“Nobody can ride your back if your back's not bent”
When I was very tiny, punishment could come in any form. Timeout, a little smack with the hand, a bigger whack with the wooden spoon, occasionally The Belt. Only dad used The Belt, and for whatever reason it didn't last past about kindergarten. The last time I got spanked was around 6 or 7, when I said "fuck" in front of my parents. Perhaps ironically for a dad that strapped his kids with a belt, cursing of any sort was not allowed in our household. It was the neighbor kids who taught me the words, and at that age the lecture was far worse than the spanking itself.
My parents fought a lot during their marriage, screaming matches, and I would tiptoe around for hours or even days afterward while dad simmered. You know how, when you walk into a room where two people have just been arguing, and there's a palpable feeling to the atmosphere? Dad carried that like a force field around himself, so you knew when he was ramping up to being angry, and you knew when he hadn't gotten over it. The overriding impulse of my childhood was simply to not make dad mad. Do everything possible to make dad happy. Never push dad too far. Never challenge dad. Even getting angry was to tempt dad; his anger was the only valid anger, so even if you weren't mad at him specifically, being angry challenged him in some way.
But, of course, dad wasn't always angry. Dad could be incredibly fun - he was other kids' stand-in dad. He was the "fun uncle," and my classmates and the neighbor kids would call him "dad" and get excited when he'd go on field trips or play baseball in the street. I don't want to tip this in favor of the "all terror, all the time" childhood. It was a seesaw. But I'm sure you can see where this is heading; all the traits that make a child into an adult were subverted underneath this underlying fear and all-encompassing need to walk on eggshells to keep dad as happy as possible. This set of thoughts and behaviors was automatic, not something I ever thought about. Not until I got to around puberty, which is a hard age anyway, and a great time for rebellion. I only started to think not all families were like that when mom told me I shouldn't talk too much about what goes on at home. It's nobody else's business, she said. But that got me thinking; if it's nobody else's business, that's fine, but then why would it be important not to talk about?
And again, there was no physical abuse. There hadn't been physical punishment in years. But the deep memory of The Belt persisted, lying low, but always attached to dad so that he didn't have to be physically violent. Looking back I can still feel the fear - amorphous, huge, but all he would do was yell. You know how people have a fight or flight response? Either of those would get me in bigger trouble, so I developed a "hide" response. I call it "tense and condense." Make yourself as small as possible so the storm can blow right over, and you can come out when it's safer. I still have that in relation to dad, even though now I can stand up for myself and will risk the yelling. It was simply the unspoken threat that hung over my head when I was younger.
The problem, of course, is that I carried this with me into other relationships. It almost seems like a cliche, but there it is. Even if I recognize the issue and am trying to change it, I still don't trust myself not to fall right back into that pattern. My parents together raised me with a bent back - dad with his anger, mom with her placating - and as much as I admire Dr. King's words in this instance, I'm afraid I don't know how to straighten it.
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edit: Forgot this part: This is an entry for therealljidol, more entries can be found there, as well as weekly voting that's open to all.
My parents fought a lot during their marriage, screaming matches, and I would tiptoe around for hours or even days afterward while dad simmered. You know how, when you walk into a room where two people have just been arguing, and there's a palpable feeling to the atmosphere? Dad carried that like a force field around himself, so you knew when he was ramping up to being angry, and you knew when he hadn't gotten over it. The overriding impulse of my childhood was simply to not make dad mad. Do everything possible to make dad happy. Never push dad too far. Never challenge dad. Even getting angry was to tempt dad; his anger was the only valid anger, so even if you weren't mad at him specifically, being angry challenged him in some way.
But, of course, dad wasn't always angry. Dad could be incredibly fun - he was other kids' stand-in dad. He was the "fun uncle," and my classmates and the neighbor kids would call him "dad" and get excited when he'd go on field trips or play baseball in the street. I don't want to tip this in favor of the "all terror, all the time" childhood. It was a seesaw. But I'm sure you can see where this is heading; all the traits that make a child into an adult were subverted underneath this underlying fear and all-encompassing need to walk on eggshells to keep dad as happy as possible. This set of thoughts and behaviors was automatic, not something I ever thought about. Not until I got to around puberty, which is a hard age anyway, and a great time for rebellion. I only started to think not all families were like that when mom told me I shouldn't talk too much about what goes on at home. It's nobody else's business, she said. But that got me thinking; if it's nobody else's business, that's fine, but then why would it be important not to talk about?
And again, there was no physical abuse. There hadn't been physical punishment in years. But the deep memory of The Belt persisted, lying low, but always attached to dad so that he didn't have to be physically violent. Looking back I can still feel the fear - amorphous, huge, but all he would do was yell. You know how people have a fight or flight response? Either of those would get me in bigger trouble, so I developed a "hide" response. I call it "tense and condense." Make yourself as small as possible so the storm can blow right over, and you can come out when it's safer. I still have that in relation to dad, even though now I can stand up for myself and will risk the yelling. It was simply the unspoken threat that hung over my head when I was younger.
The problem, of course, is that I carried this with me into other relationships. It almost seems like a cliche, but there it is. Even if I recognize the issue and am trying to change it, I still don't trust myself not to fall right back into that pattern. My parents together raised me with a bent back - dad with his anger, mom with her placating - and as much as I admire Dr. King's words in this instance, I'm afraid I don't know how to straighten it.
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edit: Forgot this part: This is an entry for therealljidol, more entries can be found there, as well as weekly voting that's open to all.