So this is an awkward segue. I'm not sure there's an easy way to do this. Politics wasn't exactly the smoothest thing...
In fairness to my republican friends and readers. My father was a democrat. A racist shit head democrat but still. You'd think I'd have come away from that with some republican viewpoints, just to be as different as I could possibly be, but...yeah, there's no way.
I wrote that last post for Heather's book. I finished it last year in August right after we moved. It was the only source of stress in the month of August after the joyous day we moved into the Dream Neighborhood.
The assignment was to write about fatherhood and somehow I couldn't help it, every time I sat down it just came pouring out. It was impossible to write about Logan as a father without talking about my father. In the way I've always wanted to but rarely have.
The piece obviously wasn't a fit for the book because it's really kind of a blog post, like everything I write is.
Also, the only other piece about an abusive childhood was about coming to a place of forgiveness and understanding. I think everyone should proceed through abuse and resolving the feelings they have about it in whatever way fits for them.
I also tend to believe the world isn't nearly angry enough about child abuse. My healing process will never include forgiveness. I spent a lot of time trying to forgive my father for the insanity of what he put me through. That left me with only anger at myself and that anger left me painfully depressed and full of intense self loathing.
I know my father was a child once. I know he didn't come into this world evil. But I will never forgive him. I will never forgive my mother and I will never be at peace with what happened to me. I don't have nightmares about it anymore. I don't think about it every day. I have forgiven myself and the little girl I was.
I decided many many years ago that I would never forgive the people who failed me. Instead I would find joy in my family, happiness in my marriage and peace with my anger. Finding peace in forgiveness is not in my own plan for recovering.
So the edits on the piece for the editors...didn't go over very well.
So far the anger has gotten me pretty far and I'm comfortable with it. I'm not sure why that is so threatening to so many people?
If I could give you all a gift it would be intense rage against anyone who hurts children. Unrelenting, unending rage aimed directly at people who hurt children. I hope every time you look at your child you feel that rage bubble up inside of you and you imagine clawing the eyes out of anyone who would hurt them.
When I looked at this picture 18 years ago, I couldn't stand that little girl. I thought she was stupid and trusting and bad. That something about her was evil and made these terrible things happen to her.
Today, as a mother of a little girl, I look at that picture and I want to claw that man's eyes out. I am at peace with that feeling. That's certainly not a nice thing to say, but it is my truth.
And I want you to be okay with feeling that same kind of rage at evil.
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I wrote about the time I dropped out of high school for a couple of days when I was fifteen.
My father was furious and insisted I go back to school and also insisted I see the school crisis counselor. My father had moved out of our house at the time but several times I saw him following my school bus in the family station wagon. I had hidden from him in a drugstore once. A girl at school asked me if I was dating an older man. My father had come in to the fast food restaurant she worked at and asked if she knew Melissa Williams. He was her boyfriend.
So he was gone, but not really and I was terrified of him. My very own boogeyman driving around in a Town and Country wood sided station wagon.
The thing is I don't think he knew what he was doing when he insisted I talk to someone, or maybe he did. But I went to see the counselor at school and for a month I stared at the ground wanting to talk but being unable to even make the words come out of my mouth. And finally, very, very slowly I told him what happened to me. I told him everything. Once I started I didn't think I could stop.
Sometimes when I was telling I would only be able to whisper. Sometimes my breath would catch in my throat and I would feel like I was being suffocated for a minute in the office.
Because of legal concerns, my counselor made me tell my mother about what had happened. That went...not very well.
Within a year my father killed himself, although I still don't know if he knew I told anyone. I had no indication anyone had informed him. Somehow he did manage to hurt me another time before he died.
After that I didn't tell another person for years until Logan and I started getting serious.
Then I kept it to myself for more years. I went back to therapy a few times and revisited the topic in varying degrees.
About three years ago I told my best girlfriends and it was surprisingly healing.
After that I told my other best friends.
I had been afraid of telling anyone for 30 years and the world didn't fall apart and no one thought I was bad. Everyone believed me. Everyone kind of acted like my high school counselor (and later therapist) acted when I told. Nothing I'd feared, that had kept me from telling, happened.
Every time I've told it's been a giant reality check, with a little hug at the end. It really was that bad. I really did survive. I really am okay.
I get that again when I write about it. When I tell this part of my story, I feel more complete and understood and that is one of the things that's always driven me to write this website.
Most of my life I was "The Difficult One". The one sitting on the wall at recess instead of playing with friends in third grade. I was the one collapsing in class and ending up hospitalized. I was the one who screamed at my mother all the time. I am even now unable to have a close relationship with my mother. I was angry and sad and I didn't hide it very well to the outside world. This made my family bristle at times, I'd like to think because they didn't know the whole story.
Being able to tell the whole story of my experience in that house, it feels like screaming, "NO!" And having people actually listen to me.
Thank you.
My immediate family, aside from my little sister, haven't responded very well to this part of my story and there are about 1000 reasons for this. Some I empathize with and feel terrible for them about. Others, I don't quite understand. I know this is hurtful information for my family. But it happened and being silent about it is helping them avoid the pain of the reality. Not me, I've lived with it my entire life. I have a right to be "selfish" about my own story.
Like my therapist told me every time I sat in his office telling him about the things that happened to me and my throat tried to close up on me. "These things already happened. That was the hard part. Saying them out loud doesn't make the things that happened to you any worse and saying them will eventually make them better."
The good news is I'm far enough along in this process I understand that the expectation I will or should keep my story to myself, or that I am somehow wrong to tell whomever I choose about what happened to me is simply false. Though I am sorry for the pain it opens up for those who are part of my family, I have not created the pain, the pain was already there. I know that for sure. We all know that for sure.
Hopefully the relationships I care about will recover from this truth. I will grieve some of them if they do not.
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I may revisit this topic from time to time as I have more things I feel I'd like to release into the world. I may not. When this happens there may be awkward segues to totally unrelated topics. But that's where my life is right now. Sharing the story of my past is something I can do now without it absorbing me in a blanket of sadness and depression.
That I can let the thought of my father as a monster live right next to my latest crafty project, I think that might be the most healed I will ever be. It is a terribly painful black part of who I am. But it is small...just like my therapist told me it would be. It keeps getting smaller and I have no doubt talking about it has done that for me.
Thank you for listening. I hope every one of you reading this who have been touched by painful childhoods in all their many forms find your way through it, as many times as you have to go through it, and find whatever "peace" is for you, for just that day.
