As much as I dislike the emotional hijackings of pretension I see too often in poetry, I've found myself writing in that form in spurts of collections over the years. The Junior High period (mostly church and people ponderings), the High School period (mostly assignments from creative writing), the Breaking from Home period (fighting my way through abuse to hope), and the Sporadic period (where I write less often, at random, of late). This post is to introduce my opening of a new blog to start sharing the Breaking from Home collection, which I titled Speak for Me.
I wrote these over a period of about four years, from mid 2005 to early 2009. This covers the period from shortly after my mom died, through moving, paternal re-marriage, moving away from home, breaking from home, and moving even farther away from home. It covers a lot of emotions as the ones I couldn't write out in my normal journals would crescendo until they came out in poetry form. They express frustrations, trying to hold on, feeling trapped, mad at feeling scared, and almost always work through till I can find a way to keep hoping for a better time.
Some of the poems have easily shareable themes. Just One Day is the first that comes to mind, and I've already shared that on this blog. They are all very personal and I've been conflicted between pulling it all into a presentable form and resisting actually presenting it. I'm still scared to open this up because a lot of people were oblivious to this part of me and even more people resent the idea that a person can be so extremely traumatized without the socially comprehended forms of physical and sexual abuse.
Sometimes I try to explain the effects of my experiences as brainwashing. Life was often an active battle to simply retain my identity, to not disappear into a mind-less, being-less, soulless slave. The Speak for Me collection is very much my active fighting to survive. PTSD is recognized as trauma that physically threatens ones life and thereby alters the body's reaction to stimulus which recalls the originating trauma. What I survived threatened to erase me, not just my physical body. I believe this kind of abuse is rampant. It is pernicious precisely because it isn't talked about and is ignored when outsiders catch a glimpse. "It's none of my business," is the usual thought response.
How often I wished someone had spoken up and told me I had a right to think what I think and feel what I feel. That what was happening was not ok and was not my fault. That an understanding haven would have been offered where I was wanted and welcome and understood. Instead, I hid in my car because I couldn't face going inside yet and had nowhere else to go. I had imaginary conversations with the closest things I had to friends to try to work through the craziness that was my life because everyone was too busy to want to be bothered by me. I hated looking in the mirror and seeing what I was taught was a disgusting person. I can face mirrors now. I can see me, now. But pictures still make me feel a bit sick. I was left alone, without family, with church as my only refuge, but resented and abandoned repeatedly by people who had no interest in slowing down enough to see that my unusual reactions had a terrible cause. Instead, they just saw them and me as unwanted irritation.
And so, even though I am nervous, I am sharing this because someone needs to start the conversation. Someone needs to say - these are the emotions. And those trapped in the nightmare I finally escaped need to know it can be done, even if no one else decides to notice, care, or try to help. I did it with God by my side, guiding my understanding until I was read to break from home and learn to feel safe in freedom. Speak for Me is my journey during this difficult time.
The scriptures that introduce each poem are almost all the very verses that helped me reach the poems' conclusions I needed to keep going. They were very much my life-line. The afterwords are reflections on the topic or the events which prompted the poems. The new blog can be found at:
Showing posts with label abuse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label abuse. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Thoughts on Escaping an Abusive Environment, Part 2
I hope Part 1 helped you understand that even if you haven't personally experienced emotional, psychological abuse, that it is still a horrible reality with terrible results for others. I had not intended to do this in two parts but setting the stage is critical to begin such a discussion on such a topic and required enough space that a single post would be far less effective. Having primed the subject, now I turn to my notes and thoughts on what is needed to escape an abusive environment. These thoughts are taken from my escape, my mom's inability to escape, and observing and considering the happenings and implications of culture and others' experiences.
Before the idea of escape is even possible, there must be a vocabulary that allows understanding, awareness, social acknowledgment, and dialogue of the realities of the existence and nature of such abuses. This is, in part, why it's so critical to talk about it. Having been so trapped, I am always concerned and a bit agitated when all the conversation goes to physical and sexual abuse. I in no way mean to negate that need, but it puts me in mind of the family who addresses all their concern for one child's health problems to the detriment of the others'.
Until there is a general awareness that there is a problem, those so trapped will be as I was when daring to speak out about it as I wrote in part 1. And even then, I only spoke because I hurt - because my identity and psyche were being so damaged I didn't know how to survive it. So I asked for help from the hurt and the hurting was scorned. I didn't know what was wrong or why or that there was anything to be done about it.
If society can't conceive or won't admit that there is wrong, how will an embattled child know they have a right to better treatment? Especially when the abuser is telling them, convincing them, that they are less human, less worthy. Have you never heard of a victim told that the life the abuser has 'given' them is better than they could hope for anywhere else? Because it's already more than they're worth being given? The victim must know that respect for self and choice and ability are expected and honored and that despite the abuser's claims, the victim has that same right as the members of that family up the street that actually loves and respects each others' existence.
Sometimes victims get stuck in the same pride that others face. They want to believe that they couldn't have fallen for the lies and are stronger than those who get manipulated. Sometimes they think they can shield others in the family by pretending it isn't happening or by 'running interference'. Sometimes they need help to admit they need help, that they are trapped in a bad environment and allowing it to continue only allows for further damage to self and even others.
The victim must know help is available. Will family or neighbors believe and support or will they deny and condemn? My mother had no confidence that support was available for a bed-ridden woman (MS) and her children. She was also afraid that leaving would incline my dad to act out in violence and debated to her death whether it was safer to leave or to stay. Her death took that option off the table. Being sick, she also feared because she was unable to work and provide for her children without the financial support of a husband. Again, discussion and awareness in society would enable to victim's awareness of resources available.
