Miss Nobody

Patricia Grant-Morby

Description

In this CANDID AND HEARTBREAKING MEMOIR, Patricia Grant-Morby reflects upon her troubled life. It is a life filled with sorrow, misery and pain - both physical and psychological. She has faced the many challenges with courage and determination, but not always with successful conclusions. The daughter of Jamaican parents, she was born in England but RAISED IN JAMAICA until her teenage years, after which she returned to England. Her father spent most of these early years back in England, working and sending money home to his family. So, Patricia and her siblings were raised by their mother, and also their grandmother. And it is this RELATIONSHIP WITH HER MOTHER (and at times, her grandmother) that has affected her to the present day. It was a relationship characterised by verbal and physical abuse; of neglect, ridicule and the constant threat of severe beatings. Patricia Grant-Morby tells her tragic story STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART. Throughout, it is a tale of her fight for survival. Sh

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Memoir

Informations

• Publié par: Hansib Publications
• Date de parution: 04 août 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781912662722
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published in 2022 by Hansib Publications
76 High Street, Hertford, SG14 3TA, UK
[e-mail]
www.hansibpublications.com
Copyright Patricia Grant-Morby, 2022
ISBN 978-1-912662-70-8
ISBN 978-1-912662-71-5 (Kindle)
ISBN 978-1-912662-72-2 (ePub)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author.
Printed in Great Britain
Prelude
IN THIS BOOK I have reflected upon my life, which has been filled with both sorrow and joy, and a great deal of courage and determination.
I will tell of how some Caribbean children, who were born in England, were later taken back to the Caribbean to be brought up. I am one of those children.
Some would agree that writing a book on one s own troubled life can be a cleansing experience, and that it may help to unburden the mind. I have come to realise that if I don t tell my story, I will spend the rest of my life feeling disappointed and embittered.
I have included many moments from my childhood and how, in particular, I was treated differently from my five siblings.
In those early days in Jamaica, boys were allowed to run free whilst girls had limited freedom. Apart from going to school and attending church, they had to stay at home; cooking and cleaning, among other household chores. Girls could certainly not do what boys could do. That s how it was in my time.
A mother should let her child feel safe and secure with love and not fear. However, in my case, I lived in fear of my mother. The Fifth Commandment says: Honour thy father and thy mother, but in Ephesians 6:4 it also says, do not provoke your children to wrath.
My story is told straight from the heart. It is a story of verbal, physical and emotional abuse, and a life full of misery and pain. Feelings of hate and resentfulness cloud my daily existence and I struggle to find a resolution. My discontent and sadness often leave me with feelings of wishing that I had never been born.
Contents
Pain and misery
My unborn baby
The loss of a child
Meeting Neville
Giving new life
Leaving my children
A death in the family
The move
Making a home
Reunited with my children
Mental health
Treatment
SESSION ONE
Pain and misery
I WILL BEGIN by telling you the true story about me and what happened when I was growing up in Jamaica.
I was born in England on 27 April 1957. My father came to England from Jamaica in 1950, and my mother came later in 1951. Then my brother followed a year later, and my twin brothers were born in 1961.
From the age of six I heard stories that in the 1950s Black people were not welcome in England and that finding accommodation was a constant struggle. So, by the time I turned six our parents packed everything up, including myself and the three boys, and went back to Jamaica.
On the whole, things didn t work out for them as they had hoped they would. Times were just as hard in Jamaica in the 1960s for my parents as they were in England in the 1950s. So, they both decided that my father should return to England. To survive the hardness of the times, he would work and send money back home for all of us to live off. My big little brother had just turned four at the time, and the twins were just a few months old. My brother Anthony and I missed our father so much. He was much loved and such a gentle soul.
My father would return to Jamaica every two years. He would come home to see us and to make sure that everything was alright, which was always the happiest time in our lives, especially mine! However, when it was time for him to return to England, it quickly also became the saddest time of my life.
My father s absence always meant misery for me. I used to hate every minute of the day, the months, and years when my father was not around. At times I could remember crying myself to sleep, or in other words waiting in anticipation for my mother to wake us up in the morning for school. In the morning she would get up first and then come to me, and then she would feel the bed cloth to see if I had wet the bed, because you see I used to wet the bed through no fault of my own. I was told later on in life that it was because of all the trauma I had experienced. If I had wet the bed, she would beat me for not using the toilet. I would cry and plead with her that I did not know that I wanted to wee. Mother would just call me a lazy gal and beat me with a leather belt; a belt that was at least two inches thick, if my memory serves me right.
