn sang and waved and shouted A-a-a-m-e-e-n! ".

Mom pulled me after her, so we came over to the man with the big belly. Suddenly I felt a heavy hand on top of my head, at the same time as I heard his voice speaking in a mesmerizing way. I started fighting to get my free hand on top of my head, but suddenly I felt that he pushed me hard under the water and kept me there for an eternity. It was probably only two or three seconds, but I panicked completely and started fighting wildly and swallowing several mouthfuls of water.

In the fall, I started second grade at the gospel center school. We stayed in a large room with three beds and a tiny kitchen. NG said that it was not possible to live as a family there, and my mother agreed. They went and talked to the headmaster, and a couple of weeks later we moved into a furnished apartment on the basement floor of a house where two old people lived on the main floor. Mom and NG went for a walk with me and the dog, and held each other's hands and held around each other, and I thought this was something new. Maybe everything would be fine now?

Mom stayed sober through that pregnancy and until the baby was born. Grandpa came and visited us with his wife. We were out at sea in a boat and fishing. Mom's new friend was not like the other two I've seen, not like my dad and Serge.

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Mom met Dad when she was 17. Dad was then over 38; he was over twice as old. Mom had already run away from home by then. 

My dad got my mom drugs. My father was also a drug addict, but not as much as my mother. I have often thought that I hate the two of them.

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When Dad was in a bad mood or stressed because he had too little drugs, he tolerated very little. He could be very unstable in his mood, and when he was like that, I knew I had to take care of myself. Many times he hit me. I could say something to him that he did not like, and then he was suddenly annoyed and angry. Once he pushed me violently across the living room floor so I fell as long as I was. He came after me and hit me in the face with a flat hand. Then he left the house and was gone for a couple of hours. I have no idea where he went. Maybe he was for someone who got him drugs.

When he came home he was full of remorse. He was flat in his voice and just the way I hate to see him: Small and pathetic. 

He came over to me and wanted to hug me. He grinned and did his best to bring tears to his face. He probably wanted me to cry big tears too, and forgive. He called me "my friend" and tried to get me to say that I forgave him for what he had done to me.

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Mom and dad lived together again for a few months when I was 8–9 years old. We lived in a basement apartment in the house that grandma and grandpa had built before grandpa left. There was a lot of horror, arguing and chaos between mom and dad. What I remember is almost only that mom cried and dad roared and was angry. 

Then, some time later, my mother took me away and started to live with a man named Serge. He was ugly to our dog, mom's dog. Then there was a violent quarrel between mum and Serge, and I remember that he ran out the door from the apartment and mum said: "Good. Done with him!" And it was true what my mother said - that was the last thing we saw of Serge.

Then a new man came and started living with my mother and me. He was not like Serge, because he did not shout. Mom and he did not quarrel in the way Mom and Serge had done. The man's name was Nils-Gunnar, and my mother used to say to him: "You are completely nils, you!" Or she asked, "Are you all nils, or? - Are you HIGH, or?" And then they both laughed.

I looked at my mother and Nils-Gunnar when they talked like that and said strange things to each other. After a while I started to relax a little more, because it did not seem that mom and "NG", as she had started to call him, were angry at each other, as it had been before between mom and dad, and later with mom and Serge.

---

Mom and NG took me to a meeting. It was in a big hall, and there were a lot of people there. A man spoke long and loud into the microphone. And then there was singing, and then new speech. And in the middle of the speech of the gray-haired man with a huge belly who spoke into a microphone, suddenly everyone got up and stood and started waving their hands while shouting: "Yes-a-a! Hallelujah. HALLELUJA. Yes-a-amen!"

Mom and NG decided that mom and NG and I should be baptized. It was because mom and NG had been saved. I asked my mother what it meant that they had been saved. Mom said it was just like that. It was best that way. When I did not give up but asked again, she was annoyed and shouted at me. She was as voiced as she was when she and Dad had quarreled when I was little, so I said no more.

