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She's Mean to Me

She's Mean to Me

When I was living with the Simpletons in 2010 I was regularly calling my dad every night and I think I said words to him that would have broken my heart if said to me by my child. My father asked me how I was doing and it was terrible circumstances so I didn't reply with good. I believe he asked "What's wrong?" I told him just the same as always and he asked about Cathy, the woman I was living with and I told him "She's mean to me." I can't imagine the in it must feel to not be able to provide for your child and to hear him say that the person that they depend on and see every day is mean and puts him down constantly.

I don't understand the logic behind it, but when I was wealthy in middle school all of my friends knew I lifted weights and had triple the amount of muscle as them so they never said a negative word to me. My comment was always in the way of "I could bench press you, check yourself." I was essentially the leader or alpha among my skinny friends and I having muscle and being his friend was literally the only reason why Carleton didn't get jumped or beat up. I did my best to defend him and myself and I was very cruel back to anyone that was disrespectful, it is through ego and arrogance that the two of us remained unharmed.

Anyways when I got to high school and I was one of the poorest kids in the school and was homeless I became weak in my friend's eyes and they started to bully me constantly. The only way to get them to stop was to be mean to them back which I never adhered to. So after a couple weeks of living with Carleton and his mom he slowly started to disrespect me for no good reason at all other than I was a target that wouldn't defend myself. I stopped talking to him completely and pretty much ignored him, he was just so mean to me I didn't want to take it, and so I saw isolation as the only viable solution. His mother Cathy would detest this.

A few days before my eighteenth birthday and after I had been not talking to Carleton for a week or so Cathy asked me to come into the living room and sit on the couch across from her. She told me 'Michael, I think it's time to go home." I didn't have a home to go and I told her this and I began to cry and she laughed and asked what do I have to do to get you to leave? "Give your parents gas money?" "ha ha ha". My parents were already behind on rent at their current place and were likely to get evicted soon so living with her was my only foreseeable option. Eventually she said "You're about to turn 18, how about you change your attitude and outlook on life." Essentially saying she wanted me to reverse 17 years of abuse and trauma overnight.

Eventually Cathy would tell me I need counseling, but would do nothing in the way of helping me find one or pay for one, so that never got started. Just because you have money and someone doesn't that doesn't make you better than them and is no excuse for her behavior.