Trauma doesn’t always look like “the Big T” catastrophes we tend to picture when we hear the word. Experiences that seem small to others, such as being dismissed, unheard, or unseen, can quietly shape us and leave unprocessed emotional pain. The anger, frustration, and sadness we show over things that seem uneventful to others may be the hurt little kid inside us still trying to feel safe and “seen.” Sometimes those reactions are rooted in experiences we don’t consciously recall. Research has linked trauma with emotional and physical stress reactions; for some people, that can include anxiety, tension, or ongoing health problems. What comes out may be what’s still hurting inside, and that pain can affect our relationships, decisions, and behaviors.
Well, I’ll tell you! You start by standing in front of a mirror and having the most important conversation of your life with YOU … “What’s underneath all my reactions?” By the way, remember that you’ll HAVE to feel it before you can fix it. Journal or talk to someone safe about what hurt you.
Twenty years ago today, Breaking Benjamin released this song with the birth of its mother album, “Phobia“. I’ve since pondered the meaning of this literal masterpiece, but finally settled upon it being an interpretation of what it’s like living with a mental illness in the wake of trauma of any kind. In my case, specifically, I’ve likened it to the battlefield of my father’s psychologically abusive warfare and the eggshells our family has been forced to tiptoe around on a daily basis. So, yeah, the scene at this family dinner table pretty much sums up the entirety of my childhood. With that, I would now like to offer up this ‘lil nuggie on behalf of every “unknown soldier” out there like me and my daughter—people who, through no choice of their own, were forced to step into the ring with their own effing parents and lived to tell about it:
Hey! YOU! All you ‘lil wrecking ball “parents” out there with “dinner tables” like this who think their kids AREN’T gonna either:
(a) End up in lifelong therapy;
(b) End up with a rip-roaring mental illness;
(c) End up hating and making cryptic posts like this about you;
(d) End up completely SEVERING you from their lives; or
(e) ALL OF THE ABOVE!
DO BETTER, YA JEAN-CLAUDE VAN DAMN EFFING JACKWAD! If, however, you either can’t do better or simply refuse to even try because it makes you feel like a much more powerful human being thing than you actually are, then don’t you DARE ever let any of us Unknown Soldiers out here catch you crying yer “Oh, poor me! Nobody loves me … not even my own kids!” effing eyes out! It was never ANY of our responsibilities to become the living bandages to soak up the blood you’ve let from the cuts you never healed from. Capiche? K, bye now!
He got here red and wrinkled … scared and cryin’ … then she took him up and held him to her breast … and he sure was glad to get what mama offered. Then he went to sleep and put his fears to rest. It didn’t seem to matter what he needed, he could always count on mama to supply, and regardless of the sleep she might be losin’, he always found a twinkle in her eye. There ought to be a hall of fame for mamas … Creation’s most unique and precious pearls … and Heaven help us always to remember that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.
What if on the day he got here, “red and wrinkled … scared and cryin'”, she took one look at him and said, “No thanks. I’ll pass.” Then, instead of holding him to her breast and putting his fears to rest, she either literally or metaphorically threw him away?
Lol! “There ought to be a hall of fame for mamas?” Yup. There sure as HEAVEN should be. Likewise, should there be a picture of every one of those “mother THINGS and MONSTERS” in the Hall Of SHAME as placeholders until they get to ACTUAL hell.
“Is this the place that we called home to find what we’ve become? Walking along the path unknown … we’ve lived, we’ve loved, we’ve LIED! Deep in the dark … we didn’t think we “needed” The Light … or that the ghost inside us belonged to the other side.”
(Words adapted from Bad Omens’ “Specter”)
Looking back, it literally blows my FUCKING mind how many heaping piles of toxic, twisted, and dysfunctional behavior I was surrounded by—ironically, most often in the very places I was forced not just to believe, but to tell other people were “safe and loving homes.” I was expected to perpetuate those disgusting “FAUXrytales” because the powers that were my life demanded it under the threat of: “What would people think if they knew the truth?” For years, I choked on silence and secrets amid the ABUSE, CHAOS and VIOLENCE that wasmy childhood—and that still reaches into my adulthood—all to protect the image of the PERFECT family “behind the gates”!
