The alarm went off. I reached groggily for my phone and slid the alarm screen to snooze. I must finish my tax return today, I thought. Then my arm and phone dropped heavily by my side, and I drifted off as if I had never left sleep.
I couldn’t find Demi. I searched all over the house, never questioning that I was back in the home of my first marriage. She wasn’t in her bedroom with the pastel pink, blue, and yellow curtains I had made her. She wasn’t in the living room, where her Teddy Ruxpin bear was laying on the carpet before the couch. I searched from morning until twilight all over that tiny house, even peering through the garage, but she was gone, vanished. My panic kept rising like bile in my throat. She was so little, just five years old, and night was falling. She couldn’t survive alone all night.
I went to the front door and finally opened it, thinking I’d go drive the neighborhood, and there she was, curled up on the front porch in front of the door, sound asleep. There were streaks of grimy tears running down her face. Her little hands were tucked under her chin, and I could see they were dirty and blood-stained, like she’d been scratching at something and tore her nails bloody. Something squeezed my heart painfully as I looked at that sweet, beautiful, clearly traumatized little girl. I turned my head slightly and saw the marks along the lower part of the front door. I suddenly imagined her, kneeling at the door, crying, screaming, calling for me and clawing and scratching to get back in; trying to claw her way in all day, finally giving up, finally realizing that no one was going to save her, not even her mother.
The alarm went off again, jarring me awake, but a part of me was still standing at the door in that nightmare, feeling the horror and guilt of recognizing that I had hurt my own child. The adrenaline pumped so hard that I wasn’t the least bit sleepy. My heart and breath were both going double-time.
It was just a nightmare. Demi had never been missing, I told myself, not ever. Not even for an hour, much less a whole day. She had never hurt herself by scratching a door. I knew logically that none of it had ever happened. So why did I hurt so much? I slid the alarm off and peered at the phone. 6:11 a.m. The whole dream took all of ten minutes.
Sighing, I flopped over onto my back and lay there, steadying my breathing. Demi was down the hall, 29 years old, and likely hitting the snooze on her own alarm clock. I have to get up, get ready for work, and take Daisy to school. But I didn’t move. I felt so heavy in heart and body. My skin was trapped in the clawing sheets, punishing me by pulling me down into the uncomfortable mattress. I could hear the water running in the bathroom beyond my bedroom door, but whoever was there couldn’t know that I was in trouble. I couldn’t shake this feeling that I had sinned against nature, that there was something inherently wrong with me, that I was a bad mother, bad employee, bad person and deserved to sink into that nightmare tangle of bedclothes and never wake up.
My face was wet. My girls were awake. I dug my fingernails into the mattress, silently fighting back, and pushed myself up into a sitting position. “Snap out of it,” I whispered fiercely. Gritting my teeth, I made myself look at my phone, and click the news app. Oscar Pistorius sobbed during his testimony that he didn’t mean to shoot his girlfriend. Russia was claiming it didn’t mean to invade Ukraine, that it wasn’t their fault. Good. My boss was not in the news today. That means it should be a slow day.
I stood up, grabbed my clothes, and headed for my own shower. I thought I should probably talk to someone about these difficult mornings, but I was ashamed to admit that it was hard for me to get out of bed for something so silly as a nightmare. I just have to do a better job of eating right and exercising. My nightmares were my own fault. Somebody in this world needs to step up and take responsibility.
Do not read this post if there is any chance that you can be negatively affected by reading about sexual assault.
Friday July 11, 2014 around 8:50 a.m.
I was on 787, driving to work, half-listening to Marketplace on NPR. Traffic was busy but steady, and I anticipated a light day at the office. I was thinking about the therapy session I had the evening before – EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), which I was told is a psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the distress of disturbing life experiences faster than traditional therapies. Try anything once, is my usual motto.
The therapist had me put on a set of earphones connected to something that looked like a Walkman. It played a series of beeps, first in one ear and then in the other. Then she had me recount one of my memories. I told her about the time my first husband tried to strangle me.
It may seem odd, but I’ve had the memory so often and it’s appeared in nightmares so regularly that I’m really not bothered by the story anymore. It was a long time ago, and it’s only useful for advocacy purposes now. I told her the story just as easily as I’ve shared it at speaking engagements in front of women’s groups over the years.
