Parenting is difficult. Even if you don’t have kids, a trip to the grocery store, and a look around at all the parents tugging screaming children away from the toy aisles should tell you that it’s no cake walk. A normal child will wear you down, but a child with an illness or disability will turn you grey before you know it. That parent turning grey by 35 was my mom.

If you read my last article, “It’s Real. Let’s Talk About It” you’ll know I have Bipolar I and was diagnosed at a young age. Basically, this means I have really bad mood swings that go from mania (periods of elation often accompanied by hallucinations, spending sprees, or impulse actions – aka “generally nuts”) to depression, with some normal periods in between. There were two extra added bonuses for my mom and me. One was that my Bipolar was early onset, meaning I was struck with it at a young age. The second was that one of my symptoms was hyper-sexuality.

So you have this four year old girl. She’s running around, saying dirty things, touching herself, and trying to get the adult male next door to show her his penis. It’s cute when it lasts for a few seconds, and it’s just a quick phase. Kids are kids, after all. They’re bound to be curious. What do you do when it doesn’t stop? When it becomes obsessive and dangerous? When it becomes
inappropriate behavior?

Some parents might have yelled. Some may have hit. I bet most would cry, at least when their kid went to sleep at night. My mom, well, she’s sexually open. She just figured I was an extraordinarily curious child and rolled with the punches. A product of the “free love” generation to the last, I suppose.

At first, she just spent time teaching me the proper names for things. That way, if I was going to ask the guy next door to pull down his pants, at least I’d know what to call the thing I wanted to see. I’m sure that wasn’t her real reason, but that’s what I used the knowledge for. She tried to teach me that these things were special and private for people who love each other. I decided I loved everyone. She tried to explain that love wasn’t what I thought it was. Alas, a young child can’t grasp such concepts.

Figuring I was bound to get in trouble if she didn’t do something, she sat me down and had the dreaded birds and bees talk with me. I’m sure most parents don’t like having this conversation, but when you have to have it with your very young child because there’s an immediate need to do so, I can’t imagine that makes the process any easier. She bought books that broke down in simple language what everything was, and why it was there. Mostly, this fueled my fire. “So that’s how it works,” I thought. If I was curious before, well, a cat had nothing on me after that.

My mom, bless her, didn’t even bat an eye. She apologized to her friends and the neighbors as if I’d simply spilt juice on their carpet. “Don’t mind her! She’s a kid!” They had kids, too. Their children weren’t trying to grope my mom, I noticed. They weren’t interested in kissing me back, either. Somehow, I think my mom was a little naive.

When I finally started therapy at around age six or seven, my mom didn’t even feel the need to mention these things to the therapist. She genuinely thought they were run of the mill kid things. Therapists don’t want to ask if your six year old has been trying to have sex with people, and mine apparently didn’t know that kids weren’t supposed to do such things, so it never got brought up. In fact, I never discussed sex at all with a therapist until I was 13, one finally pressed me on the topic. I’ve never been very forthcoming with my therapists about much of anything.

My dad, well, he wasn’t around much, in case your wondering why he hasn’t been mentioned. He was an alcoholic and workaholic, and we never saw him except on a rare Saturday night when he was trashed. He was physically and verbally abusive, so I’m glad he was too busy or trashed to notice my eccentricities. I’m sure I would have been beaten up one side and down another if he knew the things that came from my mouth. He didn’t really make friends with anyone for them to rat me out. My mom, again thinking I was a normal kid, probably didn’t even think to mention it or thought better of the idea.

I’ve come to the conclusion over time that my mom must have one very serious sexual appetite not to have thought twice about a child as young as I doing and saying what I did. She was never around kids before she had me, so I assume she only had her own life to go on. I figure she remembers being sexually curious, but didn’t remember exactly when it started for her and just assumed that I was a very, very early bloomer. Had I been one of three normal children, my behaviors might not have flown so under the radar.

Perhaps I would have been in some toddler mental institution somewhere. Perhaps they would have made me a test subject. More likely, CPS would have been called on the assumption that there was some type of sexual trauma and a big can of worms with my physically abusive dad would have been opened. I might have been temporarily taken from the one person that was my rock in childhood. I’m sure everything would have worked out, but any more trauma in my already horrible childhood probably wouldn’t have been a good thing. I count myself blessed that my mother handled me as well as she did.

If you ask her now if anything was different about me as a child, she’ll probably just tell you I’m a little dramatic. That’s how my mom sees Bipolar now – one big disorder summed up by “drama queen.” She still won’t say I was weird sexually, though she will tell you she wishes I had waited until I was older to have sex (I was raped at 13, but chose to have sex by my own will at the same age). She’ll tell you she thinks I’m a little on the kinky side, but will say it with a big smile on her face like she’s super proud of her daughter with the BDSM collection and hoard of sex toys. She’ll call me for directions to the sex store and tell her friends about how I help her pick out toys. She beams about it like I graduated medical school or something. Like I said, I’m pretty sure my mom has a voracious sexual appetite.

I’m pretty sure the way she handled things made it better for me. I know I felt less sexually shamed, at least by her. While the outside world made me feel like a child pervert, my mom made me feel safe and normal. She sometimes taught me things that peaked my curiosity more, but it’s better to know than to end up in a bad situation and not know what you’re in. She did what she knew how to do, and she did it lovingly. My mom has always done that – the best she can with as much love as she has in her heart. Though she will never read this, I hope she knows how thankful I am. And I hope her story (as this one is hers, not mine) may help the parent of a child like me get through a tough time. Yes, you can laugh it off. Yes, you can love your child no matter how strange the sexual acts may be. Yes, you can be an integral part of making them feel less like a pariah. Most of all, yes, you can get through this.

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