For good or ill Mama Kat's prompts frequently remind me of my childhood. I read the list of prompts for this week and was immediately struck by number 1 - A time you were tricked. It wasn't a single time, but rather lots of times.
Tricks and games are the stock in trade of abusers. They set me up, lured me, tricked me into believing a game was afoot, to relax me or wear me out, and then BAM, they'd lower the boom.
The clearest memory and example I have of this happened the day of the barn incident.
It is after lunch, and we are sent outside to play. It's a hot, early summer day. Her idea is that I should chase her around the yard to see if I can catch her. We run in a circle -- past the swing set, across the carport, through the front yard, and back into the backyard past the swing set again.
It is hot and humid. A better time for a nap than a game of chase. We run in circles. She is older than I am by 5 years, so there is no way I can catch her. I am sweating and tiring, but I keep chasing, because it is what she has asked (told) me to do. At some point I realize that if I am chasing her in a circle, it could be reasoned that she is chasing me. That I am the prey. But that concept won't become fully formed until much later in my life.
Eventually she changes the path, turning to run into the barn -- the shade with an invitation of a truce, a cooling off period. I follow like a lamb led to slaughter. It is a trick. I have been tricked and fallen for it again. There was no "game" being played. There was merely an execution of her plan. Wear me out and down, and then lure me to the barn to "cool off". Exhaust me so that she can torture me more easily. Assure my compliance(?) or at least lower my ability to resist.
I think about tricks, pranks, practical jokes. As an adult I've never liked them. I feel belittled and betrayed when I am on the receiving end. When it's not me who's been tricked, I feel sympathy and pain for the one who has been.
Being tricked is like being lied to and then expected to laugh about it. Tricks are lies in disguise, and I don't do lies.
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