Ultimately, the victim must be brave enough to act. Often it is recognizing the damage occurring to children/others should they stay that motivates final action. Distance often brings a sense of safety by creating a physical barrier that might incline the abuser to consider the inconvenience of pursuit a deterrent. It also means a new environment where new, healthier rules can be put into play without the same social repercussions.
Physical separation is only the first half. Mental and emotional separation is begun in the process of leaving but the healing takes time relative to the length of time and trauma in the abusive situation. Following are things that aid healing. Their lack can likewise hinder healing.
The survivor needs a safe environment and safe people where they can learn to simply be without having to always fear another attack for every little thing they do. They need time to absorb the comprehension that they have a right to correct mis-assumptions of another (an authority figure, even) without fearing recriminations (respect). This means they gain an awareness that silence is no longer needed for survival.
They need an understanding that sometimes the trauma will revisit in times of stress but it is as the aches of an old injury as a storm front comes in. It is also good for those they interact with to recognize this pattern. Like healing injuries, pain killers can incline some to think all is well but when the pain returns, more Tylenol may be needed. The same often occurs in the healing of traumas. Do not fear the pain. It will also be daunting to face the actions of rehabilitation (such as learning to trust again), but, like physical therapy, it is worth the soreness.
Ultimately, it takes time as proof that survival away and continuing safety and even flowering is possible, sustainable, and defensible. This can be aided by working contingency plans should the feared return of the abuser occur. They may never become necessary, but simply having options and plans available returns a sense of control to the survivor.
On a personal note, I have found that my emotional state can be measured by whether or not I can laugh. If One can laugh, one will survive. If there is no laughter, the stress is at a problem level.
Before the idea of escape is even possible, there must be a vocabulary that allows understanding, awareness, social acknowledgment, and dialogue of the realities of the existence and nature of such abuses. This is, in part, why it's so critical to talk about it. Having been so trapped, I am always concerned and a bit agitated when all the conversation goes to physical and sexual abuse. I in no way mean to negate that need, but it puts me in mind of the family who addresses all their concern for one child's health problems to the detriment of the others'.
Until there is a general awareness that there is a problem, those so trapped will be as I was when daring to speak out about it as I wrote in part 1. And even then, I only spoke because I hurt - because my identity and psyche were being so damaged I didn't know how to survive it. So I asked for help from the hurt and the hurting was scorned. I didn't know what was wrong or why or that there was anything to be done about it.
If society can't conceive or won't admit that there is wrong, how will an embattled child know they have a right to better treatment? Especially when the abuser is telling them, convincing them, that they are less human, less worthy. Have you never heard of a victim told that the life the abuser has 'given' them is better than they could hope for anywhere else? Because it's already more than they're worth being given? The victim must know that respect for self and choice and ability are expected and honored and that despite the abuser's claims, the victim has that same right as the members of that family up the street that actually loves and respects each others' existence.
Sometimes victims get stuck in the same pride that others face. They want to believe that they couldn't have fallen for the lies and are stronger than those who get manipulated. Sometimes they think they can shield others in the family by pretending it isn't happening or by 'running interference'. Sometimes they need help to admit they need help, that they are trapped in a bad environment and allowing it to continue only allows for further damage to self and even others.
The victim must know help is available. Will family or neighbors believe and support or will they deny and condemn? My mother had no confidence that support was available for a bed-ridden woman (MS) and her children. She was also afraid that leaving would incline my dad to act out in violence and debated to her death whether it was safer to leave or to stay. Her death took that option off the table. Being sick, she also feared because she was unable to work and provide for her children without the financial support of a husband. Again, discussion and awareness in society would enable to victim's awareness of resources available.
Ultimately, the victim must be brave enough to act. Often it is recognizing the damage occurring to children/others should they stay that motivates final action. Distance often brings a sense of safety by creating a physical barrier that might incline the abuser to consider the inconvenience of pursuit a deterrent. It also means a new environment where new, healthier rules can be put into play without the same social repercussions.
Physical separation is only the first half. Mental and emotional separation is begun in the process of leaving but the healing takes time relative to the length of time and trauma in the abusive situation. Following are things that aid healing. Their lack can likewise hinder healing.
The survivor needs a safe environment and safe people where they can learn to simply be without having to always fear another attack for every little thing they do. They need time to absorb the comprehension that they have a right to correct mis-assumptions of another (an authority figure, even) without fearing recriminations (respect). This means they gain an awareness that silence is no longer needed for survival.
They need an understanding that sometimes the trauma will revisit in times of stress but it is as the aches of an old injury as a storm front comes in. It is also good for those they interact with to recognize this pattern. Like healing injuries, pain killers can incline some to think all is well but when the pain returns, more Tylenol may be needed. The same often occurs in the healing of traumas. Do not fear the pain. It will also be daunting to face the actions of rehabilitation (such as learning to trust again), but, like physical therapy, it is worth the soreness.
Ultimately, it takes time as proof that survival away and continuing safety and even flowering is possible, sustainable, and defensible. This can be aided by working contingency plans should the feared return of the abuser occur. They may never become necessary, but simply having options and plans available returns a sense of control to the survivor.
On a personal note, I have found that my emotional state can be measured by whether or not I can laugh. If One can laugh, one will survive. If there is no laughter, the stress is at a problem level.
Alma 55:20
...arm...th[e]...prisoners...give them power to gain possession of [themselves]...
Thoughts on Escaping an Abusive Environment, Part 1
A couple weeks ago I had a conversation on twitter with a local newspaper. They have been running a series on signs of domestic abuse and how to help youth beware. I responded that I wished the issues of emotional and psychological abuse were included because, while they may be mentioned, they are never talked about in terms such that the public actually grasps the equally damaging and dangerous reality. There are many similarities to physical forms of violence often not recognized because the differences are rarely accepted.
