Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee
3 years old… Visiting Grandma Alma’s at this time… before ‘Hell‘…
I Don’t Like You… I Won’t Ever Like You, No Matter What
By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee
I don’t like you… the feeling is mutual… I know you don’t like me. That’s okay… we can play the game of life, games… we as people, play… we pretend to like each other… when we meet in public, thank-God when we get gone from each other… I could barely stand to be around … you.
Isn’t it such a relief to ‘get past’ someone you meet out in public… someone that you can’t like no matter what? Someone, that if given the choice, you’d rather be hit with a broomstick… than to speak to, to look at… much less to hear that voice you ‘so hate’….
‘Just beat me with that broom’… I don’t want to be around you. You have made my life ‘Hell’ at one time or other… I didn’t deserve it. You mistreated me because you hated others in my… family. Shame on you… you never gave me a chance. I learned anyway… the hard way… you ‘didn’t keep me down’…..
I told you I’m not perfect… I don’t like a lot of people… and the feeling is mutual, I’m sure. I have a lot of feelings built up inside me… from living in a small town as a child, where the people treated me unkindly… they ‘didn’t see me’… they just ‘knew where I came from’… from ‘those people who raised Hell all the time’…
I never forgot it… I never will forget it… and when I look into those hateful faces… I remember. I don’t like you, I never will, and… you can’t make me… no matter what. You hurt a little innocent girl… who wanted to be loved. Now…
As a little girl, you should have shown me kindness… I couldn’t help ‘where I came from, who my family was, how little they had’. You helped to contribute to some of the paths I got on as a young person… thankfully, I got my ‘ass’ off them when I learned that I’m not a bad person.
I always had to learn the hard way… why… you could have made it easier for a small girl… but, no… you made life harder for me with your hateful faces, your harsh voices, your mean ways… you froze me out with your terrible selves.
Not only that, you put your little children up to torment me, make my young life harder… almost to the point of suicide. Bullying… I know what bullying is… I see a guy now…who bullied me as a little child every day of my life that I lived at my Grandma Alma’s. Do you know… he’ll see me… he can’t look me in the face. I still feel anger, hatred toward him… I would love for him to ‘bully me now’… he ‘knows, remembers’ what he did.
I hope you got your medicine back… only just enough to learn your lesson, see how it felt… I don’t wish bad on you… only ‘what you deserve’… no more, no less.
Actually, I’m a very forgiving person… for years I was friends with a woman who looked down on me with her hateful, mean face when I was a little girl. She hated my mother, and her sisters… her husband liked… all of them. She took it out on me….
Do you know… we ended up living beside each other… I grew to love that woman dearly… I forgave her. She learned that I wasn’t ‘what she thought I ‘would be’… the sad thing is, that when I thought of her ‘back then’…. I always saw her eyes staring at me, hating me because I was my mother’s child.
When I lived beside her… she grew to love me, care about me. I’m sure with my mother’s beauty… her sisters’ beauty… a lot of young women hated them with a passion… they knew they were pretty, and they were young, full of life… and they were… wild.
I remember when I was fourteen, a girl my age called me a … whore. I didn’t know what that meant… she said it with such anger, her eyes blazing fire at me. She said her mother said I was a ‘whore … like my mama’… the hatred I felt from her…
I cried, I have always remembered the pain I felt… especially when I found out what that word ‘whore’ meant. I’ll never forget standing there, stunned at ‘why did they call me such a name’? I felt so embarrassed, ashamed for something I just didn’t understand… but, I ‘knew’ was ‘bad’…
I would like to say I’ve never been a ‘whore’, of course, I’ll never be one. I would like to say that when some people are ‘pretty, attractive’… sometimes, people who are jealous will say mean things to hurt them… to make them look bad.
It’s sad when a little child is affected by it all… and life is already hard for them. In my case… I had so many things to ‘fight, survive’… but, I did it. It’s okay now… over time with all that’s happened in my life… I needed to be so ‘extra-strong’… to come through it all. Thank-you, you mean people…
I still see faces from the past… there are still ‘older people living’ who were mean to me… there are some of their children who live now, are my age… who were cruel to me.
I see your hateful faces now… I should hate you, but… I don’t. Guess what? I don’t like you… I won’t ever like you… nothing you can do will make me like you.
Sometimes, I do like you… then, you turn me against you once again with your hateful face the next time I see you. When the next time comes… I don’t have time for you. Go your way, I’ll go mine… I don’t have to play games with you… at all… too many real things in life more important.
I don’t hate you… and truthfully, I still talk to people who were mean to me as a little girl. I ‘try to like them’… I just don’t, though. I try hard, though… it’s like trying to like someone who has thrown their dirty bath water on you… you don’t forget the… smell. You can’t go but, so close to them. You don’t mean to be that way… but, life is like this sometimes… it’s real.
