The show that mimicked my family

So, I'm watching the show "Married With Children" on a binge, spanning many DVD discs.  At first, I watched and laughed remembering the times my mother, my self, my father, and my brother watched the show together as a family, usually after "the Simpsons".  This was something of a Sunday night family tradition.  And we found ourselves being mimicked on TV in many ways.

I remember all of those times, and how I felt during each of those times even when we strayed away from the Sunday night tradition of watching the two shows together as a family.  My older brother would go on to being employed full time.  My dad filed for divorce, for which the reasons have been a bit unclear, but he admitted later on that he felt he was the reason that his marriage to my mother went all wrong.  Which, by the way, wasn't far off the mark.  My mother, having hated my father for many warranted reasons, was grieving at the failure of the marriage, and was initially spiteful.

All the while, I'm still going to [high] school, going through hell getting harassed every day, and not to mention the numerous doctor visits, in-office procedures, and surgeries I underwent.  The abusiveness from my dad stopped pretty abruptly by the time I got into high school, but it got replaced by many other things including being mistreated elsewhere in my life.  Notably, my older brother.  He naturally felt that I was feigning my medical issues, despite knowing about the many surgeries I went through.

Anyway, I've been on a "Married With Children" sort of marathon binge, and while there have been moments of nostalgia, I have to admit that there are moments I just want to cry hard.  I came to realize that the show itself is so accurate how my family and I interacted with each other, it accurately depicted how my dad felt about marriage, children, and spousal pregnancy.  It was extremely accurate of how my mother felt, and I can kind of agree that my brother was a lot like Bud Bundy, while I was "Kelly" without the numerous dates, and feeling just a little bit stupid from time to time during the series' initial run on broadcast TV.

I have also come to the conclusion that the show plays on stereotypes.  The harassing of nerds, people with disabilities, misogyny, misandrist attitudes, and many other toxic elements.  And I found myself crying at the moment of an otherwise funny quip.  I started to feel like maybe the show, while damned funny, was bringing up old, dusty, and quite infected wounds that I had thought the decades since have healed.  

I was wrong.

I'll still watch the series, and keep the DVD box set, but I can't help but feel as though perhaps I am being reminded of old feelings, old memories, maybe that is why I am nearly always anxious.  Like, how on at least one day a week, we actually were a fucking family.  Like how we found two shows that we could all identify with to some extent.  Like for that one night a week, we weren't trying to kill each other, scream and yell at one another, etc.

I think that's why I both love and loathe the series.  It's way too accurate.  Hits way too close to home.  Sometimes, I find that I can no longer laugh when I realize just how close the show depicted my family members, almost to a "T".  It was one of those abrupt and halting realizations, the epiphany that if the show was that accurate for showing us who we really were, how many other families had been like that in America, and only put on that "we are the epitome of a perfect family" smug look for a show to others, i.e. in a restaurant or a movie theater outing, or really any social gathering where family attendance was mandatory?

I came to realize that I hated being with my family for many of the wrong reasons.  One of which was the constant bickering and fighting, and another reason was that instead of earning each other's respect, like the show, we often heckled each other, and we often said very unkind things to each other.  It's a wonder we even survived each other.  Anyway, it just had me bawling the other night, wishing we weren't "a Bundy family".  In fact, before watching "Married ... with Children!", we often watched "Family Matters", "Growing Pains", and others.  While they were funny, and witty for their time, they just didn't have anything that resembled our family.  And then came along the Bundy family.  And the Simpsons.  

I guess that's what hurts.  Knowing how closely we resembled the two fictional families.  I guess it hurts that unlike "Growing Pains", "Family Matters", or even "Full House", our days almost never ended on a high note.  Not even a serious, but fun note.  There was no chuckle from an audience ending.  No freeze frame closing credits.  Just lots of shouting, yelling, screaming, and just overall not communicating effectively with each other, and me most of all because NO ONE really took responsibility for their actions.  It was always someone else's fault, someone else had dropped the ball, and someone decided that drugs and booze were their solution to the needs of the family as a a whole.

And me?  As a kid, I had this feeling that no one would listen to me, because I was the youngest.  No one ever really respects the youngest sibling, no matter what they accomplish in their life.  So, I never really was allowed to speak up without being told to shut up repeatedly.  And now, my mother wonders why I prefer to stay quiet.  Plus, it doesn't help that I never went through many of the "milestones" a child going into teenager years into adulthood usually passes.  For example, being kissed by a woman, being on an actual date, having sex (not that important to me, as it turns out), or being truly in love with someone.  I think between the show itself, and my family being severely dysfunctional on its own, I was severely unprepared for life at all.  

Sometimes, I wonder how I got through some of the tougher years of my life.  I think to myself, "Damn, man!  I've been through some shit that no one prepared me for!"  I start to think that participating in life, e.g. going to social gatherings, physically going out with friends, etc is just not for me.  Maybe that's because I feel like I don't have much to offer since I'm almost always broke, or maybe because I have only a reliable-ish vehicle, or that I'm just an extreme introvert thanks to my dysfunctional life, my dysfunctional family, and above all my many years wondering why I didn't have the "need" to find the right woman.  

Maybe the show rubbed off on me more than I realize.  I am skeptical when a woman whom I don't already know starts being nice to me, especially when I'm not working.  Not to sound like "that guy", but I was always just a little bit skeptical of that one young lady in the pharmacy who kept being a bit flirty with me that she might, in fact, was just being polite.

Sadly, my skepticism won out when it was revealed to me that she had someone else.  And then I watch the show, and I immediately see my dad in Al Bundy when concerned with women.  Always suspicious of women who get just a bit too close for comfort.  Always waiting for the anvil to drop on the head when realizing that someone got the last laugh, and it was not me.

Maybe I'm just rambling.  It just hit me so hard the other night watching MWC, and maybe it's because we're coming up on that time of year that is the hardest for my family and myself.  Christmas.  I hate this time of year when it's getting cooler during the daylight hours, colder at night.  My mother persistently tries to decorate, and I'm just not about it.  And the more I watch MWC, the less I feel comfortable with helping along the decorations.  

I feel angry enough that the show we loved is now a hurtful reminder of how awful we were to each other, but man when it came to showing off to others, we had that "Yeah, we're cordial with each other.... for now!"

Maybe I'm just getting older, and that I've been through more shit than anyone can ever hope to realize.  

*sigh* I just don't know if I want to complete my marathon viewing of MWC anymore given that it brings up very old wounds.

/rant off