That probably sounds absurd. This is a common reaction when this subject is dared to be discussed.
I have recently discovered the ion TV channel and found I quite enjoy the Criminal Minds show. One of the episodes last week (too new to the show on reruns to be able to tell you which one by season and name) was about a woman who killed her husband. The prosecutor asked the behavior analyst people to come in and prove competency for facing full charges because she intended to argue against the 'battered woman' defense plea. As the show progresses, certain details come to light.
The woman is despised by her children who adore their father. 'If anyone has been victimized, it was him - he was always patient with her. She's just a lazy, hateful, dirty, stupid woman.' The problem is, when they examined the crime scene, the house was so beyond spotless that everything was (and had been) measured to perfection by a ruler. The son condemned her for never attending his games. She confessed that she was such a failure, she didn't want to embarrass him in public as well. The final piece of info that changed the prosecutor's mind? (Remember, it's a 45 minute show so highly simplified.) They asked her to tell of the events after the murder. Did she call 911 immediately? No. Why? She had to clean up. To hide the evidence? No. Her husband would have been furious with her if she'd had people over with such a mess about.
Don't get me wrong. I am in no way endorsing such a 'solution' for escaping an abusive environment. I am, however, hoping to show that while physical/sexual abuse is obviously horrible, abuse of the mind and spirit is equally hideous and even more insidious because it enslaves the victims into non-being right under everyone's noses. It makes the victims chain themselves because the abuser has so distorted the victim's understanding of reality that they accept the abuser's right to dictate all 'truth'.
Society lets them because the means used are, in moderation, considered acceptable interactions. 'Teasing' when no other form of communication or validation beyond belittling, condemning, criticizing, railing, etc... becomes no longer playful but a cover to hide behind so they can express exactly what was intended with an 'out' so the abuser can't be condemned for being so cruel. 'Can't you take a joke?!' I can't even remember all the times I tried telling people the latest sting/cut/wound and they'd blow it off because 'we say things like that, too - what's your problem?' It confused me and reinforced the idea that I was alone and had nowhere to go.
It was years before I perceived that the people who dismissed me did so because the context was vastly different. They couldn't conceive that a person in a 'family culture' could actually be in a situation where they ONLY heard condemnation. Where 'I love you' was an empty band-aid meant to convince everyone that nothing is actually wrong, be it self or other, private or public. That the same man who 'apparently' (I never witnessed it) boasted about his daughter in public never once told her to her face that she had accomplished anything worthy of affection or pride but instead demanded the world and condemned her for not including the solar system as well.
My dad knew he couldn't get away with physically hurting me. I would know that was wrong and there would be evidence to prove it. Instead, the man who insisted he was smarter than anyone we'd ever meet, used words and contrivances to manipulate and break down. That will sound an excessive claim to those who have not experienced it themselves. It is true non-the-less. He admitted it himself in one of his last middle-of-the-night four-hour-long lecture/threat sessions. "I learned long ago that I need to break you into tears and then I can make you do what I want." Shortly followed by his admission that my ability to later choose my own choices after time had passed frustrated him to no end. I know what I'm talking about.
I don't mean to detail my own experiences here. I've touched on them in various forms in various blogs past. I've spent over a decade trying to understand what happened at home. Over time, I came across information that my dad's abuse was not so circumspect against my mom. I've also seen what his actions have meant for more than one sister who has found herself in a subsequent abusive relationship (physically and sexually). I have been highly aware of other stories (case-studies, in my mind, are what all stories are) to watch and learn and better understand what happens and why. So when the journalist said another follow-up article on how to escape abuse might be considered, I began to take notes. Even if they don't run such an article, I will write of it anyway: this needs to be talked about.
That probably sounds absurd. This is a common reaction when this subject is dared to be discussed.
I have recently discovered the ion TV channel and found I quite enjoy the Criminal Minds show. One of the episodes last week (too new to the show on reruns to be able to tell you which one by season and name) was about a woman who killed her husband. The prosecutor asked the behavior analyst people to come in and prove competency for facing full charges because she intended to argue against the 'battered woman' defense plea. As the show progresses, certain details come to light.
The woman is despised by her children who adore their father. 'If anyone has been victimized, it was him - he was always patient with her. She's just a lazy, hateful, dirty, stupid woman.' The problem is, when they examined the crime scene, the house was so beyond spotless that everything was (and had been) measured to perfection by a ruler. The son condemned her for never attending his games. She confessed that she was such a failure, she didn't want to embarrass him in public as well. The final piece of info that changed the prosecutor's mind? (Remember, it's a 45 minute show so highly simplified.) They asked her to tell of the events after the murder. Did she call 911 immediately? No. Why? She had to clean up. To hide the evidence? No. Her husband would have been furious with her if she'd had people over with such a mess about.
Don't get me wrong. I am in no way endorsing such a 'solution' for escaping an abusive environment. I am, however, hoping to show that while physical/sexual abuse is obviously horrible, abuse of the mind and spirit is equally hideous and even more insidious because it enslaves the victims into non-being right under everyone's noses. It makes the victims chain themselves because the abuser has so distorted the victim's understanding of reality that they accept the abuser's right to dictate all 'truth'.
Society lets them because the means used are, in moderation, considered acceptable interactions. 'Teasing' when no other form of communication or validation beyond belittling, condemning, criticizing, railing, etc... becomes no longer playful but a cover to hide behind so they can express exactly what was intended with an 'out' so the abuser can't be condemned for being so cruel. 'Can't you take a joke?!' I can't even remember all the times I tried telling people the latest sting/cut/wound and they'd blow it off because 'we say things like that, too - what's your problem?' It confused me and reinforced the idea that I was alone and had nowhere to go.
