A Backlash of Emotion in How Ski Patrol Broke Me

I was not a kid that grew up confident. Any time I thought I was good at something, the assurance came from my dad or somebody at school. It was never my own mom or my sister. I didn’t expect it from my younger sister, but often I took the fall for wrongful acts on her part. That said, we were kids and even the most stupid things my sister did were not bad. My mom just had a temper. That temper is what prevented me from being successful in a number of ways. For example, I started hiding my homework from my mom (we got home before she did on school days) and acting like I had done it earlier. She would later figure out that I hadn’t done pieces of it and I would get in trouble for poor grades. Oddly enough, I got into less trouble for bad grades than I would have for doing my homework even slightly wrong. I remember a number of spelling words getting thrown at me in hateful sentences, math questions being whacked over my head as I fought back tears, and mom saying things like “you’re stupid” and “you’re just like your dad.”

My mother was my bully. She was psychologically tormenting and often physical with me as well. Sometimes her wedding ring would catch my tooth or my eye just right and I’d have fairly decent sized gashes on my face. I was an athlete as kid and lived in a heavily wooded area. It was not too far fetched for people to believe I ran through blackberry bushes or fell on something while skiing. Sometimes, I hid under my sheets cowering and quivering in fear of mom coming into my room to scream at me, usually over nothing. I was not a bad kid by any definition. No drugs, no drinking, no sex. I still had to hide tapes and CDs from my mom because she would accuse me of participating in devil’s play.

The long story short is that for almost 18 years of my life I endured different levels of emotional and physical abuse. I became afraid to make friends with people in high school because mom’s answer was always no for hanging out. I was afraid to do school work in fear of being yelled at or beaten with a book. I ran hard and fast, made varsity in track in cross country- those sports were my solace. Dad, I don’t know. I always loved my dad, but he was being abused just as much, if not more, than me. Honestly, I don’t know why he stayed but I was too young to understand. Then, mom got cancer. I was 15. She died just after my 18th birthday and a week before high school graduation. She hit me and yelled at me up until she was on hospice. The hitting did stop sooner, but the psychological torment continued until she couldn’t speak. I still found myself holding my hand under her nose, while she slept, to see if she was breathing. I still feared her death.

When she finally did pass away from a very long battle, she left the rest of us in limbo. I wasn’t sure how to behave and well, as you can imagine, I chose the wrong path. I acted out, but not against my dad or family. I simply chose a path of heavy parties and involving myself with people that didn’t care about me. That said, I developed some friendships (that I still have to this day) with people that were equally abused or neglected throughout their childhoods. They were and are my saving grace, even if a short text is all we exchange here and there. Granted, it has already been 17 years since mom died and I have mostly recovered from her abuse. It does still follow me in pieces and I will cry when I think of how hurt I was.

Going back to my experience on ski patrol, I often wonder if some of my behavior stemmed from days with my mom. Some of my behavior involved being quick to feel bad about particular comments, regressing when I should be progressing, and feeling like I can’t be myself. I even remember telling people I was considering nursing school and the response I got was just like my mom… “you’re probably not gonna get in…” sort of crap.

I was a great employee and a standup patroller when I wasn’t being scrutinized by adult male supervisors and a man that was a pathological liar. I don’t know if they saw me as a threat… maybe Jonathan did… but they certainly saw me as weak and not part of the cool kids. I went to HR with my complaints and explained to a friend that I felt like I was being bullied and felt as though I couldn’t progress or be promoted. Everyone around me was getting promoted, even if just small pay raises. I was the lowest paid patroller by the end of my second year, next to the rookies. I was also passed up for positions that I would have thrived in, given the opportunity. I only took 1-2 per-requisites for nursing school, simply to make sure I would even pass them. I almost didn’t believe I could be a nurse, let alone get into nursing school. I never applied even when I was 18 because because it was my sister’s dream, first. She said it first, therefore I wasn’t allowed to even think about it. Ski patrol made me feel like I did under my mom’s weight of abuse. So many days I cried myself to sleep, cried in my car, cried at work, and felt like a piece of shit. I hated going to work but often could surround myself with people that did care about me, like lift operator friends and mountain safety friends. I got pretty close to considering hurting myself to get out of the negative environment.

Why didn’t I just quit? I don’t know. I couldn’t quit my mom when I was a kid either. Any way, forward back to my second year on patrol when all the negative came pouring over me like a fire hose.

Last updated November 04, 2021