spoon complex

It’s true what they say about specific events happening in a young child’s life sticking with them forever.

It’s also true what they say about parents giving their children psychological issues.

I’m an intricate person — I have so many layers that sometimes I don’t even know myself.

I’d like to take a moment to thank my parents for that.

There’s been something I’ve been meaning to tell you all about for a while now that has been nagging at me in the back of my mind.

I have an issue with spoons.

When I was younger, spoons were quite the issue in my childhood home.  I feel like children get blamed for a lot of things they don’t do. However, I know there were so many times I was blamed for something and guilty of the situation (Barbie hair, anyone?). There was one thing I was NOT ever guilty of though, and that would be the missing spoons.

Spoons seemed to disappear in my home when I was younger. Where they went, I’m not quite sure. There were many times I remember my dad pulling cushions off of couches, searching through empty ice cream cartons, and under the coffee table in the basement searching for these so called “missing spoons”. If you grew up in my house, you knew not to challenge my father. He is someone who feels (and now I do too) children should respect adults and talking back shows a lack of respect.

I do vividly remember becoming very defensive towards my father and very firmly telling him to “check all my drawers — I wasn’t hiding spoons in my underwear drawer” -  Insert mistake here.

My siblings and I are convinced my dad was actually the spoon hoarder, while my mom is convinced we threw them all away. All I know is through this I have developed what I like to call a spoon complex.

I am very sensitive when it comes to spoons. The Husband gets infuriated with the amount of spoons I use, meaning more spoons to wash and dry. There have been many times he has opened a drawer and has declared: “We are out of spoons.”

Immediately, I go into attack mode in my brain:

“What do you mean there are no spoons? Of course there are spoons. What? You think I’m some kind of sick freak who hoards spoons in my underwear drawer just to make you mad? Or better yet, you probably think I throw away perfectly good spoons that cost more than my Coach shoes. I can’t believe you — YOU ARE SO MY FATHER!”

Oh, you mean there are no clean spoons. Right. See? Complex.

I’ve been working through it though. Although there’s something about the word “spooning” that makes me cringe and automatically think of my dad. If that’s not psychological damage, I don’t know what is.

All I know is I can get through this — because if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s really difficult to eat oatmeal with a fork.

Tagged as: hiding utensils, psychological complex, psychological damage from parents, spoons