Being born into a military home, time is everything. The military is very time oriented and strategic with time and space...very rigid.
This was also the case in my home/homes. Both my dads were Navy. Then my third step dad was Air Force, so I have been raised in homes where "Time is crucial".
As a small child, for example, my "dad" would come into my room, or my mother, and say to me "you have 3 minutes to get this room cleaned up", and they literally meant 3 minutes...if I did not get the room cleaned up the way "they" wanted it clean in that 3 minutes, I would be punished...usually by throwing away my toys or they would trash my room and tell me to clean it again, this time only having 2 minutes...of course, a 4-7 yr old cannot clean up a trashed room in 2 minutes...again I would be punished, usually beat the second time.
I learned to watch the hands on the clock as they turned...I did not know how to tell time, but I knew if the long hand went "two" slots, then that meant 2 minutes...Just like Kevin explained in his video and school clock watching.
I learned that I needed to be able to see clocks everywhere I looked, so I could watch the hands on the clock...
I knew that if the big hand was on 12 and the little hand was on 5, that meant my dad would be coming home...he would come home drunk and usually really angry and I needed to hide myself. So many times I would see the 5 o'clock time, then all of the sudden it would be the big hand on the 12 and the little hand on the 7...that meant that two hours passed with my dad home and I had no memory of that time...Now I know that, that missed time was an alter presenting to deal with my dad...
To this day, I am very anal about time...if I say be here at 4:45, I mean BE THERE NO LATER THAN 4:45...when my kids would be late from a date or school or whatever, I would sit and stare at that clock, getting angrier and angrier...why aren't they home, I am going to ground them...
It wasn't until much later, that I understand why I would get so angry if someone was not time conscious...in my mind, punishments were coming and I was scared. It was all about me and my time issue...
In my house, in every room are analog clocks. I look at them constantly, if it is 30 minutes later and I don't remember that lost 30 minutes, I know it was probably an alter fronting, and if I look around I can sometimes see what they have done, or if they have left me a message on the white board.
Before Kevin had analog clocks in his home, when I would visit, I was always panicked about time, I could not monitor my time there, no clocks...this caused huge anxiety for me, and at first we didn't know why, but now we do, and Kevin has clocks in every room now, like me. You see, the way I was raised, time was everything. If I was told to come and eat at 4 o'clock and I was even 1 minute late, I was not allowed to eat, I was sent to my room with no dinner. I was told "you must not be hungry if you can't be here on time"...this happened all the time, why? Because I was a little girl who couldn't tell time, didn't understand time...I was not taught how to tell time in school, I was taught through beatings and punishments, I learned to watch and dread the hands on the clock...
Even now, as an adult. I am very time conscious. If I am going somewhere and the event starts at a certain time, then I am there exactly at that time or even earlier...I cannot be late, because somewhere in the back of my brain, if I am late, I will be punished. So I have learned to be punctual...I use to blame my time rigidness on being raised in the military...but that is really not the reason, I know that now. I am trying to overcome this fear of time. I know that I am safe, and no one is going to punish me if I am late somewhere, I know that, but deep down there is still that fear of "time"....
Sparrow
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