It was years before I perceived that the people who dismissed me did so because the context was vastly different. They couldn't conceive that a person in a 'family culture' could actually be in a situation where they ONLY heard condemnation. Where 'I love you' was an empty band-aid meant to convince everyone that nothing is actually wrong, be it self or other, private or public. That the same man who 'apparently' (I never witnessed it) boasted about his daughter in public never once told her to her face that she had accomplished anything worthy of affection or pride but instead demanded the world and condemned her for not including the solar system as well.
My dad knew he couldn't get away with physically hurting me. I would know that was wrong and there would be evidence to prove it. Instead, the man who insisted he was smarter than anyone we'd ever meet, used words and contrivances to manipulate and break down. That will sound an excessive claim to those who have not experienced it themselves. It is true non-the-less. He admitted it himself in one of his last middle-of-the-night four-hour-long lecture/threat sessions. "I learned long ago that I need to break you into tears and then I can make you do what I want." Shortly followed by his admission that my ability to later choose my own choices after time had passed frustrated him to no end. I know what I'm talking about.
I don't mean to detail my own experiences here. I've touched on them in various forms in various blogs past. I've spent over a decade trying to understand what happened at home. Over time, I came across information that my dad's abuse was not so circumspect against my mom. I've also seen what his actions have meant for more than one sister who has found herself in a subsequent abusive relationship (physically and sexually). I have been highly aware of other stories (case-studies, in my mind, are what all stories are) to watch and learn and better understand what happens and why. So when the journalist said another follow-up article on how to escape abuse might be considered, I began to take notes. Even if they don't run such an article, I will write of it anyway: this needs to be talked about.
Monday, August 18, 2014
A Timeline of Lessons (2012)
Re-posted from a closed blog.
(I came across this while looking through a folder. I have left it as is and thought it worth sharing even though I had considered this blog closed. I think it shows an insight into what it is to be raised in an abusive home and can only hope the reader will pause to consider their own situations for what good it might lead to. Non-physical abuse is very insidious - it doesn't leave blatant marks, but it marks just the same. Please guard your own actions from doing that to anyone, yourself included. And if you realize there are parallels in the life of someone you know, please be there to lift, help, support them through, and if possible away from, the nightmare. Just as I always wished someone would do for me.)
When I was youngest, you taught me that no matter how hard I tried to be good, I'd have to try harder than everyone else to even have a prayer.
You also taught me that for every thing I did wrong, the value of my soul would shrink and nothing could every make it better.
You'd never think it, but listening to your hateful words about your brothers and parents taught me that your saying you 'loved' someone meant nothing.
I learned that there was no point in telling anyone that you were mean because no one would believe me or care because you told me so.
A little older and a big, yet innocent, mistake later and you taught me that even horrible criminals would think I deserved to die and they would want to kill me if they knew and would kill me if I were older.
That Christmas you taught me that I was not worth as much as anyone else in the family.
During these years you taught me that everything had to be done exactly how you said to do it even if it was harder your way and didn't make sense and didn't even matter how the bathroom sink was cleaned so long as it got cleaned…
Then we moved and you were around a lot more.
And I learned that you got mad at me for daring to sleep when you were mad at me for something else.
I learned that anything that made you unhappy could be my fault.
I learned that I could get in trouble for not knowing what you wanted me to do even if you never told me.
I learned that I would be in worse trouble if someone helped me do something you had secretly planned as punishment.
I learned that being darn good wasn't good enough - I had to be the best and I had to remember I was nothing at the same time.
I learned that if I ever had the audacity to speak like I had a claim on something you promised me, you would take it away so I would know better.
So I learned not to want or expect anything because it would just be used against me.
I learned to convince myself that I must be nothing - a slave - for if a slave, then nothing wrong could be done against me since, by definition, a slave has no rights to violate in the first place.
I learned that you loved the animals more than you loved me, even though you could make them yelp and scream and cry like you couldn't get away with doing to us.
I learned how to manage full time school, work, caring for a bed-ridden mother, three younger siblings, cleaning the house, shopping, cooking, driving any and all to appointments, and well as maintaining my own spiritual state through church activity, all at the age of twenty.
I learned all this while I was also expected to somehow be a professional painter with no realistic help and that if I dared get overwhelmed that I would somehow sink even lower than rock bottom in standing.
I was terrified to learn that all you had to do was tell me 'something' I had done for a low-down, heartless, selfish, cold, dark reason and I would not only believe you, but I would forget what I had really done and why I had done it.
I learned that my health was of no concern to any of you.
I learned that you would be furious if I dared talk to anyone about how overwhelmed and stressed I was because that reflected badly on you.
Therefore I learned, once again, that I didn't matter.
I learned that if I behaved any way other than you thought proper that I was shaming you, even if it was an emotional outburst related to recent trauma.
You taught me that Jesus despised me and that turning to God in prayer was slothful on my part.
You taught me that if something wasn't working then I must not have done my best. Never-mind the fact that no-one is capable of actually doing everything.
So I guess I learned that if anything was not succeeding then it was my fault.
In fact, I even learned that life almost got easier if I just accepted fault for everything and anything that anyone was upset about. Because then, if it was my fault, I could fix it and they wouldn't be mad at me anymore. And there would be a reason to my existence.
I learned that mom had considered divorce up till I was five and often couldn't wait till you went out of town again so that the fragile stability she maintained in your absence could be restored.
I learned that it was safer to not let anything show on my face since I was always getting in trouble for the thoughts you were telling me I was having. It's a good thing you didn't know as much as you thought you did…
I learned that even if I managed to do 'better' at just about everything, it was only treading water and to do less than best left me in the red.
I learned that you would stop at nothing to keep your control.
