We can become our own worst enemies.
This is not a judgment on us. We become what we live.
We absorb and mimic and intimate what we experience
and learn in our lifetime.
It is incredibly easy to fall into the trap of believing
that a childhood perception is legitimate. We are all of
us living patterns instilled in us long ago, playing tapes
that someone else forced upon us.
The important thing is that there are choices now, no
matter how deep our mislaid feelings of worthlessness and
devastation and despair are, there is the possibility for
change and improvement. I know, because it happened
for me. And you couldn't get more pessimistic and
hopeless than I was!
In time, we learned to do the job of our enemies for us.
-We were taught to sabotage our own lives.
-We were trained to choose misery over hope.
-We learned that if we looked for the worst in people we
would always find it.
-We discovered that responding to the external world with
contempt and criticism and callousness was a means of
keeping people at arm's length (our only version of safe.)
-We doubted those that did get close.
-We spurned the affections of good people, assuming the worst.
-We ceased developing our dreams and personalities and lives
because, really; Why bother?
-We accepted as fact the lie that was told to us in deed and
thought.
-We shrank from the world, and cursed it for not providing for us.
-We gave up.
(We survived the only way we knew how.)
I cannot differentiate between the different 'kinds' of abuse.
One is just as deadly to me as another. Certainly, something
like sexual abuse carries not just more stigma and social
shame, but possibly the deepest-reaching negativity, potentially
destroying one of the most blessed aspects of this world.
But I have met people who are hollow shells late into their
50's and 60's as a result of severe verbal abuse and being
derided and criticized repeatedly as a young child.
Again, it is not for me to say.
As for me, I was blessed to be the recipient of a wide-array
of abuse throughout my childhood.
There was abuse in outside the home. By members of
family, neighbors, strangers, day care workers, and baby-sitters.
I suffered from sexual abuse in forms subtle and extreme.
There was severe emotional and psychological abuse on a daily
basis. Verbal and physical abuse and intimidation and forced
feeding and shaming and threats and insanity were just a regular
occurrence at my household.
There was a shut-down or the outer responses early on as
I learned to retreat inside my head, the only safe place I knew.
There was much effort given to maintaining the illusion of
being a 'happy home,' and that schizoid upkeep came at an even
deeper price (I feel) than the abuse itself. It left me with no allies.
When I tried to talk to other people about what was going on in
my household (after I finally realized it was not 'normal') I was
met with universal dismissal.
"You're just being sensitive. It didn't really happen that way."
"It's not as bad as you make it seem."
"I know your parents. That can't be true."
"Why are you being such a spoiled brat?"
"You need to stop telling your parents business in the streets."
I tried talking to my pediatrician. The police. A neighbor.
An uncle. A teacher. A cousin. The result was always the same.
I should point out that I was a miserably depressed young
person whom people were always encouraging to 'Cheer up"
or "Tell me what's wrong." After tremendous effort to overcome
my fears, I finally tried desperately at one point to get help, with
the resultant responses listed above. I didn't tell everything; just
some of the surface level stuff (which was bad enough) and I
was amazed at people's responses.
Finally I just stopped talking.
I hated people for not stepping in and stopping what was going
on. I hated my birth parents for giving me away. I hated my
adoptive parents for being who they were. I hated family for
not coming around. I hated institutions for turning a blind eye
and not fulfilling their supposed duties (Was there something
about me that didn't warrant being saved? I assumed so, one
one level, and despised them for the implication on another.)
My anger ate me up inside.
I started acting out. In school I was boisterous and confrontational
and aggressive and violent. I forged signatures on all the notes home.
I mouthed off to the nuns (and later the priests.) I cussed like
a sailor and vandalized and did everything I could to express how
pissed off and contemptuous I was.
At home, I started fighting back. If he could smash and destroy
and intimidate and act like a crazy person, so could I. And it was
intoxicating. I began sneaking liquor. I became as two-faced as
they were. Whatever it took to accomplish what I wanted when
I wanted it, I did it. I lived what I learned.
I lied, cheated, stole, assaulted, and more. It was freedom,
finally. I said whatever came to my mind, cared nothing about
consequences. What could be worse than what I had been through?
If they were going to treat me as a criminal, why not have the
benefits of actually being one?
There was self abuse and attempted suicides. I was taken to doctors
and psychologists and psychiatrists and specialists and more.
Nothing worked; I knew better than to trust another human being
with the truth at this point. My defiant swagger was a giant begging for
assistance I knew was not to come. I would not have my vengeance
forsaken.
now!
But I continued to rage and seethe and avoid my pain.
I ceased developing as a person.
I gave in to darkness because it was all I knew and it felt
powerful. I gave up on the things that meant something to me.
I dwelt on the past and shut down the present.
I stayed quiet about the real issues. I shut down my caring
and compassionate self. The depressive and wild sides took over.
I discovered sex.
Sex...under what seemed to be my own volition...was nuclear.
I had found a medication that satisfied my every need!
Certainly the physical stimulation was great, but to also have
emotional nurturing and a distraction from the real world
and pain...phenomenal. I did anybody who showed an interest;
my need for approval, intimacy (real or imagined,) and connection
was vast.
By switching focus from one partner to another and imagining
that it was the failings of the last person that didn't allow me to
connect, I avoided the real focus; me. I became absorbed in the
lives of the other boys and men I was with; infatuated with love
and the attention and affection and a reclaiming of my physical
needs that had been corrupted long ago. (Everybody is different
in how they externalize the past; mine came off as desperation
and neediness.)
But eventually, it, too, was never enough.
It was always endless searching for something to fill that void
that had been left in me so long before. But there could be no
erasing of the past. That left me with the idea that there was
nothing to be done about it.
Now I know otherwise.
(continued)
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