And so, with that … YES! Yes, I AM the angry daughter … ever the work in progress … and I’ll STAY this angry until MY daughter has finally moved THROUGH all the anger she inherited from both me and the generations before. She’s wielding it like a torch through her own haunted spaces … just like her momma … so that someday HER daughter (who I carried within MY womb, by the way) won’t ever have to stay angry for longer than is necessary to keep the specter of herself at bay … unless, of course, like me, she decides to pull out its little diamond-studded leash and walk proudly with it like a wild and beautiful BEAST with MY fire in her eyes and resilience coursing through her veins!
A pluviophile is a person who enjoys rain and rainy days, and is fascinated by the sights and sounds of rain. Pluviophiles may find joy and peace of mind during rainy days, and may enjoy being outside regardless of the weather. They may also find comfort in listening to the rain hitting a window ledge, or enjoy the scent of rain on a road or freshly cut grass.
… and so, I wrote to her. My “sibling,” whom I do not know, in this sisterhood of the most twisted, tragic, bittersweet, and almost ethereal bullshit sororities of all called “SHATTERED CHILDHOOD“:
My heart is in pieces for you. So, I’m what some people call a “pluviophile”, a person who revels in rainy, stormy, gloomy weather, and it IS literally like some twisted Heaven here in Dallas for me, right now with the skies in the full bloom of every shade of grey. I have long believed that the reason I feel most comfortable and “at home” this way is because it’s the sky’s way of helping me peacefully grieve for not just my “childhood”, but for EVERY other one of us (especially mothers) who are walking around with smiles on our faces despite it all, because not only do we “know what we know”, but we “KNOW what we know” and feel it for every broken child who does now or ever has existed. I’m hearing “The Irrepressible Shirt” right now. It’s my rain song. Much love to you, my friend. This is an awful, twisted, but also kind of beautiful sisterhood, is it not?
I saw a question posted on my Quora forum recently that asked:
How can imprisonment for insults be justified, considering no one has ever been killed by words, and no words can force somebody else to choose to do harm?
With that, and in honor of the anniversary of “The Four Agreements” I love so much having first been published on this day in 1997, let’s go over “words” by reading through my response to that question:
Oh, but you couldn’t be more wrong, my friend. Someone “ever” HAS been killed by words, let me assure you of that. While words themselves cannot physically force someone to choose to do harm, they can, indeed, incite it. Both the spoken and written word are the womb from which good things are born, and the sword upon which many tragic tales have fallen. This is why every “word” should be chosen impeccably, and why, yes, some insults are, indeed, deserving of imprisonment. If the words one speaks can metaphorically imprison the person receiving them in internal turmoil and ACTUAL hell, and thus potentially even cause their death, so, too, should the person who speaks such words be imprisoned.Long story short?Be sure to watch your mouth, lest you end up choking on the very same poison you spew into the atmosphere.By the way, this is especially important when it comes to the words we speak into the ears of children, whether they are our own children or someone else’s. Many are the children whose bodies physically grew into adulthood, but whose hearts, minds, spirits, and fledgling wings were physically MANGLED at the receiving end of careless “words”. How do I know this? I AM ONE OF THEM!
The song I’ve paired with this entry is from the perspective of a child who hid in closets while their mom and dad were not just murdering each other with “words”, BUT THEM AS WELL! Been there. Done that. Yes, it’s true, and I am brave enough to admit that not only was I, too, that kid hiding in the closet from sparring parents, but I later grew up to be one of those parents who ashamedly subjected my babies to the war of words between their dad and me. So, whereas my Quora answer is about the danger of not speaking impeccably in general, children can likewise be SHATTERED in the presence and crossfire of “words”. Are we clear now, people? Good enough, then! In the meantime, make it a powerful “Four Agreements” kind of day, and for God’s sake PLEASE be impeccable with your words. They are not … I repeat – NOT just “little toy guns”. They may not draw blood, but they can, indeed, wound a human soul ireparably.