Sometimes, my skin would bleed, or my skin would be left with welt marks where the belt had struck me. Then, she would shout at the top of her voice, You piss the bed again, you good for nothing! She would go on ranting that, You are not my child. I am sure that when you were born in that hospital, those nurses make a mistake and gave me the wrong baby! I got this kind of abuse throughout my whole life growing up with my mother. It would get worse as the years went by. The beatings became more and more severe; the name calling and the silent treatment more regular. So much so, that I began to call myself Miss Nobody , out of all six of us children (I now had younger sisters too). I was the last one at all times to be given anything or even be allowed to say anything. I would ask my mother what I had done; but I hadn t done anything wrong.
In my hours of misery, crying soon became my friend, bearing in mind that I had no friend, no one to turn to, not even a father in which I could confide. Weekends were the worst time for me. Come Saturday I would have to clean the house which meant going down on my hands and knees. It was difficult and very tiring! My mother would have a way in which to make sure that it was to her standard, and if it was not, then she would make a mess of it all, so that I would have to start all over again.
* * * * *
ON SUNDAYS, church would be a very big thing for her because, yet again, everything would have to be spick and span. For example: shiny shoes, clean shirt, clean dress and so on, but to top it all we had to walk the three miles to church. We were not allowed to be late, and when church was finished we were not allowed to be late back home, else we would get the belt no questions asked. Mother s expectations of us were very high.
When we got back home from church she would ask us to tell her where the sermon in the bible was from that day, and god help us if we forgot, she would show no mercy. I was very afraid to make a mistake as a child for fear of getting a beating; it hurts me even today to talk about it. I still cry and wince as I can still hear her voice, and relive it in my mind as if it was yesterday.
Slowly but surely, I became more drawn into myself and expected the beating. My mother would never talk to me, she would only shout at me which made me very nervous and afraid of her. All I wanted from my mother was her love, but it was difficult, I think, for her to show that. Instead, my life with my mother was a living hell.
I remember sometimes before school, I might need a pen or a pencil and find that I haven t got one. As you would expect, one s first instinct is to go and ask your parents, but not in my case. My mother would turn to me and say, Use your finger. I knew then that I was not going to get any writing materials from her.
The unpleasantness continued as the years went by. But my father once again returned to Jamaica, this time with the purpose of taking my mother back with him to England. Without any warning to us children, they made decisions on the best ways in which to introduce all of these changes to us. Whatever the approach, someone is going to get hurt.
However, the situation took a turn for the worse because now they would have to split us up! My sisters and I went to live with our grandmother, and the three boys went to stay with the man who, at the time, was also responsible for the upkeep of the banana plantation.
I call my grandmother the witch because she also abused me. I was the only girl that was born in England to my parents, the rest were boys. They had two more girls, but they were born in Jamaica so, of course, they were treated quite differently from me. I was considered the black sheep of the family; I would have very much liked to have been treated in the way my sisters were. Even my British-born brothers were not treated in the same way that I was, they were more or less allowed to do what they wanted. My mother treated me the way she did because, according to her, I am too much like my dad, and also she believed that she had the wrong child given to her in hospital.
* * * * *
MY MOTHER went back to England in 1969 and left us with her own mother. Unfortunately at the age of 12, I was still wetting my bed and it continued way into my teens. Whilst I was living with my grandmother, events took a nasty turn once again. I was unloved, that much I did know, but even I could not have predicted what was going to happen to me next. I begin to think that I have done something wrong to my grandmother, or there was something wrong with me!
The bedwetting continued. She thought that I was lazy, and that is why I wet the bed; she did not try to understand why I wet the bed and if there was a cause. I was just as powerless living with my grandmother as with my mother. Then one morning, she came to me and said, You pissed the bed again, and without a word she threw the bed clothing and the mattress outside. Then she sent me to the river with the smallest piece of brown soap to wash the sheet with. I did as I was told and went back to the house to hang the sheets out to dry, but then she decided to scrutinise the way in which I washed the sheets. To my astonishment, she took them from the washing line and threw the sheets onto the ground and rubbed them into the di