Personal Post: The Past
I'm constantly amazed at myself these days.
Mostly, it's because ever since Sephie's birth, I've been attempting to deal with all of the old abuse stuff from my childhood. I've always known the way I was raised was unhealthy and destructive, but it's interesting how these days are spent processing individually traumatic events as part of understanding the larger picture of just how dysfunctional every thing was. After years of shuffling it to the back while I faced other issues, the abuse by my parents has never gone away.
It's difficult to talk about, even here, because I don't like remembering my father the villain. Most people who mean anything to me now would never have guessed that my father was a completely different man while married to my mother, but he was. He drank so much, his face had the tell-tale red mask of alcohol abuse. He was angry and would say things to hurt you because he was, himself, hurting. He felt completely and totally emasculated by my mother, and the only way to deflect her attention from him was to direct it at us.
Does that make it okay? Of course not. He made mistakes, and he knows it. I still flinch when I hear him cough because back then, he was so out of shape from smoking and drinking and eating Mom's butter-fried food, he coughed all the time. And he has seriously re-written some history, not to shame me but because that's his eternal optimism, something so typical in the adult children of alcoholics. But the difference between him and my mother is that Dad, at least, acknowledges he made "many, many mistakes" and truly regrets them.
He's tried to make up for them, but as I'm realizing more and more into parenthood, even after you are no longer under the threat of physical violence, the reminder is there. The memories are there.
A few days ago, my jaw popped out of place. This has been a periodic problem since I was a child. It started about 15 years ago, when I made a smart remark and my mom hauled off and hit me. She slapped me so hard, I spun into the bed and saw stars. My jaw didn't work properly. It was just her and I, as the boys were with Dad doing something. As I lay on the bed not displaying any emotion beyond stating I was in pain, she eventually brought me a bag of ice with a towel to put on my cheek, and told me "This is what happens when you go opening your fucking mouth." It took three days for my jaw to work normally again and not feel so much pain.
My brothers deny that this ever happened. How would they know? They weren't fucking there.
But that day was a turning point for me. I realized, on that day, that if I could control my pain, if I could be the one to initiate her rage, I would have the upper hand. I could at least deny her the satisfaction of surprising me or getting a total reaction. From that day forward, I went out of my way to provoke her. Life was a constant catwalk across eggshells anyway; for the first time, I felt like I could have some real power.
In hindsight, I don't know why it didn't occur to me to try and defend myself, or dodge the blows. For years, I tried to beg teachers for help. The routine was always the same: the teacher would take my report, they would send me to the counselor, the counselor would talk to my parents who denied every doing anything beyond spanking me because I was defiant, or something. And that was it. In middle school, when the counselor had a conference with my parents and they denied ever hitting me, he refused to see me again. Talk about rejection...
Actually, I did try to defend myself once, by blocking the blows. I was about 16, shortly before I would leave Mom forever. She hit me so hard she knocked me off a bar stool. While I struggled to keep her from making contact, rage pushed her over the edge and she actually started hitting me harder. I yelled out for help from DJ, and he just stood there while she punched my thighs. Doing nothing. Months later, he would tell me, "Do you think it was easy for me to just stand there while you called me for help? It wasn't. You should have just kept your mouth shut."
That was always the role my brothers played. Her minions and assistants, the accomplices. She rewarded them for spying on me. Shortly after Dad left, DJ went through my private IMs, my diary entries, everything. He showed them to Mom. They hauled me into the community mental health center for a psychiatric evaluation. DJ was right there, Mom's substitute husband since Dad had left her earlier that month. I ended up seeing that therapist for several years, and when I was 17 or 18, she theorized my mother had borderline personality disorder, but I never got the impression she was supportive for what I was trying to survive.
Ryan was no better. He learned he could diffuse the focus off of his perpetual screw-ups by bringing mine to light. It wasn't his fault; my parents conditioned him that way. It's a hard pattern to break and he has no reason to do so, even now.
I have so much overwhelming emotion as I'm posting this. I want to cover my hands and scream. I want to break things. I want to pick a fight and have an excuse to punch someone to get out this rage I feel when I reflect over how I was treated.
I know some parents believe in spanking. B believes in it to some extent, but I've told him I've never seen it just end with spanking. I don't think your children should be afraid of you. And I was afraid of my parents, but that didn't stop me from speaking out because for so long it was the only way I could fight back. I was a child and too scared to physically engage them, but as they were beating me, I was never silent. I alternated between screaming and firing off every smart-assed remark I could. It was the only way I could offer up any defense. I refused to be powerless.
Years later, this would come to fruition when my first boyfriend and I had sex. There were several times where I was not comfortable communicating I didn't want to have sex, and I would lay frozen still while he removed my clothes and I was rigid as a board. Of course, my first boyfriend also had a habit of slapping me across the face if I disagreed with him (once, brazenly in front of Zack, who just stood there with his mouth open) but it didn't really sink in until Jason Chronister raped me. I could not fight back. I couldn't raise my arms in defense. I could only say, over and over again, "Jason, no. Stop. I don't want this. I don't want to have sex with you." Words were my only weapon, my only way to fight back.
I wish I was someone who could physically raise to the challenge. The idea of anyone treating my children the way I was treated makes my blood boil and my fingers curl into claws. For them, I might be able to. I want to believe I would. Domestic violence inflicts so much damage that you never really recover from...and the older I get, analyzing these patterns, the more I understand the choices that I made in my love life, and the more grateful I am that I never have to conscientiously worry that B will raise his hand to me. I admit, though, that sometimes I still do.
I understand why this stuff has been an issue for me. I really do. I just wish it wasn't.