An Audacious Thing

Who am I allowed to be in this world?

A strange question, maybe, but one which keeps echoing through my mind.

As a child, there were so many limitations on how I was allowed to act and even the expressions on my face. Uncomfortable around my step dad, I tried my best to not let my unease show and to keep my face a blank. Still I would occasionally be accused of having a sour look, or of sulking. I never knew what I was doing wrong that my expressions would so betray me. Why, when I thought myself so adept at hiding emotion did I so often wind up in trouble?

My behaviour in general was greatly criticized. I acted too happy (which seemed to offend my step dad and mother both), or if I wasn't smiling or bubbly I was sullen and sour.

My choice of pastimes was always up for critical discussion. My constant reading was a bone of contention, for by sticking my nose in a book I was shutting out the rest of the family. When I wanted to go across the street to play with my best friend, Bec, I was scolded for spending so much time there when I should be at home--but why? No one at home seemed to enjoy my company; why did they care if I was there or not?

My passion for God seemed to rub my mother the wrong way, though once I heard her feign pride in my spirituality when we ran into a fellow church member at the local grocery who, much to my embarrassment, complimented my mother on my love of the Bible.

Every which way I turned, I was forever getting it wrong, wrong, wrong. Looking back, I'm amazed and saddened that one little kid could so often be the object of such ongoing disapproval. My natural instincts, interests and talents were not allowed to grow and expand as needed, for there was always that tiresome element of censure.

And so, here I am, decades later wondering just who it is I'm allowed to be in this life. Oh, I realize that I'm light years away from being that little redheaded kid, but in some ways not so much. I'm still spinning my wheels, feeling at times (much too often) that I must apologize for my decisions, behavior, thought process, etc. My response to situations are so often off base, too passive (by which I mean a withdrawing of myself), or too strident. Is there never to be any in-between?

I'm still in the process of discovering my identity, one which of necessity was splintered into many selves. While I would love to pick the best qualities from each self from which to mold one sure, solid me, I don't know if I've the capacity to do that.

And let's face it, I don't know if I'm allowed to do such an audacious thing.

OK to be Human

My father made it okay to be human.

This realization hit me this evening as I listened to my son exclaiming about his young daughter's gas as he sprayed room deodorizer, and cried in exaggerated tones, "Phew!"

Both his girls giggled and that's when it hit me: he was taking the shame out of those all-too-human moments when our bodies betray us, and he did it with humor.

I miss that. I've grown so accustomed to the seriousness of my life, of dealing with DID issues, and the necessity of raising two young granddaughters, that I've forgotten the comfortableness of humor. The healing properties of a hearty laugh at human  limitations and foibles.

My father would break wind and say, "Better out than your eye!" and, even though my brothers and I didn't quite know what he meant, we roared with laughter. He would tell us that emitting gas was funny only because of where it emerged from our bodies. If the gas came out of our ears or nose, it wouldn't be nearly so funny.

Later, when I became a captive of my mother and step-dad's household, there was no easy laughter at anything. My step-dad's only form of humor, if you can call it that, was in mocking and shaming others. We were a family where the occasional breaking of wind would earn us kids a frown, or angry epitaph, followed with a look of utter disgust. We got the message loud and clear. Our bodies were things, and disgusting things at that. They were to be despised, if considered at all. The demands of of our flesh for food and water and warmth, and sometimes for medicine, earned us kids disapproval. Our flesh was an irritant, a pain, and--to my step-dad--the means of satisfying perverted lusts.

When I think of my dad, the first thing that comes to mind is his sense of humor. His outlook on life was quirky; he saw the humor in humanity--he couldn't help but see it and seeing it, was compelled to comment. My brothers and I lived in an atmosphere rife with hilarity. Something was always tickling our funny bones, or was just about to. No matter which way we turned there was something to laugh about. Perhaps a stranger's expression as he passed by our living room window, or his odd, shuffling step--a graceless way of walking which had no rhyme or reason to it. Maybe it was the fact of a neighbor's resemblance to his homely, beloved dog that had us in stitches, or someone on TV whose eyes were so close-set that, according to our father, he could gaze into his own eyes.

I've stifled much of my innate sense of humor, stifled it in the manner of many victims of abuse who must repress and keep tamped down so much of who they are, in favor of rigid adherence to the survival mode. But not all of my humor has been crushed, or lies dormant. It trickles out now and again; I see its emergence also in my sons, and in their children, and it makes me breathe a little easier. Life won't defeat them, I think with satisfaction, as long as they keep their humor intact.