LITTLE TOY GUNS
In between the coats in the closet, she held on to that heart shaped locket. Staring at a family flawless … but it ain’t a pretty picture tonight. Mom and daddy just won’t stop it. Fightin’ at the drop of the faucet. Cuts through the walls catastrophic. She’s caught in the crossfire. Puts her hands over her ears … starts talking through the tears … she’s saying … she’s praying. I wish words were like little toy guns. No sting, no hurt no one. Just a bang bang rolling off your tongue. (I wish words were like little toy guns.) Yeah. No smoke. No bullets. No kick from the trigger when you pull it. No pain. No damage done. (I wish words were like little toy guns.) Wish there was a white flag waving, or that they were both just faking, and it was just a game they were playing, like shoot’em up cowboys. Leave the plastic pistols in the front yard, throw away the score card, and just turn off all the noise. I wish words were like little toy guns. Oh, I wish they didn’t cut like a knife. I wish they didn’t break you inside. I wish they didn’t bang bang make you wanna run, yeah. {Carrie Underwood}
While I’m sure there are a fair number of people who feel this way but aren’t as willing to openly admit it, I believe there should be absolutely NO mercy, grace, or forgiveness for the “mother THINGS” that (not “who”) mindfully cause or allow grave harm to a child of their own womb.
Judge not others lest ye be judged!
(Matthew 7:1-3)
Yet are the THINGS capable of inflicting harm upon their children even “human” at all—and therefore subject to God’s disdain for judging them or wishing them actual hell?
I really CAN forgive anyone for just about anything, and as God is my witness, I HAVE! But I’ll just keep taking people on a case-by-case basis. The Devil’s Own really DO walk among us, but I’m not even sure they’re “people”. They’re a different kind of breed “thing” altogether. I’m not quite sure I’ll ever get to the point that I stop avidly praying that God really DOES sort us all out in the end. I’m just a mortal human, not a god or Jesus Christ, so I’ll just keep asking for “forgiveness” for not being too excited about the idea of “mercy for the merciless”.
Just to be clear, I’m not talking about selfish, inattentive, unprepared, immature mothers who are truly oblivious to the damage they cause their children. Been there, done that, and trust me when I say that we are a collective wrecking ball crew to our own. I may be sanctimonious at times, but I’m not even gonna try and deny my own regrettable crimes against my children. I wear the hearts of two children on my sleeve who are still navigating the wreckage my former tragic mothering and weak mental health caused them, such that any shame or guilt I’ve suffered for not having done better sooner is well-deserved. Have they forgiven me? Yes. Have I forgiven myself? Yes. Have they forgotten? Absolutely NOPE, nor shall they ever, and nor shall I. If they have to remember everything, then why should I be afforded the luxury of “I FUCKED UP MY KIDS AMNESIA”?
That being said, if, like me, you have fucked up your kids but are able to acknowledge, account, and atone for it, indeed I believe there is mercy and grace to be found. Owning up to my parenting flubs and “remembering everything” with them is what keeps me growing forward as a stronger, wiser, and healthier mom who is determined to break the generations of cyclically egregious parenting on my tree. Let’s face it, people, you can’t fix something you don’t think is broken, and that includes ourselves. De-NILE was for little baby Moses, my friends, and in a basket I am not.
Meanwhile, I am talking about the seriously life-altering and mind-bending crimes committed against children at the hands of “mothers” that NO CHILD deserves to suffer through. Here are just a few that come to mind:
🤮 Throwing them in the trash or just leaving them out in the freezing fucking cold on a curb or a doorstep!