I learned that you wanted me so isolated, I would get in trouble for confiding in my own sibling or a teacher/bishop.
I learned after mom died that you only thought mom was considering divorce for the first year of your marriage and you disregarded the lifelong story where mom had known I was waiting to be born as her desperate attempts to preserve your marriage.
I learned that I could get in trouble for being so selfish that I was not doing my siblings' chores.
I learned that you trained the family so well that my siblings knew they could use me as a scapegoat to get out of trouble themselves.
I learned that you knew you were being unreasonable and you just didn't care.
I learned that you not only had no care for my physical well-being, you were doubly willing to endanger it to lessen my dignity so you could get a laugh.
I finally learned that it would never matter how hard I tried, how much I gave, how well I kept all of your arbitrary, multiplying demands - it would never be enough.
So I left.
Since then, I have also learned.
I learned that you betrayed yourself far more than you may ever realize and would ever admit.
I learned that you think love means satisfying your expectations and that you've brought your own stupid misery on yourself. No wonder you never feel loved and I could never do enough because every time a demand gets met, the love expires and the next unmet expectation is the only one that matters.
I learned that I was not the lazy one - you were.
I learned that all the things that never occurred to me but that you blamed me for 'thinking' had to have come from your own head.
I remembered you scoffing at a crying child and mocking her with the words, "What are you going to do, tell the Bishop I'm emotionally abusing you?" Years before I had any clue to what that even meant...
I learned that you are the selfish and self-centered one.
I learned that even though you expect everyone you come in contact with to think you're the smartest person they know, you're not nearly as smart as you think you are.
I realized that you gave into having me because it was you who feared divorce but at some point you must have realized my birth didn't accomplish your intended purpose so the unwanted child became the despised child.
I realized that for all you complained of how much money you had to spend on me, I saved you far more than you've ever considered and my debt has been more than paid in full.
I have learned that even if I was born to you and even if our religion believes in forever families, I do not have to stay with you and that does not compromise my immortal standings one bit. You have more than lost your right to me.
I have even learned some of what you did to mom. But I will leave that to stay between you and God. Fair warning - you can't hide the truth from Him.
I tell you this because I have been learning all along since I left that you haven't been changing. You are only targeting others.
I have always thought that you consider yourself too sophisticated to be physically abusive. And as early memory proves - you either think emotional abuse illegitimate or you figure no one is smart enough to recognize what you are doing. Indeed, many are quite naive. But many are not, and tearing apart a person's identity, spirit and mind does greater violence that a simple fist can ever do.
Ultimately, I have learned that you are pathetic.
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Delusion or the Devil
(I state in my bio that I tend to challenge assumptions. Fair warning that this will likely challenge many.)
Wow. I never imagined I'd actually post about this. My heart's racing just thinking about it.
Long but necessary set-up required to set the stage. Long in general, but I've found myself wanting to refer others in troubling circumstances to this story so that perhaps they might find insight and encouragement. And so I share one of the two most tightly held stories of my life.
I've indicated before that I came from a problematic home. A mother from an abusive home (guessing from breadcrumbs of random details gleaned since she hated the topic of before) who was therefore not perceptive of her own fiance-then-husband's abusive nature. Her dedication to her belief that marriages entered into should not be dissolved and then her own terrible cascade of illnesses that limited her resources to self-sufficiency. But none of this was understood while I lived at home, before she died.
What was understood was that he somehow had power to make me forget. Who I was, my motivations, my thoughts. I was a horrible nothing that had inflicted myself upon him. And since twisted people will twist whatever ideology at their command, it was religion and scripture used against me.
I always thought it dumb when people would say, during church, that if it weren't for the gospel they wouldn't be where they were. Duh? If you didn't believe in God, why would you be at church? Kind of a no-brainer. But then one day I paused to think about it. I realized that if I hadn't had a bolstering by the concept that 'God loves His children' and that it's not right to suicide, his compulsion, manipulation, and only ever demeaning of me would have resulted in me suiciding to try to atone for the sin of existing. Since nothing I did was ever enough. Never good enough. Never.
But these were all things beyond my comprehension in high school. Mom was sick. Everything would go out of kilter for months until she, the doctors, we finally got a handle on the new circumstances and things would even keel for a few weeks. Until a new symptom appeared and threw everything back out of balance. This started my Sophomore year in high school. That was also the year he was out of a job. It was a pattern that continued for six years until she died (though he did finally get a job after that first year).
I am rather unique in nature. I understood this as early as 7th grade. I did not expect life to go as it did for others or for me to have a traditional form of the teenage years. I think this, combined with a brutal and overwhelming home situation, meant that I did not interact with kids my age in a 'normal' fashion. Also, that I did not always recognize the disparities. I was usually preoccupied with my rather consuming own little world.
The teens I had contact with in high school did notice. For all I knew, I had friends. There was very little interaction outside of school, choir, and the play, but as all my time away from school was occupied by home or work, I did not not think anything of it. I was, however, troubled my senior year and the year after with dismissals from those I had thought of as friends because, "You just don't want to be happy." And, "You just bring everyone down."
I went on a handful of dates in high school and to one dance - girl's choice. The kid had such charisma and an energy that somehow made it feel as though I could actually breathe again. I confess a substantial crush. I also re-confess to a general awkwardness due to my opposite spectrum of life-experience. It didn't help that the parental units tried to make the dance their vicarious own and easily doubled whatever awkwardness of mine. The kid got skittish. Then apologized months later when he 'realized he hadn't been a good friend and he promised to be a better one.' He graduated. I had a year left. Whatever.