As for me, I'm learning in bits and pieces that who I was as a kid--that funny little girl who laughed so easily and naturally--was an okay person. More than okay. What happened to me later after losing my funny dad really was no reflection on my value as a human being. I see that from time to time, and then I forget this fact and have to relearn it all over again.

What was done to me in that House of Incest says nothing about me, but it says everything about my abuser and the one who enabled, aided and abetted him.

People Watching

Every afternoon around 3 I drive the short distance to pick up my granddaughter, Isabella, from school. We live too far for her to walk to school, and too close to be on the bus route. Because the school contains about a kazillion students, and a large majority of them are picked up by their parents, the immediate area outside the school is total chaos.

There are only so many parking places nearby; I've learned that in order to get a spot close enough for Izzy to find me I need to arrive half an hour early. What I've taken to doing is settling in on one of the benches outside the main entrance and people watching.

Because being assaulted by such a high noise level (not to mention the motion of so many bodies walking, running, skipping, etc.) is sensory overload, I've had to find a way to not allow myself to be overwhelmed. This is why I've taken to people watching. Not only is it a distraction from the noise level, it's a good opportunity to study human nature. Every day I watch parents waiting for their children, and note the differences in their styles of interaction with their offspring.

There's the mother who arrives with a cell phone glued to her ear. I watch as her son and daughter run out to meet her, see how she doesn't acknowledge their presence or pause in her phone conversation long enough to greet them. They walk, briskly, to the parking lot, none of them touching or interacting in any way.

There's the father whose entire face glows when his little boy suddenly pops up at his side; he strokes his son's hair, hugs him fiercely, then keeps an arm around him as they stroll away giggling over some shared amusement. I wonder if he's a single father whose time with his son is limited, and thus all the more cherished. Or is he a full-time father who loves his son so much that his joy in seeing him never diminishes?

A father barely looks at his pre-teen son as his barks a profanity in his direction, then turns away to stride with brisk anger to his clunky old pickup parked at the side of the road.

Some children wander around looking lost and befuddled, waiting to be picked up by a tardy parent. Are they late because of traffic, or because they had trouble getting away from the office? Is it carelessness, or overwhelming responsibilities, that cause their children to be the last stragglers, always, attempting to feign an air of nonchalance?

One afternoon a girl of about 7 walked past me slowly, then wandered back to ask if she could set her backpack next to me on the bench. I said sure, and she thanked me politely. I watched as she took off her coat before putting the backpack back on. As she was about to walk away she looked at me over her shoulder, and began walking backwards. When she was just in front of me she said, "Would you mind putting my coat in my backpack for me?"

I did, of course, and was once more thanked. As she wandered away I thought, don't be so trusting! You don't even know me!  Immediately I chided myself for being so paranoid--after all, I was sitting right there on school grounds, with other grown-ups milling around. Still. Predators are known to hang around schools looking for their prey.

And so I sit and study faces and body language, a cacophony of voices swirling about me as children skip, run, punch each other's arms in easy camaraderie. When I begin to feel sorry for myself that the wind is chilling, causing my old bones to ache, I remind myself that I am fortunate to be such a vital part of my granddaughter's daily life. I am there to greet her each afternoon, and to see how her face breaks into a wide grin at first sight of me.

I'm thankful that she is not one of those children who are not greeted with loving enthusiasm, or who are left to wait with the last of the stragglers for a parent who is perpetually late.

If Only

Years ago I read an article for teenagers expounding the virtues of chastity. The author pointed out that what most young people failed to consider when deciding to give up their virginity is the lifelong associations one has with those first moments of intimacy.

For instance, music that might have been playing in the background, or the pleasant scent of roses from an open window, would have the power for years to come to evoke memories of those early, and unwise, intimacies.

Something reminded me today of this article and, instantly, I equated the author's hypothesis with my earliest sexual experiences. In my case there was no will or consent involved, which at one and the same time fills me with keening sorrow and yet gives me a sense of relief: at least I'm not to blame for having handed over my virtue sooner than I should have.

I know exactly what this author meant by the associations with early sexual involvement, for I experience these triggers constantly. I remember too that the point was made that once the initiation into sexual intimacy has taken place, the memories cannot be undone.

That's the crux of the matter for sexual abuse survivors, isn't it? Obviously the events themselves can't be erased, but wouldn't it be wonderful if at some point in time the sensory associations, with the accompanying memories, would fade away into nothingness?

I hate that I can't take in the world about me without being overloaded by unwanted memories. I'd like to inhale the delicious scent of strawberries without the niggling reminder of my little girl self. Gravel under my feet will forever remind me of the graveled driveway of the damp, moldy house into which my mother moved us after leaving my dad--and the sound of it crunching under the tires of our '61 Chevy as I lay in bed being molested, and my stepdad nearly threw me off the bed when he heard my mother pull into the drive.