🤮 Murdering them, drowning them, choking them, burning them, burying them alive, locking them in closets, caging or chaining them up like animals, starving them, or “sticking stuff” in places stuff isn’t supposed to be stuck in them!
🤮 Coat-hanger SLAUGHTERING them or letting a medically sanctioned hitman SHANK them late-term in utero through their already formed tiny skulls, beating hearts, seeing eyes, hearing ears, and feeling spinal cords!
None of these horrors are forgivable to me, and even a crocodile mommy instinctively knows better than to intentionally torment a life she bears in such detestable ways. Look, there’s NO such thing as a perfect mom, because after all, most of us are only human. But sooner or later, even the worst of us wrecking ball mommies can grow up, take a sobering look at the body count on the battlefield of our children’s lives and the failed flights we caused, APOLOGIZE, move on, then just do fucking BETTER!
It is my avid prayer that these THINGS will eventually be dealt with accordingly and made to pay for their crimes against the humanity they made and BROKE! I can’t imagine that God will take such travesties lightly, as when He blessed women with a womb, it would seem that He did so with the intention of populating the world, NOT destroying it. I literally have no sympathy whatsoever for “things” posing as “people” that deliberately and intentionally violate, traumatize, or cause harm to actual human beings without remorse.
I’ll never forget the day in 2016 when my secretly crumbling husband, whose own mother THING discarded him, heard it for the first time while we were driving. The stoic tears that fell from his eyes in that moment still haunt me. After that, he would play it often and always said it made him think about the “IT” that birthed him. Now, I’m not saying that every child of a mother THING grows up to be a monster, but the truth is many do. I’m also not saying that my husband was a monster, but in the end there was a monster living inside his head that he felt he had to stop from hurting us any further, and thus the bullet to his head.
Dear Mothers:
Remember … WE CREATED THEM! They are pieces of what we are. We’re their Sun, their Moon, their Earth, their stars, and the actual air they breathe. We make them. We can break them. Be mindful of the power that you wield!
Are YOU a mother THING? If so, here’s hoping that the fate you meet is far greater than anything you ever did to one of your own. Also? YOU’RE FUCKING GROSS! Are you the child of a mother THING? YOU DIDN’T DESERVE THAT! Just because everyone isn’t as openly angry at the THING that was supposed to love you more than her own life itself, it doesn’t mean that you aren’t thought of, cared for, prayed over, and deeply loved by more mothers than you will ever know. Don’t you DARE let yourself be defined by the monster that brought you into this world or think for one minute that God didn’t see that.
MONSTER
Under the knife I surrendered. The innocence yours to consume. You cut it away and you filled me up with hate. Into the silence you sent me. Into the fire consumed. You thought I’d forget, but it’s always in my head. You’re the pulse in my veins. You’re the war that I wage. Can you change me? Can you change me? You’re the love that I hate. You’re the drug that I take. Will you cage me? Will you cage me? You’re the pulse in my veins. You’re the war that I wage. Can you change me? Can you change me from the monster you made me? The monster you made me? This is the world you’ve created. The product of what I’ve become. My soul and my youth? Seems it’s all for you to use. If I could take back the moment I’d let you get under my skin. Relent or resist? Seems the monster always wins. You’re the pulse in my veins. You’re the war that I wage. Can you change me? Can you change me? You’re the love that I hate. You’re the drug that I take. Will you cage me? Will you cage me? You’re the pulse in my veins. You’re the war that I wage. Can you change me? Can you change me from the monster you made me? From the monster you made me? My heart’s an artifice, a decoy soul. I lift you up and then I let you go. I’ve made an art of digging shallow holes. I’ll drop the darkness in and watch it grow. Who knew the emptiness could be so cold? I’ve lost the parts of me that make me whole. I am the darkness. I’m a monster. {Starset}
I’m sure you’ve heard me say that I have suffered from, battled, and overcome a mental illness. I’m not sure, however, that I’ve ever said which one.