I was thinking about this tonight… as I thought about a woman I met up with recently. I used to work with her… we all had to do her work in the office… she’d get flustered, couldn’t handle all that went on.
We would do her work, our work… it wasn’t pleasant to come to work, and have to begin catching up her work she didn’t complete before leaving. She made all so much harder, but… we did it. I made her not like me because I would gently try to get her do her own work. It didn’t help at all…
So, one thought led to another… into the past to when I was a little girl. I recognized her expression when I saw her… I smiled brightly at her… I ‘played the game’… talked to her… all the time thinking …. “I don’t like you, I like you, I don’t like you… I wanted to like you so much, but… no, there’s no way!”
I just wanted away from her… and I got away as soon as I could. I’m sure she didn’t want to be reminded of me… either. No… I don’t like you, I’ll never like you… nothing ‘you’ can do will make me ever like you. Life really is like this sometimes… sad, but… true. I know you know what I mean… :)))
Colors of My Life 
I know what you mean hun!
I can’t ever forgive my father for all his physical and mental abuse, or my mother for refusing the help that would have left me with fewer scars and bad memories because she was happier seeing her children battered than risk dad coming out of hospital and killing her.
In the end I had to take responsibility for her and my brothers until they left and were safe.
Then, I promised myself, I would take my life and the suffering would end.
Fortunately I had a friend who gave me a place to live until I got my flat and I’ve been here ever since.
My dad’s response?
Because I refused to come back and continue as his paying household slave there came the first of his death threats.
Today I have a letter he sent me which my psychiatrist described as being ‘full of sexualised, inappropriate language and death threats’.
Only when he dies will I find peace.
Love and hugs my sweet friend! 🙂
Prenin.
Prenin, I know you have been unspeakable, unthinkable things. My prayer for you is for you to always be safe…. always walk in a golden circle of protection. Love, Gloria
Round here I’d be better off with body armour and a nuclear missile! LoL!!! 😉
Thanks for the kind words my friend!
Love ya! 🙂
Prenin.
:))) Wow, Prenin! All I can say to that is… watch yourself at all times! Love, Granny Gee/Gloria :)))
Don’t worry hun, I’ve lived here over 25 years and I’ve had practically everything you can think of thrown at me and I’m still here! 🙂
Most of the time they are all mouth and no trousers, especially when they show up in numbers, but get them alone and they crap themselves! 🙂
The last major problem was the Mallinson family who are now drug dealers and addicts currently receiving treatment at a local homeless charity.
They created their own personal hell and now they are living in it.
So far I have had death threats hurled at me in the street, been threatened at knife point and at gun point, but I’m still here! 🙂
Love and squishy hugs!
Prenin.
Very powerful words here. It is messed up to wound children and lay them bare to the tortures of physical, emotional, and mental abuse. Folks who spectate do not understand what it does to us inside. They don’t “get” that we cannot just “get over ourselves” and move on. The hurts inflicted from so many toxic people and hurled from all directions leave scars…yes some of the wounds heal, but the scar remains. As much as we attempt to cover up the scars so nobody can see them or the severity of them, the one we cannot hide them from is ourselves. And so much we wish to ‘rise above’ but sometimes the load weighs so much and pulls us into dark places we feel we cannot escape…the depression makes me wish I could just stop…breathing…
I figure, for myself, I may be a better person for having overcome a lifetime of crap thrown at me…then there come those heavy days, which try to snatch all the joy in life from me, in spite of my fight to be a happy, positive person. It sneaks up on me, tries to swallow me whole. I have just enough strength to ride those days out, thanks to God and other good things and people around me. I have to think I must be here for a reason, I must mean something to someone, that I matter in some small way in the scheme of things in this earthly existence. That gets me through. God knows I don’t have the ‘courage’ to end it all. Sometimes I think that “Hell” is indeed a place, a state of being, right here on earth. It is part of the work of getting through this life with some lessons learned, some wisdom gained, some purposeful meaning impressed by us onto those we meet, some awareness that there is a God, on Whose mercy and compassion we rely to keep from being consumed by the bad things, the anger, and the pain inflicted onto us and by us onto others. He helps us to understand Love, for without love, we could not even forgive ourselves, let alone those who harm us. Thanks for the sharing of such raw emotion in your post. Letting it out, or even reading the words helps to release that which poisons us, that we try to deny or keep inside.For today, now, my own load feels easier to carry, and I can breathe today.
Colleen, I’m glad when you or others can read anything I write about… and it can possibly mean something. I am always amazed to know others ‘know’ what I mean. Thank-you for sharing what you felt, when you read my words.
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