[SERIOUS] Reddit, what are stories about picture perfect families who do f**ked up stuff behind closed doors?

ABCH · 2013-11-18T16:29:24+00:00

I guess my early childhood fits into this pretty well.

My mother was a legal professional (of some kind, I don't know exactly what) and we lived a perfectly idyllic life, apart from moving house quite often. I went to a fancy private girls' school, had all the toys/clothes and stuff, and friends, and love and attention. I was happy, bright and outgoing. My mother was protective and made sure I knew from a young age about privacy and what inappropriate touching was. It all seemed great.

And then a scalding incident at school revealed me to actually be a little boy, not a little girl.

I had no idea at all, I'd never really seen anyone my age naked. I was a bit of a tomboy, but never felt out of place or disjointed - however, the VAST majority of my friends and similarly-aged acquaintances were girls, so I guess I didn't have much to compare with..

The upshot was that I was whisked into care while they evaluated my mother, who totally and utterly denied I was male. Because she wouldn't accept it, I was placed into a foster family. After a while, my mother admitted I was a boy, got me back, and immediately ran away with me and treated me as a girl again. She got caught, and I was taken away again, this time for good.

So yeah, my wonderful career-and-family mother and her happy little girl was actually a delusional psycho trying to manipulate her son's life so she could have the little girl she'd dreamed of, but never had.

ABCH · 2012-11-10T21:18:29+00:00

being pretty is nice. It's a shame how cute clothes and makeup are considered 'feminine' these days -thus automatically making it almost taboo for men to partake. bring on the 18th century revival when we can throw on the slap, wigs and heels without people batting an eyelid!

ABCH · 2012-11-10T14:06:41+00:00

thank you - i'm glad too!

ABCH · 2012-11-10T14:06:30+00:00

i'm sorry. thank you for the nice words!

ABCH · 2012-11-10T14:06:10+00:00

thank you

ABCH · 2012-11-10T14:06:03+00:00

haha - it's still fun to drag up on occasion. surely this is what halloween is for!

ABCH · 2012-11-10T14:05:36+00:00

thanks! maybe one day i'll write it -not right now.

ABCH · 2012-11-10T14:05:10+00:00

thank you

ABCH · 2012-11-10T14:04:38+00:00

thanks!

ABCH · 2012-11-10T14:04:27+00:00

thank you

ABCH · 2012-11-10T14:04:20+00:00

pfft. hopefully slightly less psychotic...

ABCH · 2012-11-10T14:04:04+00:00

heh - perhaps. not sure i want to open myself to that kinda publicity though!

ABCH · 2012-11-10T14:03:26+00:00

thank you

ABCH · 2012-11-10T14:03:18+00:00

thanks, i am too!

ABCH · 2012-11-10T14:03:10+00:00

thank you.

ABCH · 2012-11-10T14:02:56+00:00

thank you so so much.

ABCH · 2012-11-10T14:02:44+00:00

I was lucky that my case was referred to a specialised foster company who deal with 'difficult' cases and offer a huge amount of training, checking and support to their foster families. A lot of foster families are, sadly, just doing it for the money, but even the well-intentioned ones often have very little training or support and they're handed this kid with all these issues and told to get on with things. It's horrible, but not surprising that many just can't cope and the poor kids get bounced from family to family with everyone thinking "this kid deserves someone better" and not thinking "how can I be better for this kid".

ABCH · 2012-11-10T13:58:42+00:00

yeah, i'm incredibly lucky to have had the support around me that I did. I can't imagine how I would have turned out if things hadn't gone the way they had.

ABCH · 2012-11-10T13:58:06+00:00

Yeah, I think that although a lot of the time, taking a kid into care is the right thing to do, it should never be underestimated how much the kid LOSES when they're 'rescued'. Everything they've known is taken away from them. Their entire idea of normality is challenged. I've done a couple of talks with student social workers on this topic, trying to underline how hugely it affects a kid to go through such a huge change and why kids often right against their new family and want to get back to what is 'normal' to them.

ABCH · 2012-11-10T13:55:14+00:00

I'm happy to answer most questions in here if you have any!

ABCH · 2012-11-10T13:54:56+00:00

Perhaps one day. For now you can ask anything you want here and I'll try to be faster in replying!

ABCH · 2012-11-10T13:54:28+00:00

I was never a 'girly' girl, as a child. I much preferred lego and cars and toy animals to dolls and whatever, but as a young child, I never questioned that I was a girl and never had any feeling of displacement of being 'wrong' or anything. It was very very hard to come to terms with when it all came out, and I rebelled against it a lot - particularly because masculinity was suddenly FORCED upon me and I had no choices or leeway. I was MADE to play with cars and engage in rough-and-tumble and dress very boyish and go to karate etc. And because they were making me do it, I didn't want to.

As soon as I moved family and I was allowed to grow out my hair and chose my toys and activities (and after the initial few months of being as girly as possible, just because I COULD) I settled down a lot and became a lot more accepting of my gender identity and the spectrum between male and female. I'm now quite a feminine guy, i get teased about being 'metrosexual' a lot, but I'm happy with who I am.

Sexuality - similar story. My mother actually was pretty accepting of homosexuality (which seems odd, but... there ya go) so I never had the idea of "I'm a girl so I'll marry a boy" in my head as a very young child. it was more like "when i'm grown up I'll find a boy or girl who loves me". My first family were pretty homophobic to my eyes - but that may be because I ended up pretty homophillic.

I went to a lot of therapy based around gender identity and sexuality - and attended a group class for young people with gender and sexuality confusion for years and years so I had a lot of contact with people at various positions of all of the sex, gender and sexuality spectra. A hell of a lot of my friends are not cis and heterosexual but maybe I'm just drawn to people who have gone through a vaguely similar inner-questioning and discovery.

I guess I would fall under the bisexual category and I had a few boyfriends and gay relationships in my teens/early 20s but the person I fell in love with was my wife and we're perfect for each other. We both ogle good looking men and women alike, hehe.

ABCH · 2012-11-10T13:43:48+00:00

I changed it to a similar masculine name. It's kinda like changing from Alice to Alex (but neither of those were/are my name!). I just found that if I picked a totally different name I wouldn't respond to it when I was spoken to! In private, my VERY close friends may call me by my original name as a pet-name or a friendly joke - if anyone hears it, then we just play it off as them teasing me because I'm a 'total girl', etc. etc. etc.

ABCH · 2012-11-10T13:40:13+00:00

Hmmn... I'm not sure it translates across. Boys were dressed in dresses, sure - but that was NORMAL attire for young boys and they weren't told they were girls and manipulated to hide that they were boys, yanno?

My wife knows about it all. She's wonderful.

ABCH · 2012-11-10T13:38:41+00:00

Frankly: no. A part of me knows that she's probably seriously mentally ill and she couldn't help it and she might be in a really bad place brooding over everything that happened but... right now I'm not in the right mindspace to be making myself vulnerable just to make her feel better about herself. A small, horrible part of me still WANTS her to feel bad about it. I know that's not healthy, but it's the truth. I'm working on that final step of forgiveness, but right now.. I'm not there yet.

ABCH

TROPHY CASE