So, Cat, which one was it?
Drum roll, please! Now, wait for it! Wait for it:
Hi! I’m Cat Williamson, f/k/a “Girl, Interrupted“. I HAVE BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER (“BPD”). Well, I did, that is. This month marks the seventh year of my recovery, and I’d like to tell you about it.
WHAT IS BPD?The National Institute Of Mental Health describes BPD as an illness marked by ongoing patterns of varying moods, self-image, and behavior. These symptoms often result in impulsive actions and problems in relationships. People with BPD may experience intense episodes of anger, depression, and anxiety that can last from a few hours to days.
Was This Me?
√ Check!
WHAT MAY HAVE CAUSED MY BPD? As is the case with most mental illnesses, many mental health care professionals believe that BPD is caused by a combination of either genetic and/or environmental factors. I strongly believe that my BPD was environmentally predisposed, inasmuch as I was exposed to many adverse childhood experiences (“ACES”) that may have triggered the development of my symptoms. Although I don’t recall any sexual or physical abuse as a child, there were a vast number of instabilities that likely contributed to my illness.
I was ripped away from a closely interactive paternal family when my parents abruptly uprooted us from our home at a very young age. Keep in mind that because our family was enmeshed, my grandparents, aunts and uncles were consistently present and close caregivers at that time. So, the immediate, unexplained loss of them literally overnight was deeply traumatic. Likewise was the damage to my impressionable psyche from both the inconsistent emotional and physical presences of my parents at different points in time due to issues of their own beyond my control.
This Really Happened?
Check √ Check √
WHAT WERE SOME SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS? Most adolescents and adults with BPD lack the healthy coping skills required to handle even minimal amounts of stress or emotional discomfort and therefore often present with these signs and symptoms:
Someday, I’ll revisit the somewhat comical story of how my diagnosis came about, but suffice it to say that when I first realized what in actual HELL was wrong with me, I was shaken. Not only did I have a mental illness, but it was one of the most stigmatized and difficult to treat. Borderlines already think that “everything is wrong with them”, so having THAT label all but plastered across my forehead like the “SCARLET BPD” really was kinda like a storm. It was a torrential fucking cataclysm pummeling me 24/7, complete with lightning bolt surges of voices in my mind screaming “YOU’RE BAT SHIT FUCKING CRAZY”!
Is it true that your mom is a sociopath who’s been in a mental hospital and is unsafe to be around children?
Yes, that really happened! The “first do no harm” medical professional leveled me and my daughter with my “girl interrupted” secret. Meanwhile, here I am, nine years after my diagnosis. I did the work, know who I am, where I’ve been, and exactly where I’m going. That part of my journey is all but a distant memory, except to say that moving forward I have and will take any opportunity that avails itself to share “my little secret”, as in below when I did so recently in a very public forum. It’s the one thing I’ve published that I’m proudest of so far, because just as saying the words out loud to those closest to me was the most healing part of my journey, so too was writing the words out loud:
Oh, how I love and appreciate this question! Seriously, it means so much as a recovering Borderline to see these words out in the Cosmos in bold set black and white letters. It means you genuinely care and therefore desire to understand it, which for your average Borderline is more than half the battle! For me? The best thing anyone ever did to comfort me in my BPD darkness was to “look beyond the cover of my book” before casting unwarranted judgments, opinions, or assumptions about who others thought I was: “Crazy, dramatic, histrionic, spoiled rotten Girl Interrupted Catherine.” And by that, I mean this …
Obviously, as with any mental illness, there is no way to take a human brain apart and actually see the twists and turns that can “Molotov cocktail” a person into madness, but there is widely held belief that Borderline Personality Disorder tends to develop in a person with a history of: Emotional, physical or sexual abuse; Being exposed to long-term fear or distress as a child; Being abandoned or neglected (either physically or emotionally) by one or both parents; Growing up with another family member who had a serious mental health condition. [See Also the National Institute Of Mental Health’s overview in this regard.] In my case? Yup. My “childhood trauma resume” from cradle to this minute includes but is not limited to: ALL OF THE ABOVE! Although I do not believe that any of my primary caregivers intentionally and knowingly harmed, abused or traumatized me in the ways they did, but the resulting fallout was and is still very real to me, nonetheless.