Nothing happened. I pondered that now, as I was driving. I had felt a little silly, wearing the headphones and hearing those beeps while talking about a serious topic. It felt a little like it was minimizing what happened to me, making light of it. Maybe that was part of the point. I remember thinking that I would be uncomfortable listening to those beeps while recounting my most recent memories – and then there it was.
Just like that, in the middle of the highway, I remembered. The memory I had been fighting against, ever since my sister told me about her memory six weeks ago, was suddenly right there. I saw his face, I knew I was on the couch in our house in California, and I knew what was about to happen.
I shut down my mental white walls quickly, glancing in all my mirrors at the traffic, grounding myself in the present. My heart was pounding, and I was shivering to the point that my teeth were chattering. I started counting the cars I could see in the traffic, carefully noting where they were and any shifts in speed and lanes. I listened carefully to everything being said on the radio, as if I would have to recite it later. I could smell the cold in the air from the air conditioner. Part of the DBT training we had in the hospital taught us that noticing every little thing around us can help keep us in the present.
It all happened so fast, and my reflexes kicked in the same way they do if I sneeze while driving and involuntarily close my eyes. Just like a sneeze, the glimpse of the memory appeared and shut down, and I was driving as if nothing had happened. I couldn’t stop shivering, but the steering wheel was solid under my grip, I was breathing normally, seeing normally, driving normally, and I made it to the parking garage without incident.
Once the ignition was off, I leaned my head on the steering wheel, gripping it as if it were a lifeline. DBT be damned – I was safe now, and by God I needed to know what happened.
TRIGGER WARNING
I was on the brown sofa in the living room on Cass Avenue. I know I was 10 years old because that was my age in that house. There was music playing. A record dropped with its soft plunk, and music played. He was in front of me, smiling and stroking my hair. I kept trying to turn my head to look around the room, but he placed a hand on my cheek to keep my head from turning. He told me I was a good girl, a sweet, pretty, good girl. He asked me if I liked him, and I nodded.
With one hand on my cheek, keeping me still, his other hand traveled all over me. He asked if I liked how that felt. He slipped a hand inside my panties, then pulled them down, all the while whispering what a good girl I was.
I remember I was trembling, uncomfortable and confused. This was mommy’s friend and I knew she would be mad if I wasn’t nice to him. I didn’t understand why his hands were on me, but it didn’t hurt, and he was very nice to me, so I didn’t do anything. Then he put a finger inside me, and asked me how that felt.
I was so surprised, I couldn’t say anything. I didn’t know there was an empty spot there to put something in. He moved slightly, and I felt this strange warm glow down there. I could feel my eyes were very wide, and I looked down at what he was doing. He was naked. I don’t remember him taking his clothes off. I saw his pee-pee, and quickly looked up away from it. He laughed softly, as if he were trying to stay quiet.
He took his hand from my cheek and slowly pushed me back on the couch. His face was inches from the top of my hair and I thought for a minute he was going to kiss my forehead. I could almost feel the short, scratchy hairs from his chin. Then he took his hand away from below, and I could feel something bigger pressing there.
Then there was a blinding pain, like I was being ripped open, and I opened my mouth to scream. He quickly put a hand over my mouth, and the pressure and my thrashing made my head turn to what he didn’t want me to see.
My mom was asleep on the big, round papasan chair. Her hair was messy, all over her face. She was in her long, furry robe. That’s right, it was cold outside. I could see part of the fireplace hearth, and there was some silver tinsel leftover from Christmas laying there. The tree-table was between me and mom. She didn’t hear me. She didn’t know I needed her. The table was between us, that big slice of a tree trunk, polished and glossed, where I had spent many lazy afternoons counting the rings. The table was littered with beer bottles and filled ashtrays, but one spot was cleared off and only had some uneven lines of white powder. There was music playing.
That was it. The memory abruptly ended, leaving me hanging like the flipping of broken film at the end of a movie reel. I slowly left 1975 and realized my hands were hurting from gripping the steering wheel so tight. I threw back my head and gulped huge mouthfuls of air.
I felt a dozen emotions crowding in on me, all clamoring for attention. I was frightened. No, I was remembering feeling frightened. I was in disbelief. How could I possibly not remember that happening? How could I go forty years, and be unwaveringly positive in all that time that I had never been sexually assaulted as a child?
