There are a million stories I could tell about my life in this safe space.
It's not really safe. It's public, it's open, and I always tell the truth here. Sometimes the truth is the scariest part. But I have made it a safe space in my mind by saying, "This is where you are your true self. This is where people will listen to you and value you for saying the same things you were pilloried for saying in your youth. This is where it all comes together and you become who you really are."
If I truly believe those things, I have to tell the real story of my childhood.
Because there is never a house cleaner than the house of a writer on real or imagined deadline, I just spent an hour doing chores. Then I looked at every webpage I have ever bookmarked to see if there was anything new. Please! Distract me!
But I sit here, typing. I have to tell the truth. I have to be who I am. I know there are people who need to hear my story. Telling my story is tough and it's stressing me a lot. But it's a small price to pay for those who need to hear it.
So, then: I was raised to believe that I was broken.
Every day, in countless ways, I was told, through looks, words, and attitudes, that I was irretrievably, obviously, utterly broken. Everything I liked was stupid. I always did the wrong thing. I was awkward, clumsy, and dumb.
It started when I was nine.
Really, it started way before then, but that's when my appearance came into play. When I was younger, at least I was "cute" in that adorable, overachieving way. If you're the first-born kid, you know what I mean. Getting praised for everything you do sets you up to want to please people. Every step you take, every nursery rhyme you recite, it gets you praise, attention, happiness, and glowing adoration. You can sleep with a happy self-satisfaction for decades from just one family gathering's worth of show-off time. I was praised for being smart, for memorizing stories, for performing. And I knew how to get love, how to be seen, how to feel happy.
Then I needed glasses. And my adult teeth came in crooked and wacky. And I wasn't "cute" anymore. I had buck teeth. I had glasses. And all of those performing ways I had became obnoxious and show-offy, and couldn't I just sit back in the corner and not be seen, for god's sakes.
My brother and sister came along and stole the cute spotlight. They were adorable, and I loved them. But suddenly, my parents weren't interested in me anymore. They sighed when I spoke. They yelled at me when I broke my glasses. They didn't have time for me. My dad, on a hair-trigger from his time in Vietnam and drinking most of the time, was irritated at the sight of me. "Can't we do better than that?" he'd gesture, disgusted at how I looked.
My mom is a narcissist. I don't say that as a turn of phrase, or an exaggeration for effect. She has no thoughts that don't center around what someone else thinks of her. If you fell down and hurt yourself, she would be mad that you tore your clothing, and someone might think of her as a bad mom. If someone was around, you'd get a quick hug and kiss, which was nice. But it only lasted as long as someone else could see her acting like a good mom. Look! What a good mom I am! Then the curtain would fall, and she would tighten her mouth and berate you for falling down. "You're so clumsy! What were you thinking?" All of those questions with no one listening for the answers, arrows shooting at your heart as you stand there with no defense.
When I was in second grade, I had long thick hair. I also had a very sensitive scalp. My mom would rush through my hair with a comb, pulling it until I screamed and tears streamed down my face. She decided that the only solution was to cut off my hair, "and remember, this is all because you cry so much!" Instead of using a brush or going more slowly, her solution was to cut it into the ever-awesome bowl cut and blame me for being too sensitive.
Too sensitive, too touchy, too emotional, too imaginative. Pejoratives used for 41 years of my life to describe me as in the wrong, broken, irredeemable, stupid, pathetic. And being that way, no matter what, was all. my. fault. I was choosing to be these stupid ways for reasons that no one ever understood. Because no one ever asked, or listened to anything I had to say, anyway. Why would they? It was stupid, no matter what I said.
I never had a safe place to live. I never felt at home in my family's home. It belonged to my mom, and she made it clear how she felt about me. But in the weirdest, most twisted move ever, part of her pathology required that she tell me that she loved me over and over and over again. "Only bad moms don't love their daughters, and I am a good mom, of course. So I love my daughter." I knew what my feelings were telling me: She doesn't like me. But I knew that I wanted her to love me, and I knew that she kept telling me she loved me. So I stopped listening to my feelings, my intuition, because they must be wrong. They had to be wrong. If they were right, it was the end of the world. I couldn't handle the end of the world. I couldn't handle being all alone in that house with no one to save me.
So I stuffed my feelings and didn't listen to them. I shut my intuition in a box, labeled it "do not open" and hoped that what my mom said was true, that if I would just be less sensitive, less emotional, and stop being offended when insulted, learn to "take it", that I would fit in, that my classmates would stop bullying me, that I would have friends and be accepted. Most of all, that my family would love me, finally.
Seventeen years ago, I met a man who helped me build a safe place to be who I really am. In that place, I've opened up my box of intuition, and looked at my memories through an honest lens, with a critical eye. It's not a coincidence that I spent most of my life addicted to books about crappy childhoods. I knew intuitively what I couldn't say out loud.
I hit a wall of depression five years ago, which is usually my cue to make changes in my life. I realized that my contact with my family, even as limited as I'd kept it, was creating a toxic dump in my life, and that if I was going to be myself, finally and fully, I had to stop being around my mom and feeling her eyes of judgement on every move I made.
Later that year, I sent a letter to my mom. It said that I didn't want to have any contact with her, and I quote, "for a while." I got a phone call from my dad three weeks later. He wanted to have lunch. I was open to having a relationship with him that didn't involve my mom. I was hopeful. He spent most of the lunch talking about himself. Then he told me that it was all my fault that my mom was upset at home, and that I needed to patch things up with her "to make things easier for him at home." I left that lunch saddened, but firm in my resolve. My parents had only ever thought of themselves, first and foremost. Anyone who interfered with their fantasy world of a perfect family was crazy, wrong, and delusional. Anyone who saw the truth would be scorned and denigrated. Even their own daughter.
For a week or so, I was deathly afraid of their (historically awesome and mighty) wrath. I feared meeting them around every corner. But every day that passed without a phone call, without any mail, without any contact, I felt freer, higher, happier than I'd ever felt before. Living without that drain on my resources and emotions made me a stronger, happier, lighter person. I smile every time I think, "I never have to go back to that house again, ever!"
Why am I telling you this? Because I am stronger for the telling of it. Because maybe you have a similar experience, and you need to know that you can survive. Because maybe you know someone who needs to read this. Maybe someone will be helped, hearing my story. I didn't live through this to shut it up in a box. I lived through this to become who I am, to learn my life lesson. I MUST BE WHO I AM. I cannot be put in a box. I cannot be hidden away. I can't lie and tell you only what you want to hear.
My name is Donna. I listen to my feelings. I tell the truth. This is the truth about my childhood.
(Originally written 4/18/13)
No comments:
Post a Comment