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I have a dreadful confession, a la ant burning
When I was little I would find ant hills and build a big moat around them, and fill it with water. Then when the ants would come rushing out of the hill I would have little stick bridges they could walk across to safety. But that's not the confession.
When my mom died, I was sent to live with her sister and their family for the summer. It was horrible. I cannot tell you how I was abused. Or how alone I was. I would spend hours down by the river and would catch tadpoles, and confine them to a puddle in a concave part of the flat rock bed of the river. I had done dissection of frogs in my sixth grade class that year, and conceived the idea of dissecting the tadpoles as a way to pass the time. So I sneaked into the main house one night and stole a needle, I knew would not be missed, and kept it. I would pull a tadpole out of the puddle, and let it adhere to the dry rock on its back, and would open its stomach and pull out its intestines. They were about three inches long, bright yellow, and with them out of the body I could see what I thought was the stomach, its beating heart, and other organs. I did this probably 20 or thirty times, just to see the heart beat and try to find the brain and what it looked like.
It occurred to me at one point that doing this was really cruel and maybe the tadpoles felt pain and that I should not do this, even though they were just tadpoles, and I stopped. I have never told a soul this before, and I realize it may make me look pretty bad. I still feel bad about this. I knew just what that poster yesterday was saying about feeling bad after all these years; it's been forty years and I still feel sick over it.
Re: I have a dreadful confession, a la ant burning
If it makes you feel any better I was totally an ant burner...Hugs!!!
Don't feel bad.
Obviously you are a sociopath/psychopath.
I'm so sorry for what you went through. I can't imagine how alone and hurt you were, and it makes me a little teary that you suffered such an ordeal after your mother's death.
Updated September 2012.
I used to pay the neighbor girl a quarter to catch bees for me and then I would dissect them. I thought I could remove their stingers and then let them fly away. Not so much.
We're kind of going out.
Yeah. What Lucy said.
But seriously (and this comes from the person who confessed to ant burning yesterday), I feel like the tadpole thing is more science experiment than actions of a cold hearted psycho child.
ETA: And lest you ever have a moment where you feel genuinely sad and guilty about this, just think of our delightful little Tamb, throwing frogs off a roof. I suspect you'll feel a little bit better after that!
I must be a little, to have done that. It never occurred to me they might feel it, for like a month or so. And of course it was abuse related; I didn't act like that before. Or since, even when the abuse continued. I was alone and angry, and hurt, and scared, and it really bugs me that my first inclination was to injure something else and keep myself from thinking of its pain. Human nature is peculiar.
When I was a kid I used to drag my cat around in a nylon stocking because I thought it was funny. Sometimes I'd cut legholes. I only realized later in life how cruel it was and I still feel shiitty about it. My parents had no idea how to treat animals properly and passed no pet education on to me. This was the same cat that they forced me to give to a friend's mom when I left for college. Poor Oreo. I'm glad now to be an educated, good cat mom but it still really upsets me to think about how scared and upset the cat must have been.
Yeah that's right my name's Yauch!
I stepped on one of those mini frogs on purpose once (when I was a kid).
I don't know how old I was, but I was old enough to know better.
I don't know why I did it.
This doesn't seem off to me at all.
Maybe I am a psychopath!
lol I love you, Tamb. Can I babysit?
Sue, I'm so sorry.
aw, sue. what LHC said is right. i'm sorry that you had such an awful time.
listen, here's a real sociopathic kid-animal thing, so you can have a gauge. i dated a guy who told me this "funny" story about how, when he was 8 or so, he noticed that his stepsister's kitten's head was stuck in a jar. and he watched the kitten suffocate to death while teetering around and bumping into things (that was the "funny" part). when i asked him why he didn't free the kitten he said, deadpan, "it wasn't my cat." it is one of the greatest shames of my life that i didn't slap him in the face and run away. instead i excused myself to the restroom to cry for a bit and finished the date.
Wow. That is haunting.
Worse than the story of someone throwing a cat over a fence and still holding on to the tail after they threw it. :X
yeah, i'm kind of wishing i hadn't typed it. i can't stop crying again. i'm going to log off.
((hugs)) Always good to know these things about a fellow before you get too far in. How interesting that he thought it an appropriate story to tell on a date. Like this would impress you, or make you laugh. I am sure he married a girl he frightens.
I used to catch small toads and build elaborate homes for them in carboard boxes. I'd landscape, put in mosses and 'trees' and little ponds...like dioramas with living guests.
I could never, ever figure out how the little toads always escaped. I'd catch another, build another home, next day or so, he'd be gone.
Then one day, I saw a garter snake with a big bulge in its belly the same day I discovered yet another toad had Houdini'd out of the box. I'd been serving up those little toads in their paradise to the snakes.
I feel guilty to this day.
I remember being mean to my mom's dog when I was younger, goading her and making her aggravated. She was very overprotective of my mom and sometimes even if we sat down next to Mom she would snap and snarl and bite.
I think my brother and I got so annoyed with it that we just started upsetting her on purpose by pretending we were "getting" my mom.
It was mean, I feel very bad about it to this day.
Also, I would pull my cat's tails frequently, just for thehell of it. I stopped when I was about 10 or 11 when one of our cats finally bit my nose really hard.
Sue, I am amazed at how well you handled such a sh!tty situation as a kid. Pithed frog dissections freak me out because you can see the heart beating. I can imagine how a tadpole dissection might seem like a natural experiment after seeing one as a kid. Yes, chopping up live animals was a low compassion / low empathy response, but I'm sure shutting down your emotions was part of how you survived that summer.
The other night I was talking to my baby and telling her how much I loved her and how I look forward to watching her grow up to be an adult. I told her even if I don't get to watch her grow up I hope she lives a happy life and can flourish as well as you did.
I'm sorry for the awful time you went through. You did what you could and obviously came out the other side and went on to do well professionally and personally.
It's time to let it go, if you can. Forgive yourself. You are an awesome person.
Aw. My sister and I would joke, through the years after we had children, how long we had to survive. No dying till they were 23, at least. Her ds is 23 now, she was telling me last night now she can die without worrying about him so much, and laughing at me that I have to get through at least six more years.
One time our cat came home and her tail had been dislocated and the vet said that someone may have picked her up and swung her by her tail. That is a cruel animal torture story. I wish I had found that person.
I'm sorry you suffered so much when you were so young.
OMG. It blows my mind that people functioning in the real world have such dark minds as this. That is beyond sick.
Sue, I'm so sorry you had such an awful time after your mother's passing. You feeling guilt for anything you did as a kid at the time show just how a good a person you are.
I just wish I could hug you, sue! that's sad! I hope you feel a little better getting it out.
sue_sue, it's ok. Big hug for you. Yes, this is the puppy confessor from yesterday.
I guess from reading these posts, we all have done some bad things when we were kids in order to deal with a traumatizing situation (well, some of us anyway). The amazing thing is - we have all turned out OK.
BTW - I feel better about that situation than I ever have since confessing it "publicly" yesterday - thank you all for that.
Hugs to you suesue.
My cruelty confession: when we go on vacation yearly with extended family to a NC beach, we catch crabs at night and put them in a box to make them fight. They're usually a disappointment though...they crawl into respective corners and wait for release. I don't think any have died, but that is our sole purpose for catching them. Before this thread, I have never really felt remorse. Crabs gross me out, and I don't eat sea food. Now I guess I feel a little sorry. Time will tell if the games continue this summer.