Clothing detergent and bleach (oh, to be molested in the laundry room with those odors forever recalling my naked shame!), the scent of Playdough drying in the hot sun of my bedroom windowsill while some haunting song wafted into my room from another part of the house, and sneaking, groping hands took summer by the throat and strangled all the beauty from it. For me summer was murdered, and there was no memorial service to mourn its passing, just a horrible sense of never being able to enjoy that season again, the season which once I reveled in.

When unthinking people say that abuse survivors should simply get over it, they've no idea what they're talking about because they are thinking only of the acts themselves, and not the long-lasting effects. They're not considering that such repulsive crimes against one's body and mind and emotions color and contaminate everything, and that there really isn't any once and for all respite from those dark associations and memories.

Doubtless the author of the article I mentioned at the beginning of this post meant well, and I can even see some wisdom in his words. But for those of us who had no choice in when and how (and to whom) we lost our innocence and virginity, those words cut like a knife.

If only we'd had the luxury of staying children as long as God intended. If only there had been a choice in the matter.

If only.

This Road I'm On, Part 1

Starting out was like a dream, a tale told out of school, and me without so much as a map to guide my footsteps. I knew in the manner of all pilgrims that what lay ahead would not be easy--but I was used to things not being easy.

For years I'd disciplined myself to resist crying out, from pain or fear or longing. I trudged through my days not expecting encouragement, not daring to hope for the safety and strength of adult arms to enfold me in the warm hugs I vaguely remembered from my earliest childhood.

Nights I traveled without moving from my bed, for my imagination took over and (whether foolishly or not), I imagined myself in a different world, peopled by individuals who didn't exist in reality. I played out little scenarios in the private theatre of my mind, pretending that I was well-loved and protected. In the fairy tales I invented there was no Big Bad Wolf stalking me, waiting to attack and strip me of my innocence.

I began to know, about the time that my mother discovered her hubby's favorite hobby, that I must carve out some kind of pathway for myself which would deviate from the one to which the madness of my family doomed me. No one told me this, it was an inner knowing, a sense of the rightness of setting out on a quest to find my way back to myself, back to the God I loved, but seemed to have misplaced along the way.

My scuffed sneakers weren't up to the winding journey I knew lay ahead, but they would have to do, for they were all I had. As for food, well I would partake of any crumbs I found along the way as well as rely somewhat on the kindness of strangers. I may have lost all faith in my own flesh and blood, but I stubbornly believed in the kindess of those I had yet to meet.

Slipping away from home was easy as pie; all I had to do was wait until my mother turned her back to begin supper, while the stepdad hogged the couch in his Fruit-of-the-Looms, and I was free, wildly liberated. If I'd had time I would have paused to say goodbye to the fat juicy blackberries growing wild in our backyard; perhaps I would have grabbed my Barbie, and my favorite pencil and writing tablet. But none of that seemed to matter as I made a dash out the door. Flight was all that held meaning for me; I ran full speed the first half dozen blocks from home, until I got a stitch in my side and was certain to have put enoughh distance between me and my family, whenever they should realize my absence.

And what of that realization? Would it result only in sour anger, or would there be any degree of alarm for my safety (rather than the fear that I might have run to the authorities to tell on my abusers?) As I slowed to a walk, I tried to imagine my mother or stepdad heartbroken over my disappearance, but things just didn't add up that way. I thought of my older brother, before he was sent away to live with an unloving grandmother in another state, running away every chance he got, and regular as clock work being dragged back home by two sardonic, disapproving cops. My mother and stepdad were angry (she in that silent way of hers, which expressed itself in thin pressed lips and a look on her face as if she'd been slapped, he in loud profanities and curt declarations of what would happen to my brother once he returned home.)  If either of them worried about his whereabouts and well-being in the interim, well I couldn't detect it.

And so I began. The first tentative footsteps, the pausing to bend down and retie my straggling shoelaces, and the jolt of familiarity as the squeaky brakes of our neighborhood mail truck sounded in the distance. I had supposed that nothing would look, feel or sound the same once my sojourn began, but of course that was nonsense. The scab on my knee still bothered me just a little as I walked, and the sights and sounds of my surroundings were just as they were yesterday, when this journey was still nothing more than a painful longing.

Now as my travels began in earnest, I wasn't thinking about much of anything except what to do when the sky darkened with night. Where would I sleep? Would there be anywhere safe? But I hadn't even been safe in my own home all those years, so what more could happen to me that would be worse than that?