University. Except for summer choir, there was very little crossing of paths since our subjects differed. A couple months before my mom's death, I saw him in the parking lot as I headed in. I felt a sorrow that people who knew each other become strangers and accepted that he was to be added to the list. He stopped me to talk as I passed. Invited him to a show I was in the next month (he didn't come).
Mom died. My prior reality shattered. My identity shattered (mom's caregiver). For two years I'd been overwhelmed with her care, my schooling, my work, siblings' care, house and chores and shopping, insane expectations (like the demand to paint the house professional grade for moving purposes without even the knowledge that painting tape to enable straight lines existed)... I'd also begun realizing that the (Heavenly) Father I was coming to know in the scriptures was opposite in nature to the he I will only call him.
The shock lasted for months. I'd had no one to talk to for years. But the kid had renewed the lease on the friendship. I clung to it as the lifeline I so desperately needed. For all of my hating to write, I started writing him a random one-paper letter once a week and leaving it in his President's cubbyhole since I knew he was far too busy to have time to talk to nobody me. They weren't anything ground shaking. Maybe a little about mom, but mostly just an outlet for all things random (a talent of mine) which run through my head. All I needed was to know that someone was hearing me. I didn't have anyone else.
In my gratefulness, I wished I could somehow return the favor which helped me survive. But I was no one. The crush matured. I couldn't imagine he'd look my way that way. He had a girlfriend, then another. I don't, I won't, compete. I clung to the best friendship I had available, unable to be aware of how empty it was.
Enter "Delusion or the Devil"
Being religious, I will address that element/angle first. If you are not, continue reading anyway. The delusion thread explanation will unfold and follow at the end.
Still wishing I could return the gift I so valued, I prayed to God that He would show me how. I already saw myself as unequal. How could I make any difference to him? How could I make a difference like he did?
Sometimes God uses our asking for one thing to teach and guide us in another. In my mind I saw two paths. To the left was my future symbolized by a man of no specific nature. To the right I saw it represented in the kid I so respected. I knew they represented choices. Would I take the easy - whatever happens to come my way path? Or would I choose the harder one that would lead me to that state higher, more capable, than where I happened to stand?
I am stubborn. Both parentals blamed it on the other. I think I came with a dose of my own, as well. I don't back away from hard. I may be terrified inside, but that just makes me more determined to overcome. I was going to settle for the 'whatever comes' path.
Having admitted my level of feeling for the kid, I spent weeks pondering this, wondering if it could possible mean that I had a chance with him. God did not tell me no. I concluded that I would continue as though that conclusion were assumed. (It was, after all, the only way that the answer could truly be known.)
I made the fatal mistake, however, of relating this to the him. I thought I had to as he demanded knowledge of everything I did, thought, felt, with full editing rights. I was terrified to tell him, but I did not comprehend I had a right to privacy and I don't back down just because something could go wrong. His assessment? It is delusion or the devil.
As the year came and went and I moved away, this was a constant friction between myself, the him, and the step-her. I cannot say I fully believed my hopes would happen, but I did not dare to let them go for I found they provided me, for the first time in my life, with something more powerful than the him. I was starting to keep my identity and will as my own where he demanded submission. I consciously used the hopes, stated as fact (for his disdain would make him give up on arguing whereas he would have battered had I confessed any amount of being unsure), to shield me when a certain decision was expected that my real reason would have been dismissed. This reinforced his idea but it was the safer course for me.
Off and on contact with the kid, not a lot but more than I was used to. I'd finally confessed my feelings months before, but by way of getting it out there rather than expecting any response. He knew that. I did seek him out as I passed his work twice as I still valued the inter-personal contact. And with the new territory of living away from home, the stability the letters provided appeared again possible when his email was listed in a mutual friend's mass mailing. I still have the copies. They are of the same nature as the first with additional reports of my efforts in my church music to encourage others to attend the area's workshop later that summer. It was my calling in church. It also happened to be organized by his mother.
I went to the special choir rehearsals prior. The first had me nervous as I hadn't seen him for months. Nothing so no biggie. The next week I had a premonition that there would be trouble. I couldn't conceive of why and I don't run and hide so I went anyway. I was a little late so I ended on the front row. He came in later, saw me and walked straight back out, conversed with his mother, and left. Whatever. I was there to sing.
At the end of rehearsal I noticed that only one woman was putting all the hymnals back from the stand. This seemed a shame since we'd all brought one up so I decided to stay and help. The mother was talking to some lady. Aware of her, but nothing to do with me. Most of the books are returned but there is one slot left by where the mother stands. I could try to find another empty slot. The premonition stirs again. "This is stupid," I thought. I'm just putting a hymnal away. So I did and I left.
I go home. Ten minutes later I get a call from the him. The mother had called to complain that I had tried to talk to her. This was way too easy for him to manipulate. He told her his less than accurate version of my story which merged into her own mis-assessment of my actions. Together they cooked up the notion that if I dared to attend the workshop I'd be slapped with a restraining order.
A couple days later the he and the step-her finally deigned to visit my humble abode in the guise of loving parental concern. I was then notified that he and step-her had talked on the phone with her psychiatric friends and was diagnosed third-person with classic delusion and suicidal tendencies, and it might be a good idea to institutionalize me. This he graciously offered to pay for.
Though shaken and highly upset by the turn of events (the kid couldn't talk to me about the problem he had to go run to mummy and threaten the police?!) I collected myself to tell the him and step-her that I would somehow survive just fine left to myself. He didn't like this answer. He then said that as the father-parental he held the priesthood authority over me and it was therefore to admit that I had sinned and submit. In a rare capacity to speak counter to his demands I told him that if that's how he thought to 'use the priesthood' then he'd lost any authority he claimed to have. They left shortly thereafter...