And no way were there drugs in the house. I never remembered such a thing. There were no hints of it in any of my regular memories – except that time I flew back to California to visit friends when I was in seventh grade in Kansas City. My old friends from California took me to a party where there was a bong being passed around. I didn’t touch it – I was too nervous and we thankfully left quickly. I guess it was more prevalent there than it was in Kansas City. Whatever. This memory was wrong. It had to be wrong. It wasn’t real.
And I was angry. Over everything else, I was incredibly angry. I grabbed the steering wheel again, lowering my head and screamed at it, forgetting for a moment that I was in a public parking garage. The sound snapped me out of it, and I remembered I was supposed to be walking to the office. I gathered my things and got out of the car, automatically being the good girl, going to work and doing what I was supposed to do, but I saw every detail of his face the whole way.
I made it to the bench outside the Assembly side elevators in the Capitol building, and sat there, trying to slow down my heart and breathing and do my DBT drill. I dug out my phone and called my therapist. No answer. I left her a lengthy voicemail. I sat wondering who else I could call. Then I remembered a friend of mine had been a child advocate in the court system. I called her, and she knew exactly what to say. She made me get a peppermint out of my purse. She made me touch the floor and describe what I felt. She walked me through my DBT until I felt silly for getting all worked up over something that happened forty years ago. I set my head straight, got up, got on the elevator, and went to work, being the responsible person I was supposed to be. But I was still quietly angry.
We’ve all done this. Showing up late to work every day with an unconscious desire to be fired, even though being fired would be the worst thing right then. Spilling all your skeletons out on a first date with a really great guy, ruining a future before it’s begun. Not paying bills on time or over-extending credit cards. Saying yes to one more drink, then driving home anyway. Well – that’s both self-destructive and potentially other-person-destructive.
Point is, teenagers aren’t the only ones with frequent self-destructive behaviors. The difference between teens and adults is that we know better, do it anyway, and often don’t get caught or held accountable. Are we really going to shake a finger in our own face, saying shame-on-you for getting that extra credit card, extra drink, extra pint of Ben & Jerry’s?
Well, yes.
I don’t know about you, but I’m shaking a finger in my own face all the time. Truth is, my own guilt and shame is not enough of a deterrent. I’m sure my mother shakes a finger in her own face all the time, but she’s still drunk before noon on a regular basis. How can I hold myself accountable when I feel like I deserve whatever punishment is coming to me?
Logically, I know I have personal power. Of course I can lose weight. Of course I can clean out my fridge with a sponge instead of my stomach. Of course I can find a way to make time to exercise. So why do I spend countless hours watching season after season of West Wing, curled up in bed with popcorn and coffee?
I’m being self-destructive. Why? Depression. PTSD. Low self-worth. Suicidal tendencies. Am I going to commit suicide? No, of course not. I am fortunate enough to have three amazing sisters and two wonderful children, all with more unconditional love for me than most people get. It would devastate them if I ever did anything like that. I would never hurt them.
That doesn’t mean I don’t think about it. It has crossed my mind numerous times that in two more years, my youngest will be on her own, off in college. I’ll have an empty nest. If I pay down all my debt by then and save for my cremation expenses, my girls won’t be financially burdened. It would be so easy to plan this out. I could drive right off that curved bridge I travel every day home from work. Thelma and Louise style. I could research online to find the right mix of over-the-counter meds and put myself to sleep forever, just as I prayed would happen that night when I was 15.
I told my psychiatrist all this. I wasn’t sobbing or being hysterical. I just calmly explained that I’m done. I’m not almost 50 years old, I’m almost 100 years old. I have lived more life in my first 22 years than most people will ever experience. I am not just tired, I’m exhausted. I have been responsible for someone else’s needs since I was 6 years old. And then there’s the violence. Really, how much violence can one person take in a lifetime? The injustice of knowing that no one is going to pay for what they’ve done, and the helpless realization that even if that were possible, it wouldn’t make a difference. I would still have to get up every day, go to work, clean my house, pay bills, take care of others and know that there is no one to take care of me but myself.
I just can’t be responsible anymore, not even to me. The weight is too much for too long. I have taken care of my mother, my children, my husbands, my community through volunteer work, and even served the people of NYS as a public servant. I’ve done my part to make the world a better place. It’s someone else’s turn now. I can’t do it anymore. I’m done.