I spent a lifetime (39 plus years) just trying to survive “me”, completely unaware of what the HELL was actually wrong with me, especially inasmuch as that “on the surface” at many junctures it did appear that my life was picture perfect. Even I sometimes told myself, “How dare you effing feel this way Catherine, you spoiled, crazy BRAT. Your life is absolutely PERFECT”. I hated me for hating myself and being “so unappreciative” of what ultimately revealed itself to be a farce of an existence, and especially hated knowing that the emotional storm cloud that seemed to follow me everywhere was raining on my loved ones’ heads as well.
Most Borderlines truly hate themselves at their darkest, deepest core because of the words and judgments of clueless people who’ve never walked a day in their shoes. They are programmed to believe that they are weak, dramatic, histrionic, ungrateful human train wrecks whose accompanying chaos darkens even the brightest room. BORDERLINES BELIEVE THEY ARE A CANCER TO THE WORLD, as so often this is what they’ve been told. My point being this: The best way to comfort a friend with Borderline Personality Disorder is to simply “hear them”. Listen to them. Dig a little deeper and ask them: What did your eyes see? What did your ears hear? How did your heart feel when it was a child? Then say these words to them: “I’m sorry that happened to you. It wasn’t fair at all, and I don’t think you’re a crazy, weak, spoiled rotten, histrionic train wreck of a human disaster. I’m sorry if no one ever told you that before.” Again, I am so thankful to see this question here and hopefully anyone reading my answer can find some value. “Girls Interrupted” are often just broken, yet powerful, very loving ANGELS that need their hidden scars and wounds acknowledged so their broken wings can finally get them off the ground. I know this all too well because that was me: “Girl Interrupted”. I spent so much time avoiding the Sun that I DIDN’T THINK I DESERVED that I cannot even tell you. I’m just so glad I lived to tell about it and finally start using my wings! Have a good day, and again, THANK YOU FOR ASKING THIS QUESTION!
So, there you have it! I’ve said it out loud, but I’m not a “girl interrupted” anymore. I’m the woman who’s a miracle … a STORM that finally “broke free”. My husband used to call me “The Borderline Whisperer”, because as I’ve walked side by side by side with the brave little “dark passenger” I’ve all but become best friends with, I’ve become accustomed to recognizing it quickly. In the last few years, I’ve had “the conversation” with quite a few people, most of whom have since sought treatment and are now fighting their way out of the storm. He was so fucking proud of me … his “beautiful disaster” of a wife … and everything he saw me go through to conquer it. He was my number one supporter and never once threw it in my face or made me feel less than because I was sick. There’s no way I’d be writing this today if it wasn’t for him. I know it. He knows it. GOD KNOWS IT! He carried the torch that God, Himself, prepared that led me out of the darkness to The Brighter Side Of Grey, and I know he must be smiling right now as he watches me go public. How bittersweet is the irony that he couldn’t find his way out of the darkness? Nevertheless, I am no longer ashamed to “say the words out loud”, because guess what? They don’t define me. That little secret makes me sick no longer, because it’s NOT a secret anymore!
BREAK FREE
Help me – I’ve fallen further in myself. I’m stuck here again. And I can’t see that I’m not digging my way out – I’m digging my grave. I’ve become my own demise. Paralyzed inside my mind. Arms are weak from holding up this front. No escape and no surprises. Complicated compromises. Hold me down when what all I really want is just to break free. Break free. Break free from everything. Break free before it breaks me. There’s got to be another way to start again. Tell me how you can be the brightest star and light up the sky? Well, I can’t seem to even light up my own way and I’m burned out from trying. I’ve become what I despise. Paralyzed inside a lie. Arms are weak from holding back the flood. Sinking as the waters rise. Drink myself to sleep each night. I’m going under and all I really want is just to break free. Break free. Break free from everything. Break free before it breaks me. There’s got to be another way to start again.
