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In memory of Doreen: 1955-2005
Monday, August 20, 2007 at 11:54PM This is my step-sister, Doreen. She always got the short end of the stick. Two years younger than I, she'd been severely 
abused by The King of the Mountain before our deranged Brady Bunch family was formed.
What can I say about her, really? That she was messed up, sure. There are many different forms of messed up. For Doreen being messed up meant chronic bed-wetting, chronic lying--but wait, here I go again putting my mother's indignant spin on things.
This is what I should be writing: Doreen was a multiple. I know this as surely as I know the same about myself, and Sissyface. When she came across as a liar she was in actuality switching from one personality to another. She obviously had the amnesiac form of DID, rather than co-consciousness (such as I have.)
Doreen never fit in. There was something off about her which made other kids uncomfortable. Parents didn't trust her. She told too many stories which didn't quite add up, went by too many different names. Her father (my abuser) never showed her affection. Neither did my mother, who was too busy attempting to break her will. Between the two of them, Doreen didn't stand a chance.
I know she had a little boy and girl taken away from her sometime in the late 70's. A boyfriend had been beating on them. She never got them back. Before she was born, her mother had had two kids taken away from her. What a vicious cycle.
Doreen had a gentle, generous spirit--and yet there was at times a gruffness about her. Well. Now that I think about it, I'm sure she had some masculine parts. She ended up driving a semi, just as The King of the Mountain had.
She called Sissyface up once, about 10 years before her death in 2005, and asked if their dad had ever tried any funny business with her. Sissyface told her she thought so, but wasn't sure. Doreen told her that she needed to know, that she'd wanted to ask her that years ago so she could blow her dad's head off if so. But now that he was dead, the timing was all wrong.
Doreen, Doreen, I can't begin to scratch the surface of your pain. It hurts too much. You're physically dead (something I just found out about months ago), but I suspect you died inside long before you were cremated? buried? with not so much as a marker or memorial service on your behalf. Something to say, "She was here, a living, breathing, one of a kind human being." The indignity of that burns me--that you, who had so little in life, were not allowed even the dignity and respect of your name commemorated at your death.
Doreen: I hate what they did to you, Mom and your dad. I despise what went on in that farce of a family. I had no idea at the time what was wrong with you. It's only as I've become aware of my own multiplicity that I've suspected yours. I wish we could talk. I wish I could do something, say something, to take some of your pain away. Your life was short, and full of more heartbreak than any human should have to endure.
They killed you, didn't they? For all practical purposes they killed you, the bastards.
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Reader Comments (6)
Oh Beauty, I am so sorry. I know what you mean when you say she was dead inside before physically dying. I feel the same way about my sister and I grieve her even though she lives.
I can only offer you a cyber hand to hold during this time. I am so sorry. They are truly murderers of that child's soul.
Austin
You are so right. The true spirit of this wonderful woman died a long time ago. ((Hugs)))
I want to share something I wrote a long time ago along the same lines.
Jan 19, 1991 (Untitled)
The body grows hard and stiff
and is finally placed in the ground
But that is not death.
Pain strikes in a man’s heart
and soon it stops beating.
But that is not death.
A woman grows old
and her body wears out.
But that is not death.
Death is the hardening of the spirit
and the losing of your faith.
It is when you have no longer
any wish to live
When your body dies
it is just the shell of life.
You have died already
When you had given up the fight.
Thank you for the poem, Enola. It expresses what I so clumsily tried to say in this post.
Doreen, like her mother and her older brother, died of Huntington's Disease. So even her physical death wasn't easy. I know life isn't fair but when someone's life is so consistently unfair--well, it's hard for me to comprehend.
such a sad shame that she was unable to get more help and that she went through so much trauma... im sorry for you and herself both
hugs
The death you are speaking of is the loss of hope, I believe.
I am sorry for your loss. Doreen sounds like she was a special person.
once more the long arm of the abusers makes its length known, how many they hurt in so many insidious ways, it is so horrific in it's breadth and scope.
peace to you Beauty
keepers