I think if I really were a hundred years old, no one would have a problem with me being done. I sometimes think if I just explain to my family how I feel, that they would understand that some people age before their time and that’s just the way it is. I think they would be sad, but after a year or so of getting used to the idea, we’d all say our goodbyes and I would leave.
My psychiatrist was pretty calm about this. He raised an eyebrow and asked how often do I have this particular fantasy? I almost laughed out loud. In one fell swoop, he let me know that I’m not the only one who has ever thought like this, and that it’s a self-indulgent dream that deserves to be discredited. And he knew that I knew better. He’s worth the extra drive it takes for me to get to his office, compared to doctors that are closer to home.
I think what hurts families the most is the surprise of suicide. If it’s planned, like in Oregon, then everyone has time to discuss it, prepare, even change minds. I think it’s a shame that talking about suicidal thoughts is so frowned upon in our society. Why not stand up and say “I’ve had all I can stand and I won’t take it anymore?” There’d probably be fewer suicides if we talked about it more.
Well, thinking is not doing in my case. Yes, I know that it should be taken seriously anytime someone even hints that it could be a possibility, but truthfully I can’t do it. I love my girls and my sisters too much. I do want to see how their lives turn out, and to help them achieve their dreams any way that I can. I’m not too tired to do that.
Meanwhile, I have to stop being self-destructive in other ways. Writing about it helps. Talking about it with my family helps. Making the time to do things I’m good at, so I can feel accomplished, really helps. That’s part of my treatment. DBT. But that’s for another post. Right now, I have a writing workshop I’m going to. See? I won’t be in bed with Netflix today.
Looking back on that Sunday, June 1st, I don’t remember much, but I know the overwhelm took me. I didn’t give in to it – I know what giving in feels like. Giving in is when you come home with drive-thru nachos and microwavable kettle corn, turn on Netflix and binge watch for eight hours. Giving in is my mother with red wine swirling in her morning orange juice. Giving in to overwhelm is a conscious decision to put the world on hold and self-medicate for awhile. It’s a miracle that I prefer salt over alcohol in my worst state. I tell myself that whenever I take my blood pressure medicine. It could be worse.
No, on that particular Sunday the overwhelm took me, without my permission.
My girls say it seemed as though I had the flu pretty bad that day. My walk was unsteady whenever I got up for the bathroom or water, I had no appetite, I was alternating freezing cold and sweating hot, and I mostly slept.
I remember there were nightmares. I think I cycled through just about every recurring nightmare I’ve ever had and then some. My first husband’s fingers around my throat. My sisters screaming. Running and running but not able to get anywhere.
My waking moments were all memories:
Me, falling out of bed and getting my lip split on the corner of the nightstand. Getting stitches. I was 3.
Mom, sitting dejectedly on the end of the couch, cigarette smoke making rings around her tousled hair, her make-up-smeared eyes red and bleary. I had stayed home from school to make sure she didn’t carry out her threat to kill herself that day. I was 16.
Walking stiffly for a drink at the water fountain in the police station, my uniformed escort asking me why I was so formal, and me telling him I was not going to cry. I was 25.
Being slammed into the bathroom wall of the Pink Garter, a stranger’s lips forcibly taking mine. She had followed me in and had me pinned, her whole big, muscular body crushing me against the wall. I struggled and fought and was thankfully released to run when someone else walked in. I never thought a woman would ever do such a thing. I was 18.
Mom, kicking me as I lay curled up in a sleeping bag on the floor in my room. Kicking me again and again, screaming horrible insults at me. I was 15.
A door being slammed in my face. More stitches. I was 7.
Carrying a ringed pillow from class to class in junior high, telling everyone I had chipped my tailbone from a fall off my roller skates. I was 13.
Daddy #3’s finger in my face, threatening me literally into a corner, and Mom behind him telling me to just say yes, daddy. I was 17.
The videographer who offered to drive me home from an evening SCA event, pulling into the back of a grocery store and telling me he was in pain and only I could help him. He unzipped his pants. I convinced him that I was on my period. He said that’s okay, I could still help him and I wasn’t going home until I did. It was him or face a metal cooking spoon for missing my curfew. I was 14.
Walking six miles in the middle of the night, jumping into shadows any time a car came by, not knowing if my parents were after me. I carried a small bag of clothes and was headed to an older friend’s apartment. I didn’t know where I would go from there, but I was never, ever, going home again, not until I had made enough money to rescue my sisters. I was 17.