Lives diverged and I can't say I was sad to not see the kid. I still had (and present tense - have) years of recovery from the trauma and abuses of home. I didn't understand what the path that I thought meant him was if it was not him so I still didn't dare let go of the possibility, though I can't say it brought me the same level of comfort it did when first conceived.
I moved hundreds of miles away and somehow managed to land in the same little college town as him. I hadn't known he'd moved away. I was terrified when I realized he was there and avoided him like the plague. I mourned what when I saw he'd married simply because I'd been so invested in the idea that life could be better, that it could be different from what I'd been raised with.
It took years further to realize that that was what the path symbolized - that hope - not the kid. The kid was just the closest I could comprehend to that new abstract possibility. A possibility so foreign that the abstract concept would have been insufficient to hold onto and enable the separating of my will from the his'.
I do believe in God. I believe He guided my imaginings to enable a critical choice for my future well being. I believe He knew I would not understand it as He meant it but that my not understanding would in fact provide the strength of power to follow it through. I believe He helped me through years of confusion an turmoil and healing of trauma. And when that healing had progressed far enough, He helped me understand what He'd meant. I believe that my doing the best I understood was perfectly acceptable to Him and I have no need to feel ashamed at how events played out.
If you do not believe in God, then consider that delusion is not always a bad thing. Consider that our minds can provide protections to enable us onward and upward out of dangerous circumstances. And consider the source of the circumstances that led me to need such a delusion to be able to escape.
Wow. I never imagined I'd actually post about this. My heart's racing just thinking about it.
Long but necessary set-up required to set the stage. Long in general, but I've found myself wanting to refer others in troubling circumstances to this story so that perhaps they might find insight and encouragement. And so I share one of the two most tightly held stories of my life.
I've indicated before that I came from a problematic home. A mother from an abusive home (guessing from breadcrumbs of random details gleaned since she hated the topic of before) who was therefore not perceptive of her own fiance-then-husband's abusive nature. Her dedication to her belief that marriages entered into should not be dissolved and then her own terrible cascade of illnesses that limited her resources to self-sufficiency. But none of this was understood while I lived at home, before she died.
What was understood was that he somehow had power to make me forget. Who I was, my motivations, my thoughts. I was a horrible nothing that had inflicted myself upon him. And since twisted people will twist whatever ideology at their command, it was religion and scripture used against me.
I always thought it dumb when people would say, during church, that if it weren't for the gospel they wouldn't be where they were. Duh? If you didn't believe in God, why would you be at church? Kind of a no-brainer. But then one day I paused to think about it. I realized that if I hadn't had a bolstering by the concept that 'God loves His children' and that it's not right to suicide, his compulsion, manipulation, and only ever demeaning of me would have resulted in me suiciding to try to atone for the sin of existing. Since nothing I did was ever enough. Never good enough. Never.
But these were all things beyond my comprehension in high school. Mom was sick. Everything would go out of kilter for months until she, the doctors, we finally got a handle on the new circumstances and things would even keel for a few weeks. Until a new symptom appeared and threw everything back out of balance. This started my Sophomore year in high school. That was also the year he was out of a job. It was a pattern that continued for six years until she died (though he did finally get a job after that first year).
I am rather unique in nature. I understood this as early as 7th grade. I did not expect life to go as it did for others or for me to have a traditional form of the teenage years. I think this, combined with a brutal and overwhelming home situation, meant that I did not interact with kids my age in a 'normal' fashion. Also, that I did not always recognize the disparities. I was usually preoccupied with my rather consuming own little world.
The teens I had contact with in high school did notice. For all I knew, I had friends. There was very little interaction outside of school, choir, and the play, but as all my time away from school was occupied by home or work, I did not not think anything of it. I was, however, troubled my senior year and the year after with dismissals from those I had thought of as friends because, "You just don't want to be happy." And, "You just bring everyone down."
I went on a handful of dates in high school and to one dance - girl's choice. The kid had such charisma and an energy that somehow made it feel as though I could actually breathe again. I confess a substantial crush. I also re-confess to a general awkwardness due to my opposite spectrum of life-experience. It didn't help that the parental units tried to make the dance their vicarious own and easily doubled whatever awkwardness of mine. The kid got skittish. Then apologized months later when he 'realized he hadn't been a good friend and he promised to be a better one.' He graduated. I had a year left. Whatever.
University. Except for summer choir, there was very little crossing of paths since our subjects differed. A couple months before my mom's death, I saw him in the parking lot as I headed in. I felt a sorrow that people who knew each other become strangers and accepted that he was to be added to the list. He stopped me to talk as I passed. Invited him to a show I was in the next month (he didn't come).
Mom died. My prior reality shattered. My identity shattered (mom's caregiver). For two years I'd been overwhelmed with her care, my schooling, my work, siblings' care, house and chores and shopping, insane expectations (like the demand to paint the house professional grade for moving purposes without even the knowledge that painting tape to enable straight lines existed)... I'd also begun realizing that the (Heavenly) Father I was coming to know in the scriptures was opposite in nature to the he I will only call him.
The shock lasted for months. I'd had no one to talk to for years. But the kid had renewed the lease on the friendship. I clung to it as the lifeline I so desperately needed. For all of my hating to write, I started writing him a random one-paper letter once a week and leaving it in his President's cubbyhole since I knew he was far too busy to have time to talk to nobody me. They weren't anything ground shaking. Maybe a little about mom, but mostly just an outlet for all things random (a talent of mine) which run through my head. All I needed was to know that someone was hearing me. I didn't have anyone else.
In my gratefulness, I wished I could somehow return the favor which helped me survive. But I was no one. The crush matured. I couldn't imagine he'd look my way that way. He had a girlfriend, then another. I don't, I won't, compete. I clung to the best friendship I had available, unable to be aware of how empty it was.
