Rage Against the Child

I had planned to write today about one of my other co-workers, The Foot Lady, and about the strange behavior of an old friend of mine. Then I heard the Alec Baldwin tape. (http://www.tmz.com) I heard it early this morning on television and haven't been the same since. It triggered a major bout of post traumatic stress disorder. My hands are still shaking from fear.

My father had a temper like that. It was unpredictable. I would be sitting at the dinner table and suddenly he'd knock the shit out of me. I'd start to cry, which would give him an excuse to do it again. Crying always made things worse. Or better. My dad liked to make people cry. I learned to withhold tears. At some point, I just wouldn't give him the pleasure of seeing me cry anymore.

Long, drawn-out dramas where there would be multiple opportunities to hit and yell were his specialty. If he could make something go on all day, he was a happy guy. Since I had no place else to go, he had a lot of fun with me. It was an extra treat to beat up my mom while threatening me. I got the point.

The point tended to revolve around Dad. How was he feeling? Had someone made him feel like shit at work? Was he psychotic? Was I looking at him in a way he could tolerate? How should I look at him? Was I performing intellectually up to his standards? What was the correct response to the question he asked? Would it be better to try to stay out of the house or would he think I was trying to hide from him? (No hiding.)

Much like Mr. Baldwin, his abusiveness was firmly rooted in his own self pity. He'd been working his ass off, he'd given up his only son (because of me), he had a terrible childhood. The list goes on and on. There were always plenty of reasons why I should be punished. Even though they really had nothing to do with me. It was all about him.

My mom and dad (but she didn't count) gave me a ring when I was around nine. I lost it the same year. You can not imagine the firestorm that set off. I'm not sure I'd even noticed it was gone. They never had it sized, so they'd just wrapped tons of cellophane tape around the band to make it stay on. In retrospect, it wasn't all that surprising that I lost it.

My father noticed. He always noticed things like that and took them as a personal affront. If one of my mom's hubcaps fell off, he acted like she'd gotten out of the car on the way home, removed the hubcap, thrown it into a field and come home without it just to spit in his face. It was that way with the ring.

He demanded to know where it was. Oh shit, I had no idea. I tried to think back. Quickly. That was hard to do when my father was raging. I couldn't think of where I was when I last felt it on my finger. I started crying. Uh oh. He slapped me and knocked my glasses against the side of my nose. That really hurt. He told me not to cry or he'd give me something to cry about. He wanted me to sit there and think about what I'd done with the ring. He left. He probably went to the bathroom. There was just something about getting angry that made the bathroom call out to him. I was punished many times in the bathroom. But that's another story.

After he left, I was in a panic. I knew there was no way I was going to come up with the answer and that, even if I did, there was most definitely going to be hell to pay. Just like Alec Baldwin, my father didn't care that I was nine; he would not tolerate being treated so ungratefully. There would be adult punishment coming; it was just a matter of time.

He told me to go out in the yard and look for it and not to come back until I found it. I walked around in the sun, peering at the grass under my feet. I prayed the yellow topaz stone would miraculously glitter and catch my eye. I made bargains with God. God never held up his end of those bargains, though, and after a while, my father called me back inside.

As I walked over to the door, I seized upon the idea of blaming it on someone else. I blamed a girl I used to play with from the neighborhood.

"I think maybe Sheila took it."

That did not completely resolve my problem. I was going to have to come up with a means by which she took it. I couldn't say she'd thrown me to the ground and wrestled it off of me. That would have created more problems for me. My father expected that when someone was violent towards me, I would hit them back. He asked me how in the hell she got it? I had no answer.

He told me to go out in the yard again and find something he could whip me with. I got to cry a little bit after I got outside. I found the smallest branch I could and took it back to him after I had composed myself. Couldn't take long with that self-composure thing; he was waiting. The longer he waited, the worse it would be.

I took the switch into the house and handed it to him. He told me that it wasn't big enough and that I should go back out and find a larger one. I did. I had stopped being afraid by that time. I just wanted to get it over with and get out of my father's line of vision, if possible. The most reliable form of rescue was dissociation. I just got numb. I've been a little bit numb ever since I learned in my childhood what a great strategy that was.

I received my punishment. He'd learned when I was 7 that he couldn't hit me around my arms and legs. My mom saw the bruises he left on me and told him that someone at school might notice. They might wonder. They might be inclined to call people.

After all the rage subsided, he made me leave the room. Later on in the afternoon, he called me in from the front yard. The law was laid down. I would never, ever have any contact with that little girl again. He was still considering calling her trashy parents to make her give it back. I promised, I swore, I'd never exchange another word with Sheila. That seemed to work.

When I got much older, I wondered if the Sheila story didn't just play right into his hands. He'd had my mom outside numerous times, beating her up. One night, he held a knife to her throat while I screamed at him to stop. Surely Sheila's family must have heard some of that. As I write this, I'm not sure what that would have mattered. It's amazing the power that violence holds on me still.

I felt awful about my behavior for years. I lied about a friend to save my own ass, which I knew couldn't be saved anyway. That was not the path to self-esteem. Of course, I've forgiven myself for that and the many other ways I attempted to shift the burden of blame off of my shoulders. It was a long time coming, though. It came at great expense.

Even so, I'm still consumed with terror from time to time. My hands still shake when I'm reminded of the past. I'm easily startled. Without medication, I don't sleep well. Sometimes, like today, I have flashbacks. Suddenly I'm in that time and space when panic struck, fueled by my father's rage.

I'd really like to thank Alec Baldwin for the flashback. I haven't had one for a long time. Mostly, though, I hope his little girl is able to sleep at night. I hope she feels loved. I hope she isn't terrified of her dad. Terror gets its hooks into your soul and won't let go. It's awful when that terror arrives courtesy of your parent, the one and only dad (or mom) you'll ever have.