My sisters and I, all neatly dressed and sitting on the couch facing the CPS investigator. We told her we were fine, happy, that there was nothing wrong. No way were we going to let this stranger separate us girls from each other. I was 15.
Being slammed into the coat closet door and then rocked onto the living room carpet. Being straddled with his hips on my thighs and his knees on my hands and his hands around my throat, squeezing and squeezing until the black cloud came and I knew I was dying, knew I would never see my little girl or my sisters again. I was 25.
That’s but a handful of the memories I cycled through that day. And now I had four new memories:
1. Me in the pool, looking up at my naked, nine-year-old sister on the diving board.
2. Me, ten, running from the pool, tripping, hearing men’s laughter.
3. Mom, sitting in a pale pink wrap in the patio set by the pool, smoking and saying “just say yes daddy” over and over.
4. A man standing by the pool, between the diving board and the patio set. But that’s for tomorrow’s post.
One night, when I was 15, I knelt before my bedroom window, looking up at a full moon. The house was quiet. My youngest sister, Beth, silent in the next room. They had beat her hard that night. Her screams and sobs still rang in my ears today, but all was quiet and the house was dark at that moment in my memory. I remember kneeling there with my hands folded in prayer, appealing to the distant, peaceful orb that hung in the night as if that were God’s face, blurred by my powerless tears, and not the man in the moon.
Please, God. Please don’t let me wake up tomorrow. Please, take me to heaven tonight. Please. I can’t do this anymore.
That’s how I felt on June 1st, 2014. But in my despair that overwhelming Sunday, I knew then what I didn’t know for sure at 15. The morning was coming, and there was nothing I could do about it. I was going to wake up.
I snapped out of my reverie and looked up to see my youngest standing in my bedroom door.
“Hm? You need something? What time is it? You must be hungry.”
“No, I had cereal – I just wanted to know if you’re doing laundry today. I need jeans.”
I reached for my cell and was surprised to see the morning had flown by. My Kindle was in sleep mode. I must have spaced off after the show. I rubbed a hand tiredly over my face.
“Yes, of course. Give me a minute. Can you put your laundry by the front door and I’ll take it down? I just need another minute.”
She left the door standing open, and I could see my firstborn peeking in from down the hall. I smiled and called out a good morning, and she good-morninged me back and disappeared, apparently satisfied that I was fine.
Of course I was fine. Just tired. It was a long, cramped drive home yesterday. Anyone would be bone-weary tired after that. I sighed and looked around the room absently, running over the checklist in my head. I had forgotten to take my blood pressure medicine, so I washed it down with the cold dregs of my coffee, and got up to change into old clothes, my housecleaning day wear.
The girls had done a great job in the kitchen. I was afraid I’d come home to a sink full of dishes and piles of trash bags waiting to be taken out, but all was neat enough. There was leftover pizza in the fridge. A few days of junk food was to be expected. I added grocery-shopping to my list for the day, and then just froze, one hand on the closed door of the fridge, staring at the shopping list held up by a magnet, but not seeing it.
I couldn’t do it. I just knew, I could not leave the house that day. I couldn’t picture myself able to get into the car, much less drive it. I gripped the refrigerator door handle tighter, my nails digging into my skin. My heart starting pounding. My breath was shorter and quicker. I felt suddenly cold all over. I couldn’t do it. I almost wanted to whimper out loud, please don’t make me do it, but felt ridiculous in this unreasonable fear. What was wrong with me? It’s just grocery shopping.
I scolded myself into letting go of the door handle, but as I walked out of the kitchen, I turned back down the hall to my room instead of toward the laundry in the living room. I paused in my doorway, both hands on the frame, holding myself up. I called out to the girls that I was more tired than I thought, and would do laundry in a couple hours. I just need to nap a bit more.
I crawled into bed, shaking like a leaf, and eyes brimming over onto hot cheeks, pleading silently to the empty air – please don’t make me. Make me what? The walls slammed down on all sides, and I went limp, like a puppet with cut strings. My heart called for my sisters, and a welcome memory appeared of me and my sisters as adults all hugging each other and grieving together, one big huddle of sisters. Breathing easier, I fell asleep.
At this point, I wasn’t stepping toward the hospital, I was tumbling uncontrollably downhill toward it.
TRIGGER WARNING
Saturday, May 31, 2014 2:00 a.m.