The congregation had set up a large plastic pool and filled it with water out on the lawn in front of the house. There were lots of people around the pool, and there was a staircase up to the edge and a small scaffolding next to the pool edge where the preacher was talking with a microphone in his hand. Mom took me by the hand and led me to the pool. She said I had to climb up, and I started by setting foot on the first step. When I stood on top, my mother said I should jump into the water. I did not want to, because I had a dress on the outside of my swimsuit.

Mom took my hand again and pulled me after her, and we landed with a big splash. I got my head under the water and I felt the panic was about to take me. But then I felt that my feet got stuck, because the pool was not as deep as I had thought. Mom took me by the hand again and took me to the poolside where the preacher stood. He held the microphone with one hand and lifted the other and spoke loudly and seriously. The herd that stood on the lawn sang and waved and shouted A-a-a-m-e-e-n! ".

Mom pulled me after her, so we came back over to the man with the big belly. Suddenly I felt a heavy hand on top of my head, at the same time as I heard his voice speaking in a mesmerizing way. I started fighting to get my free hand on top of my head, but suddenly I felt that he pushed me hard under the water and kept me there for an eternity. It was probably only two or three seconds, but I panicked completely and started fighting wildly and swallowing several mouthfuls of water.

---

In the fall, I started second grade at the gospel center school. We stayed in a large room with three beds and a tiny kitchen. NG said that it was not possible to live as a family there, and my mother agreed. They went and talked to the headmaster, and a couple of weeks later we moved into a furnished apartment on the basement floor of a house where two old people lived on the main floor. Mom and NG went for a walk with me and the dog, and held each other's hands and held around each other, and I thought this was something new. Maybe everything would be fine now?

Mom stayed sober through that pregnancy and until the baby was born. Grandpa came and visited us with his wife. We were out at sea in a boat and fishing. Mom's new friend was not like the other two I've seen, like my dad and Serge.

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Should I judge them, or forgive them? 

Are they merely victims of forces outside themselves, forces that intervened in their lives, affected them and made them unfree? Forces that pulled them out of "normal" existence, and into the crap that is drug abuse?

I paid the price for Mom and Dad spending their lives on drugs. It has cost me dearly. It has cost me everything that is part of a normal life, and it has made me bitter and sad. Bitter because those who were to give me a safe upbringing instead focused on their own wretched need for intoxication and selfish pleasure. I am sorry because the two who were my parents could have given me a childhood, an upbringing and a life on a par with what all children are supposedly entitled to.

I turned 25, I have thought a lot about what happened and what my two parents have taken from me. They have taken from me my life and a normal existence of mine, so that I sit here now and try to write myself out of this terrible, this difficult mess that is the legacy of my parents. - 

- It started many years ago, it probably started almost 20 years before I was born. I have researched a bit, I have talked to some of those who lived and who were present at the time when all this started. And I have seen that the people who were there and should have taken care of each other, they have failed miserably. They have failed both themselves and others in the grossest way.

My mother was the daughter of two people who had met each other in real love, and who had fallen in love with each other while studying at university. They found out that they were going to share life with each other, and therefore they got married, and then they had a child, a girl, who is my mother.

I really know very little about what happened between my two grandparents, grandma and grandpa. It all happened before I was born - yes, long before I was actually born. This was at least 18 or 19 years before I was born, this was when they had the daughter who later became my mother, and it was at that time that a drama took place that I know almost nothing about.

I have been told that my grandmother and grandfather divorced when my mother was 11 or 12 years old. I do not know if it was the divorce that was the reason why my mother was doing so badly. In any case - the two, i e grandmother and grandfather had lived together for many years and they had a daughter as well. For some reason I do not know, after fifteen years they decided to divorce. And it was not that they both agreed that they should divorce. I can imagine that people almost never both agree to divorce. It is usually the case that one wants it more than the other. And here it was supposedly the case that one wanted it stronger, while the other, grandmother, was not so keen on divorce.