{Like A Storm}
If you or someone you know may be struggling with BPD:
My own husband, Zachariah, who I lost to suicide on August 22, 2019. He was the Godsend game changer for me and my two kids, larger than life with a heart of gold, but had been abandoned by the “mother THING” that (not “who”) left him for good at 18 months. While I suppose his father did the best he could with the lack of parenting skills he had, he was then and is still but a child himself, and even managed to leave his son behind in death. Growing up, my husband was left alone frequently from a very young age, and his basic needs were never properly tended to. Eventually, even his siblings discarded him.
The abandonment issues that led to his mental illness were further complicated by the fact that for some unknown reason the “mother” managed to have a maternal relationship with the older siblings she’d had with the same father, just not him. Again, his entire family left him on the proverbial curb of life. Not just the mother, but neither his father or siblings could be bothered with him. His two older brothers would often refer to him as the “Zack of shit”, and although he would laugh about in their presence, those words haunted him incessantly. This heartless, selfish, and shallow brood of people shattered his heart into pieces that could never be fully put back together.
There were demons living in the hole they burned in his soul we fought desperately to keep him from drowning in, but in the end, the demons won. In the last months of his life, it appeared that he was in the early stages of some type of psychosis or schizophrenia. He’d been hearing voices, seeing things that weren’t there, missing blocks of time, and ultimately just vanished completely within himself. He said “he couldn’t feel anything anymore“, and honestly, we lost him MONTHS before he put that gun to his head. It was a living nightmare to witness and the worst kind of heartbreak to suffer. He literally died of a broken heart that led to his mental illness and suicide, but not before he hurt not only me, but even more so our daughter VERY badly. The trauma he visited upon her in his final “separated from self” state of mind is beyond comprehension, and one that may take her a lifetime to heal from.
I’ve been writing tirelessly about not only his, but my mental health journey as well, in “The Diary Of My Perfection“. I’d be honored if any of you would care to read, follow, or share it, as it is now my mission to try and be a Light in other people’s darkness. In the meantime, thank you for the many kind words and support of this post. It means everything to me. I cannot let either his lost battle with mental illness (or anyone else’s for that matter) have been in vain.
I was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and outside looking in, our family was picture perfect. My sister and I were raised by parents who chose not to divorce despite the multitude of odds stacked against them and years of turmoil and dysfunction that besmudged our family tree. My mother bore the brunt of childrearing, which as it turned out was not probably for the best and the primary reason I have manywonderful memories of New England. She did the best she could to make a safe environment for us. She suffered, struggled and sacrificed in every possible regard for the sake of everyone under our roof, most especially my father, and certainly for me and my sister. She was there for everything she could manage to be present for considering that she worked so hard at a career she’d built over years with Texas Instruments and Raytheon, and through that career she made sure my sister and I had all of the things we would need to get out there and survive, not the least of which was college educations that she paid for on her own. She took each of her roles as wife, mother, daughter and daughter-in-law as dutifully and faithfully as she possibly could under any and all possible circumstances. At one point in our life my father’s mother had even come to live with us after my Grandpa passed away and there, too, Mom took the brunt of her overall care and well-being, which I have to tell you is something I still don’t understand to this day, because my grandmother was a mostly cruel and selfish human being who cared nothing for my mother whatsoever, yet happily and selfishly enjoyed the many comforts and caterings to her every whim that my mother alone provided her alongside everything else she had on her already full plate at any given time without any regard or consideration for her overall care and well-being. What Ida wanted, Ida got, no matter the cost to my mother, and this was just how it was.