I woke up drenched in sweat, breathing heavily and my heart pounding as if I had been running a marathon. My jaw hurt, and I forced myself to stop clenching my teeth. My ears were ringing with screams, even though my small bedroom was dark and silent as the grave. I rolled onto my back, kicking off my sheets, and just lay there for a bit, letting the nightmare finish receding.
Another nightmare. Again. How many nightmares have I had? How many more will I have?
The ebbing fear was being replaced by rising anger. I pulled the spare pillow into my arms and squeezed it punishingly, my arms becoming boa constrictors, reveling in the pain of unaccustomed muscle strain. My throat was tightly holding back my voice, my limbs were consciously keeping me in my bed, but every other part of me wanted to stand up and scream into the blackness – she was raped! and Mom just watched!
But of course, I didn’t. It would wake my daughters. Thinking about them had a calming effect, and I could feel my anger relax into cynicism. Bad things happen to children all the time, and this news was forty years old. Can’t do anything about old news but set it aside and forget about it. Anger was a waste of time. Statute of limitations was long gone, and who would put a new widow in jail for something that happened so long ago? Certainly not Meg. If she were to press charges, she would have done it already. No, there was nothing that could be done. This was old news. Children were raped all the time, were probably raped today, even this very minute. There was absolutely nothing that I could do.
The pillow slid to the floor, and the tears came.
P.S.
In less than an hour, I cycled from fear to anger to helplessness to depression. Worse than that. I went from bone-crushing fear to violent anger to a puddle of helplessness to the bleakest depression. The difference? It was just as much in my body as it was in my mind and soul. Adrenaline, blood pressure, heart rate, muscle contraction, even sweat glands – dozens of physical responses to dozens of emotions were tumbling uncontrollably downhill together, and all I knew was that something wasn’t quite right with me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Beth’s flight was delayed, which would have put her behind for work, so she and I drove back up the East coast together. I was working on about four hours of sleep after hearing what Meg had to say, and by this point, Meg had told Beth. As you can imagine, it was part of the conversation on our way home.
We told each other that we didn’t remember it ever happening to us in childhood, but shared stories of incidents that had happened in our teenage years. One thing that has often puzzled me, is the question – is it rape if it doesn’t physically hurt?
My second year of marriage, my husband and I had a pretty strained relationship. He had put a sledgehammer into the dining room walls and told me that if I ever disobeyed him again, I would be next. I had left him the next day when that happened, but as a young mom with an infant, I had nowhere to go and very little money, so I went back to him.
Anyway, I was pretty scared of him and terrified of sleeping in the same bed, but equally terrified not to. Every morning, he would have sex with me, and I would lay there pretending to be asleep. I’d be laying on my side, facing the wall, keeping my eyes closed and my breathing as even as possible while he did what he needed to do. Then he got up to take a shower, and I cried quietly.
It didn’t hurt. I don’t know if it was because I had a baby by then and I was bigger than before, or if it was because he was a fairly small man, as those things go (I have no idea why I’m trying to be delicate, habit I suppose), but whatever the case, the only thing that hurt was my heart. I was 20 years old and felt completely powerless, too scared to say no, and feeling I had no right to say no even if I could say it out loud.
If he had tried to wake me up, whispered my name or shook me or something, I would have pretended to wake up and pretended to enjoy it. I learned at a very early age how to tell what someone else was feeling or what they wanted, and to respond in kind so as to appease. Appeasing people is the best way to avoid pain. I know different now, but back then, obedience and a believable smile was my M.O. for survival.
Anyway, on the drive home from North Carolina, Beth tactfully told me she thought what he had done was certainly a violation. (Guess where she learned tact? From the same metal cooking spoon that I did.) We shared other stories of rape and molestation that had happened to us at various ages (statistically, it’s not uncommon for women to be assaulted more than once in a lifetime – no, it doesn’t just happen in crime-ridden urban streets or third-world countries).
And, we talked about Mom. Imagine a 12-year-old girl in the mid-1950’s living in rural Spokane, her mother was in and out of the hospital with who knows what, and her father could only visit her once a week. I have no idea why. I never met my mother’s parents. I don’t even know their names, and I don’t even know if they are alive. Mom doesn’t know either, although in 2014, it’s pretty sure they aren’t alive now. Anyway, this girl was raised by her grandmother, a strict Victorian-like woman who believed children should be seen and not heard. Who made Mom go out to the backyard and pick the branch that she would be beaten with. Who turned a blind eye whenever her son would come for a visit and spend time alone with his little girl sitting on his lap.