Enter "Delusion or the Devil"
Being religious, I will address that element/angle first. If you are not, continue reading anyway. The delusion thread explanation will unfold and follow at the end.
Still wishing I could return the gift I so valued, I prayed to God that He would show me how. I already saw myself as unequal. How could I make any difference to him? How could I make a difference like he did?
Sometimes God uses our asking for one thing to teach and guide us in another. In my mind I saw two paths. To the left was my future symbolized by a man of no specific nature. To the right I saw it represented in the kid I so respected. I knew they represented choices. Would I take the easy - whatever happens to come my way path? Or would I choose the harder one that would lead me to that state higher, more capable, than where I happened to stand?
I am stubborn. Both parentals blamed it on the other. I think I came with a dose of my own, as well. I don't back away from hard. I may be terrified inside, but that just makes me more determined to overcome. I was going to settle for the 'whatever comes' path.
Having admitted my level of feeling for the kid, I spent weeks pondering this, wondering if it could possible mean that I had a chance with him. God did not tell me no. I concluded that I would continue as though that conclusion were assumed. (It was, after all, the only way that the answer could truly be known.)
I made the fatal mistake, however, of relating this to the him. I thought I had to as he demanded knowledge of everything I did, thought, felt, with full editing rights. I was terrified to tell him, but I did not comprehend I had a right to privacy and I don't back down just because something could go wrong. His assessment? It is delusion or the devil.
As the year came and went and I moved away, this was a constant friction between myself, the him, and the step-her. I cannot say I fully believed my hopes would happen, but I did not dare to let them go for I found they provided me, for the first time in my life, with something more powerful than the him. I was starting to keep my identity and will as my own where he demanded submission. I consciously used the hopes, stated as fact (for his disdain would make him give up on arguing whereas he would have battered had I confessed any amount of being unsure), to shield me when a certain decision was expected that my real reason would have been dismissed. This reinforced his idea but it was the safer course for me.
Off and on contact with the kid, not a lot but more than I was used to. I'd finally confessed my feelings months before, but by way of getting it out there rather than expecting any response. He knew that. I did seek him out as I passed his work twice as I still valued the inter-personal contact. And with the new territory of living away from home, the stability the letters provided appeared again possible when his email was listed in a mutual friend's mass mailing. I still have the copies. They are of the same nature as the first with additional reports of my efforts in my church music to encourage others to attend the area's workshop later that summer. It was my calling in church. It also happened to be organized by his mother.
I went to the special choir rehearsals prior. The first had me nervous as I hadn't seen him for months. Nothing so no biggie. The next week I had a premonition that there would be trouble. I couldn't conceive of why and I don't run and hide so I went anyway. I was a little late so I ended on the front row. He came in later, saw me and walked straight back out, conversed with his mother, and left. Whatever. I was there to sing.
At the end of rehearsal I noticed that only one woman was putting all the hymnals back from the stand. This seemed a shame since we'd all brought one up so I decided to stay and help. The mother was talking to some lady. Aware of her, but nothing to do with me. Most of the books are returned but there is one slot left by where the mother stands. I could try to find another empty slot. The premonition stirs again. "This is stupid," I thought. I'm just putting a hymnal away. So I did and I left.
I go home. Ten minutes later I get a call from the him. The mother had called to complain that I had tried to talk to her. This was way too easy for him to manipulate. He told her his less than accurate version of my story which merged into her own mis-assessment of my actions. Together they cooked up the notion that if I dared to attend the workshop I'd be slapped with a restraining order.
A couple days later the he and the step-her finally deigned to visit my humble abode in the guise of loving parental concern. I was then notified that he and step-her had talked on the phone with her psychiatric friends and was diagnosed third-person with classic delusion and suicidal tendencies, and it might be a good idea to institutionalize me. This he graciously offered to pay for.
Though shaken and highly upset by the turn of events (the kid couldn't talk to me about the problem he had to go run to mummy and threaten the police?!) I collected myself to tell the him and step-her that I would somehow survive just fine left to myself. He didn't like this answer. He then said that as the father-parental he held the priesthood authority over me and it was therefore to admit that I had sinned and submit. In a rare capacity to speak counter to his demands I told him that if that's how he thought to 'use the priesthood' then he'd lost any authority he claimed to have. They left shortly thereafter...
Lives diverged and I can't say I was sad to not see the kid. I still had (and present tense - have) years of recovery from the trauma and abuses of home. I didn't understand what the path that I thought meant him was if it was not him so I still didn't dare let go of the possibility, though I can't say it brought me the same level of comfort it did when first conceived.
I moved hundreds of miles away and somehow managed to land in the same little college town as him. I hadn't known he'd moved away. I was terrified when I realized he was there and avoided him like the plague. I mourned what when I saw he'd married simply because I'd been so invested in the idea that life could be better, that it could be different from what I'd been raised with.
It took years further to realize that that was what the path symbolized - that hope - not the kid. The kid was just the closest I could comprehend to that new abstract possibility. A possibility so foreign that the abstract concept would have been insufficient to hold onto and enable the separating of my will from the his'.
I do believe in God. I believe He guided my imaginings to enable a critical choice for my future well being. I believe He knew I would not understand it as He meant it but that my not understanding would in fact provide the strength of power to follow it through. I believe He helped me through years of confusion an turmoil and healing of trauma. And when that healing had progressed far enough, He helped me understand what He'd meant. I believe that my doing the best I understood was perfectly acceptable to Him and I have no need to feel ashamed at how events played out.
If you do not believe in God, then consider that delusion is not always a bad thing. Consider that our minds can provide protections to enable us onward and upward out of dangerous circumstances. And consider the source of the circumstances that led me to need such a delusion to be able to escape.
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