My mother didn’t exactly have a fairytale childhood much less was there an appearance of anything “picture perfect and charmed”. Born the second oldest of eight children, she’d been raising kids since she was old enough to change a diaper by the time she’d met my father. Her family demographic was probably near poverty level and I know for a fact that she never owned a store-bought dress or new pair of shoes until after she married my father. Her Catholic faith was very strong though, and at one point she’d even considered becoming a nun. Life took her down a different path, however, where she would stumble upon the man and his family that would test her faith forever.
His father, Ernie, was one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever known. He was loving and kind, caring and thoughtful, and all about his family. The man was a saint by even the harshest standards, and I’d be hard-pressed to find a single shortcoming in his character. In the 18 years I knew him, I never once heard him raise his voice or a fist, and never once heard him speak an unkind word about another. Which is not to say that he never ever said them, it’s just that if he did, he never let his impressionable grandchildren see it. To this day I smile when I remember the “worst word” I ever heard him say: “Garl darnit!” This was his version of profanity, and it took a fair amount of anger or frustration to get him there. My Grandpa was the polar opposite of any man I’d ever known until the day I met my late husband, but I’ll get to that much later. Suffice it to say, my beautiful Grandpa was and remains one of the brightest stars that has led my pathway from the sky. His legacy is one of true love and kindness and the memories he left are completely unsoiled in my mind. Of course, he was but a mortal man, and with that, it’s certain that like all of us, he’d had his moments, grievances, “grudges” and maybe even “yelling, screaming and profanity”. As any good man and father should have, however, he was wise enough to shield the younger eyes that were watching and ears that were listening to anything less than impeccable words. Little did I know that he’d set the bar by which I’d judge all men impossibly high, and that it would be years before I understood why.
Ida, my father’s mother, as we later found out, hid a dark childhood secret of her own, and thus led a miserable existence. Even from the grave she managed to pit her sons against each other throughout the entirety of their lives by manipulating them with her contingent-based system of affection and reward. If she didn’t get what she wanted, when she wanted, how she wanted it, her response to her sons was always the same:
I’ll fix you! I wash my hands of you! You’re nothing to me! I’m done with you! YOU’RE NO LONGER A PART OF THIS FAMILY!
Although my grandparents were not necessarily wealthy, Grandpa was a hard worker and they never wanted for anything. This suited my grandmother well. Unfortunately, that “what have you done for me lately” mindset funneled its way through to our own family home and ultimately almost cost me my sanity and life. Again, I’ll get into that later. Sufficed to say that in my lifetime, up to and including my very darkest of hours, I, too, have fallen prey to that familial gift that never seems to keep on giving and had all but blackened and asphyxiated our family tree. Dozens of times, for as long as I can remember, I’ve heard the very words that my father and his brothers grew up hearing from their own mother’s mouth:
I’ll fix you … I wash my hands of you … You’re nothing to me … I’m done with you … YOU ARE NO LONGER A PART OF MY LIFE!
It wasn’t until I was in my late 30’s that I began to recognize that my “picture perfect” childhood was nothing but a farce, and now I’m going to speak my truths, no matter the cost, because at this point I have NOTHING left to lose but the lovely Venom suit that’s been wrapped around my body from the moment I drew my first breath. Welcome to the pages of my life …
PAGES
What happens to a man when he spills his heart on a page and he watches words flow away then his feelings lie on the page alone there waiting for someone who cares to read them, to open their eyes to see them, to see if they can make his thoughts their own, to find out that maybe your life’s not perfect? Maybe it’s not worth what he gives away? You can see that this broken soul is bleeding. So, you can see your feelings inside yourself and wander through my heart. Letting you see through me now only consumes me. Forget your pain … you watched me fall apart. What happens to a soul when it’s trapped inside his emotions and all of these words he’s spoken, they bind him to the life he’s left behind, and every new step he takes he knows that he might not make it to all of these dreams that he has yet to find?