(At least, this is what we think happened to her, based on bits and pieces she’s said to us over the years. Not everything she said matched with what she said at different times to each of us, but so far this much seems to be true. We don’t know enough family on her side to know for sure what happened. She didn’t like us to be in touch with anyone on her side of the family.)
I have no problem feeling compassion for my mother. Even if her story isn’t true, I know enough about human nature to know that something terrible happened to her. No way could she be like this and have had a loving, safe, childhood. No way. I completely understand why she spent the rest of her life self-medicating with alcohol and feeling less than whole without a man. I even understand why she beat her children. Given all that, my sisters don’t understand why I struggle to forgive her. With the new information that she stood by and allowed a man to rape Meg made me even more angry with her, and less inclined to forgive her – ever. And Beth and I spoke a lot about that on the way home.
I can’t do it because her life got better, and she did nothing to heal. Her fourth marriage was comfortable. No children, a good middle-class income, travel, a garden, great health care, and no worries. Plenty of time to get counseling, join AA, get to know her children as the bright, successful women they turned out to be.
She didn’t do any of that. She wallowed in self-pity. She snapped and criticized her girls, and criticized the way we raised our own children. She would be drunk by noon, making it pointless to call her because she wouldn’t remember the conversation anyway. My sisters and I led this horse to water time and again for decades, and she refused to drink it. She prefers to believe she never beat us, she never caused us any harm, she doesn’t have a drinking problem, and her life is just fine, thank you very much, and we should butt out.
Three of us girls have children, and we have never left our children alone with this woman. No way. And, we have never beaten our children. We don’t even spank them. And guess what? The kids – most of them are adults now – are really great people who do good in the world. Spare the rod and spoil the child? You bet. If providing a loving, safe, encouraging, filled-with-laughter home is spoiling a child, you bet. We did it, and we’d do it again. Yes, I hold Mom to my standard. I grew up in violence, too, but I didn’t take it out on my kids.
My mother belongs in jail, and I said as much to Beth. I believe what she did to us was criminal. And if the only way I can hold her accountable is to insist that she speak to me with respect or not speak to me at all, then so be it. If I decided to cut her off from her grandchildren because her drinking is inappropriate, so be it. My sisters disagree and believe that her tragedies grant her compassion and leeway. I grant her the compassion, but not the leeway.
I dropped Beth off at her car at the airport, and pulled into a nearby restaurant to sit quietly and think. I thought about Meg and the diving board. I thought about Mom. I thought about my two marriages. I thought about my conversation with Beth and her reaction. My mind chased thought after thought, as if there was some kind of answer in the muddle, but the clouds just got thicker, darker. There was a hot, angry storm on the horizon, but I kept averting my eyes, holding onto the numb cold.
After about an hour of staring at the menu and nibbling on french fries, I got back in the car and drove the rest of the three hours home. I walked in the door, was hugged by my daughters, and burst into tears. And it wasn’t because of the 14-hour drive, lack of sleep, or the funeral. I was safe, loved, not required to be responsible for anything, and my mind and body knew it. Now I could collapse.
Mom had gone to bed early with a bottle of something or other, her reward for not showing up drunk to the funeral, and to be fair, I probably would have done the same thing if I had lost a husband of 30 years. Her early withdrawal allowed the four of us sisters to relax and sit up talking late. We were all stressed and exhausted, and as much as I missed my sisters, I really needed to lay down, so I, too, eventually retreated to the guest bedroom at Mom’s that I was sharing with Meg. I remember being comfortably stretched out, reading my Kindle in the dark, waiting for Meg as she finished her bedtime routine in the guest bathroom.
It was a small room. The daybed with its trundle pulled out took up almost the whole space. There was cat hair everywhere. I had made the mistake of setting my black dress down on the bed before putting it on, and ended up swiping off hair throughout the funeral. It wasn’t really a funeral – more of a wake. He had chosen to be cremated, so the vase was sitting on a table surrounded by pictures of him throughout his life. Over about four hours, a good hundred people came through to sign the guestbook and share their condolences with Mom. She bore up very well, and was visibly grateful for the many kindnesses expressed to her.
