Date: 14 Sep 2011 05:20
Topic: First Post Notes
Modified: 02 Oct 2011 00:51

To that end, I will begin with myself. 
George was born to parents who did not anticipate his arrival, so much as fear it. He was the inexorable necessity of Catholic obligation. His parents did not love each other, but needed each other for reasons of which neither were ever really conscious. When George did arrive, it cemented that obligation. What began as a merely unconscious and dysfunctional union, became a 30 year sentence of indentured servitude with his birth. And all that rage, fear, frustration, resentment, shame and guilt was to be loaded onto his back one brick at a time, each and every day of it.
This may sound like hyperbole. It is true that my writing has a tendency to lean toward the dramatic. But in this case, it's not very far from reality at all. I was bottle fed not because my mother was medically or physically unable to feed, but because the mere idea of having a child sucking at her breast disgusted, revolted, and enraged her. She also suffered 
As a child, I was beaten severely for everything from yelling to tardiness to wetting the bed. I was taught to hate my body, to hate all of it's natural impulses - especially pleasure and self-expression -- and to fear anyone who loved those things. I was constantly given mixed signals as to what I should enjoy, should desire, should believe, should expect of the world, and I was constantly punished for being unable to intuit which preference was the correct one in any given moment. 
As I grew older, and began to develop sexually, the constant white noise of suspicion and disgust that swirled around me worsened exponentially. My friendships were monitored, my bedroom was regularly searched, and my reading habits were constantly scrutinized. Fast forward to my teen years. From the years