I have heard stories about how it happened, and it was that the two, grandma and grandpa, had had a difficult life together for many years. And then one night they have a big quarrel, Grandma had become so angry with Grandpa that she said: "Yes, you can just move out!", And then Grandpa replied: "Oh yes, do you say that? Yes, but okay, then I'm moving out. There's no point in us continuing to bother each other in this relationship here! "And Grandma said, "Yeah, just disappear, just move out."

And then grandpa moves out, and it was not long after that before grandma started to regret it, and it got worse when grandpa after a while met a new lady and grandma got to know about it. Then it turned out that grandpa and the new lady entered into a relationship that seemed to be long lasting because grandpa told grandma he wanted to divorce quickly. And then grandma began to understand that it was serious, and that grandpa and the new lady were thinking of getting married.

Then it became difficult for grandma. It became so difficult for her that she spoke to her daughter, my mother, who was 12 years old at the time, and said to her:

"He, your father, he is not a good man, he is not to be trusted, he is not worth anything. "

And grandma said a lot of such things to Mom, who was then 12 years old:

"Dad has left."

"Dad does not care about us."

"Dad does not care about you."

"Dad doesn't love us anymore."

"Dad does not love you."

The visitation rules for children of divorced parents were then such that it was normal for the child to be with the mother and for the child to have contact with the father one afternoon a week and every other weekend. But grandma said to mom:

"Dad has left. And he will not return"

"Dad is not interested in you, so you should not visit him."

"You do not need to have contact with him, because he is not good for you."

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After grandpa left grandma, it became very difficult. Grandma was mad at mom. Grandma yelled at mom and she was upset and cried a lot. Mom tried to be a kind girl and tried to do as grandma said, but it was never good enough. When mom came home from school, grandma was sitting there at the kitchen table, upset. Mom could see that grandma was crying. Grandma felt so sorry for herself.

Grandmother told mom that grandpa was a bad man, that he had no empathy, that he was only concerned with himself, that he was only concerned with the new lady, that he did not appreciate mom, that he had never appreciated her for who she was. Grandpa was a bad person, just like his parents, who had never appreciated grandma and everything she did for Grandpa.

Before grandpa left, when we went to visit great-grandfather and great-grandmother, grandma was always sad and sat in the car and cried while grandpa was driving and we got closer and closer to the awful place where great-grandfather and great-grandmother lived.

When they were with great-grandfather and great-grandmother, Grandma hardly spoke to them. She answered when great-grandmother spoke to her, but grandmother had a suffering expression on her face and somehow showed with her whole body that she was not well, that she was sad and that she wanted to go home again to where we lived as soon as possible .

Grandma used the cry as a weapon against grandpa. Grandma was always sorry for something, she was always dissatisfied with something, and it was always grandpa's fault. Before my mother disappeared into the anesthesia, she said that she could remember that many times while she was little gngry, or perhaps resigned or upset. Mom finally found out that it was randpa who had shouted, and that it was Grandpa's voice that had woken Mom. Mom got scared, and she got upset. Mom was just a tiny little, thin, scared girl lying there in bed in the dark.

In the morning, when mum came down for breakfast, mum saw grandpa and grandma sitting in the kitchen with their cup of coffee. They did not talk to each other. Mom told them to be kind to each other. Mom told them not to argue like that, because she was so upset because of it. Grandpa looked at mom, and then he looked at grandma, and said: "Do you hear? - Do you hear what that girl says?"

Mom shook her head. She sat with her head bowed at the table. Tears dripped down on the floral plastic tablecloth on the kitchen table. Grandpa got up and went out while shaking his head. Such was my mother's upbringing.

I know grandpa tried. After he had left, he came back and said to his mother: "You, listen, we are going to come up with something nice together, you and I. Yes, not true, Berit, you and I, we are going to come up with something nice together? "

I know all this because my mother has told me about it. In fact, I do not remember very well everything that my mother has told me about this, because I was just a little boy, and I had a mother who I later understood must have been addicted to strong drugs for most of my upbringing. But that's a different story.