There are many instances of my parents going over the top on ways they punished me. But one sticks out to me in particular to this day. Now to start off I WILL admit that I was in trouble a lot at school all through it from beginning to end. But I will also pair that fact with the fact I am speculative to weather or not I've been living with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) for my entire life and that may or may not have been the root for a lot of my school troubles, and why half the time I didn't understand why I was in trouble or didn't mean to cause any harm.

But, I watched a lot of movies and had a very wild imagination to boot that wasn't always in the realm of unicorns and rainbows. So, I can't exactly place the timeline on this but I feel it should be factored into what took place.
For some reason in early elementary I had a facination with running away. My mom had moved in her 3rd husband, and they may or may not have been already married at the time but he would be the man who was my father figure for the majority of my upbringing.
Anyways, I had two other playground friends that had just as vivid of an imagination, and we started to scheme up actually running away. It was all make believe, we would never have been brave enough to actually do it. But the narrative for our little 'plan' began to morphe into a more movie- like setting. I don't remember which of us came up with what, but the end result was quite a horrifying idea looking back.
I remember thinking of the plan in 3rd person like on tv, I never actually ever imagined myself actually doing these things. It was sort of an extremely morbid version of how kids will play make believe and play different characters. So, to get to the point, myself and these two boys had come up with the idea of running away and meeting at the local gas station.
So as my friends were going through who should bring what, already knowing none of us would leave their beds that night, a teacher overheard us and of course got highly concerned and called all of our parents. My parents of course figured I must be some sort of demon spawn from that day forward.
I still don't understand why or how three 1st-2nd graders ever came up with something like that, or even how I should feel about it. All I know for sure is that I never would have ever harmed a single person. And I always had a habit of dreaming up the most horribly vivid horror stories as a child, but that one was definitely the most alarming to recall looking at it from an outside perspective.
I have no clue how I would have handled it as a parent. But, my parents proceed to scream at me for hours on end, my tiny frightened brain unable to even process anything.
None of us were prepared and it had lasting trauma on all of us I'm sure. But eventually we must have gotten back to normal somehow, because in 3rd grade it was the usual antics, that I still honestly don't remember much of, I just remember the fear of being in trouble all the time. Well, I developed a bad habit of telling lies all the time. Weather it was why I got in trouble, or how I was doing in school, or even just brushing my teeth, and my parents were so enraged by it. After trying and trying to punish me without me ever stopping my lying problem, they decided to contact a friend of theirs who's husband was a cop and arranged to take me in. I'm fairly sure all I was doing at that point was telling white lies. [trigger]And my parents marched me right into that jail and showed me them and told me if I kept lying then they would give me to these people and lock me in. They also knew that I was insanely terrified of the dark (didn't stop using a night light until 9-10) and made sure to show me the isolation cell, so pitch black I couldn't see beyond the door, and told me that there were lots of cockroaches and rats in there to keep me company.[.trigger] I still can't even describe the level of fear I felt that day, it traumatised me....

So, that is simply a chapter in my story. It dosent get prettier, and I still can't make any sense of any of it. I still don't know what to think of the running away incident, but I definitely feel ashamed to admit it happened.
I can't say enough how much I never would have ever hurt one person but I'm sure a lot of people won't see that as an exuse, but again I was like 8 years old, watched a lot of movies I shouldn't have, and am most likely on the spectrum. I really don't know, but I feel like it shaped my entire upbringing on how my parents viewed me, and I think it just came down to a wild imagination and not understanding how it would have been viewed by adults at the time.
I don't know if I deserved to be threatened with jail for my actions as a child. But I just could be so ****ed up that I'll never know weather to accept it because it was necessary, or reject it because it could be labeled abusive? I just know I'll probably think about it till the day I die. And I live a perfectly upstanding life these days. I've made mistakes but at my core I'm a GOOD person and I'm always trying to help and do right by others. I don't know why I wrote this. I guess I needed to get it off my chest once and for all. If you read this all the way, thank you, and I hope that maybe someone could help me see the truth in any of this and hopefully not see me as a horrible person.