Meg came in and we lay in the dark talking some more. She told me she thought it was very brave for me to put aside my pain and anger to help Mom through this time. I admitted to her that I didn’t do it for her, but for my sisters. I would always be there for my sisters. Not that I had been – my roller-coaster life was more about my own survival and that of my kids than it was of being any help to my sisters, and I still carry a lot of guilt about that. I ran away from home, swearing to come back for them, and I never did.
I remember she and I talking about that guilt for a bit. Then we talked about how hard it was for me to reconcile the sad, fragile widow of today with the scary child-beater I remembered from decades past, and the snide, contemptuous termagant I had known throughout adulthood and as recently as four years ago.
Meg is a family therapist and lay minister. Her practice has been growing steadily. We talked about that, too. Then she told me about a therapy she had about ten years ago. I don’t remember what it was called at this moment, but basically it was body-based. The therapist has you focus on certain parts of your anatomy that are physically troubling you, with the idea that there is a memory “stored” there. Not really stored, but triggered or associated with that spot. Somatic! Yes, that’s the word.
Then she said there was something she wanted to tell me, a memory that had resurfaced through somatic therapy ten years ago, but that it was difficult to hear. I said “of course” and wondered aloud why she’d wait ten years to tell me something that was troubling her, and told her she can always talk to me. And she said this was different. Then she told me.
She remembered being about 9 years old and waking up from a bad dream. (This was in our home out in California, after Mom’s divorce from Daddy Two, whom we thought was Daddy One back then.) She got up feeling scared and went to go look for Mom, and found her in the back of the house by the pool. She wasn’t alone. She told my sister that they were skinny-dipping, and invited her to join them. So she took off her clothes and did.
When Meg said she remembered standing naked on the diving board, I felt myself suddenly feel cold all over, and I reached out across the space between our two beds to take her hand. We held hands over the empty space in the dark as she finished her story.
She remembers being at the side of the pool and someone pulling her up by the arms out of the water. She doesn’t remember any faces, but she remembers a penis being put in her mouth. They didn’t stop there. She remembers being raped. At 9 years old.
The room was dark and silent. I think I whispered her name once, but for the most part I just lay there, holding her hand and feeling what I am feeling now as I type this. Cold. Numb. Tears brimming but not spilling over. A tightness in my chest and difficulty breathing.
She asked me if I was okay, and I think I said something like “you’re the one that this happened to – are YOU okay?” And my concern tumbled out of me in dozens of choked words. We talked about her treatment, how she was able to handle dealing with Mom over the years, who else among the sisters knew at this point (Amy knew), that I thought she should definitely tell Beth, and why she was telling me now.
She said she wanted me to understand that if she could forgive Mom, then I could. That’s a big thing to forgive, but she did. She said she wanted me to try somatic therapy to see if it would help me get to the bottom of my anger toward Mom, so I could heal. And she asked if she could walk me through it right then.
No way. I withdrew my hand gently and told her that it had been a long day and I had a long drive back to New York ahead of me, and we should go to sleep. I told her how much I love her. I don’t remember if we hugged or not, but it wasn’t necessary. Us girls can hug with just words and feel the same. We are all very close, much more than sisters. Almost like survivors of a war camp.
I didn’t tell her that I felt weakened, that I just knew that if I tried to find memories associated with that bothersome area on the side of my abdomen right then, I was pretty sure I would do more than just cry. I don’t know what I would have done, but every instinct in my body was screaming – don’t think about it! Don’t touch it! Just don’t anything! So I shut down. You ever do that? It’s a mental shut down, but I can feel it. My body was just laying there, unmoving, but my senses could feel myself withdrawing as if I were shrinking to something smaller than my skin and bones. I shrank until there was nothing but my mind, then I shuttered that, too. Eventually, we fell asleep.
At this point, I could have sworn that I had never been sexually assaulted as a child. Looking back to this night, I think my body was remembering but my mind was still protecting me. Gosh, I’m tired. I need another cup of coffee.
P.S.
About ten years ago, the four of us girls had an intervention with Mom about her drinking and the abuse. That’s for a later blog, but I remember that she told us that her father had molested her every Wednesday when he came to visit her, and it had gone on for as long as she could remember. I wonder now if that time with Mom is what triggered Meg’s memories. I’ll have to ask her.
Erase and Start Over 