You Just Can't Make This Shit Up

"If you're going through hell, keep going."~Winston Churchill

Well I might as well just get on with this. I'm already actively depressed, so what the hell. Actively depressed means I recognize that I'm feeling sad and maybe worthless. I'm depressed a lot and don't even recognize it.) I actually watched the news this morning for the first time since the Bush debacle. Of course, I was getting dressed for work etc., so they may have had something about him, but I missed it. i don't wish to look at him and I certainly do not wish to hear him. I know this guy really well. He's just like hundreds of other good old boys I've met before. A lot of those good old boys were just a rich as W, but without the long record of abject failure that propels someone into politics. Remember that old axiom, "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach?" It actually really applies to politics.

Now the hard stuff. I'm not sure exactly where in time these events occurred. I know that they were sometime between the ages of 13 and 15. As I said before, time is quite mutable when you're living in hell. i may have neglected to say that my father's wife had been getting beaten up for a couple of years on a fairly regular basis. if there was an up side to this whole situation, it was that my dad no longer beat up my mom. ( also recognize that 've neglected to talk about the actual wedding between my dad and his 13 year old girlfriend. that will take some working up to, but eventually I hope to steel myself enough to write about it.)

At some point, I guess she got tired of it or maybe she thought he might kill her (that would have been a reasonable fear). She went back to her mother's house and everything was in chaos. My father knew it was wrong to hit women. In addition to being actively psychotic, he just didn't give a shit.

I remember riding in his truck with him around this time and he was urging me to lie on his behalf. I clearly remember him saying that we needed to "stick together." I think he may have even cried. He did that a lot when he was afraid, but I never saw him cry for anyone other than himself. I'd already determined that he was my enemy, so I was not feeling very much like doing anything for him. However, I realized that letting him see how I felt could be dangerous.

After she'd been gone for several days, I was actually starting to cheer up. I thought maybe we could go back to being "normal" again. (That's just sad, isn't it?) But then she came back. My father broke the news to me in the garage. I have no idea what the deal was with his family and garages. Anyway, I just completely fell apart. I started crying hysterically and I couldn't stop. I almost fainted, but my dad caught me before I could injure myself falling on the concrete floor.

Leave it to my father to come up with the perfect antidote to my despair. He asked me if I'd like to go get an ice cream cone. (Let's just pause for a moment and contemplate the sheer lunacy of that suggestion.) This is one of those many fragmented memories and I don't remember how the garage scene ended, but I know it didn't end with ice cream. She stayed and I focused my energies on not killing myself or anyone else.

I was going to talk about the baby, but I just can't manage that today. I'm feeling a strong need to start screaming and breaking things. Of course, I won't. I'm going to need to calm myself down now, so I'll continue this dreary tale tomorrow.

Dreams of Bridges

I rarely remember my dreams, so when I do, I think there must be powerful meaning behind it. Last night I dreamed my husband and I were going over a very high bridge. He was driving. Once we got on the bridge, a dense fog wrapped around us, making it impossible to see anything. I was very afraid. It seemed to me that we were driving in a straight line, but I couldn't be sure. I recall trying to sense with my physical being how far we had come and how far we had left to go. There is no end to this dream. I think I must have been so frightened that I woke up briefly, which would explain why I remember the dream.

I've dreamed of bridges for as long as I can remember. Bridge dreams generally follow the same trajectory. I'm driving up a tall bridge, but when I arrive at the top, I find that the bridge ends and I fall into empty space. One of the dreams I frequently had as a child involved arriving at my home to find that my parents had moved out. They did not leave a note saying where they went or why they left. I would set off on foot to find them and, inevitably, have to cross a tall bridge. The bridge ended at the top and I would begin a freefall.

I can think of several interpretations to my dream last night, but I'm going to meditate upon it for a while. Sometimes things are not as simple as they appear.

Nothing Left Untouched

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved."~Helen Keller

When my therapist and I got together on Friday, we talked at length about why I hate birthdays (and Christmas and all other gift-receiving events). It has nothing to do with age.

Whenever I received a gift from my parents, I always tried to seem as grateful as possible. If I hated the gift, I lied. (And I often hated the gift, because my dad always bought gifts that he wanted as a child.) Despite my efforts at expressing my gratitude, my father would say,"You didn't say thank you for your present." Well, of course I had said thanks...I'd practically carved "thank you" on my forehead. But I said thank you again. All day throughout the day, I was reminded that I hadn't said thank you for the gift. Sometimes I was reminded for days on end. Thank you thank you thank you fucking thank you.

When I receive gifts now, I can't figure out what's enough and what's too much. I don't want to express gratitude too effusively; people might not believe I really like the gift. On the other hand, I don't want to seem ungrateful by not thanking enough. I end up getting so confused that I'd rather people just didn't give me anything.

There was usually the mandatory photo of my on my birthday (Christmas, Easter, etc.). That meant that without a doubt I was going to be hit at least several times. Pose me, hit me, trying hard to hold the correct pose. Hit me, pose me. I valiantly tried to stay completely still so I could hang on to the exact pose my dad demanded. He generally didn't like the way I smiled, either. If you wish for someone to smile broadly the obvious answer is to just to hit them. Yhat'll make them smile.

My therapist pointed out to me that there's isn't even a small corner of my life that hasn't been tainted by my past. I never think of my life that way. I think viewing my life in its totality is just too overwhelming. That is what i'm trying to do here. There are many years for which I have no memories or maybe just one or two memories. I'm fine with that. If there are any memories buried because they're too painful to remember, I really don't want to know what they are. I suspect many memories aren't available because it was just more of the same. It's difficult to pinpoint specific incidents of abuse when the abuse occurs daily. I also think perhaps it's related to the fact that I knew there was no escape so I retreated into my head just so I could bear to get up every day and go on.

I think when I left off, I was talking about the fifth grade, but I think I've covered the high points. The entire sixth grade is missing from my memory. I'm certain I had no friends. I'm also certain that I was enraged at virtually every adult in my life for not taking care of me. I tried hard to get good grades and stay under the radar at school.

The summer before the seventh grade, I withdrew. I had no intention of talking to my father's 15 year old wife. I hated her. My solution was to sleep. I must have been sleeping 19 hours a day. I would get up when my mom got home from work. I was required to eat dinner with everyone. I wasn't allowed that respite for long.

My father made me get up and get out of my (and my mom's) bedroom. I hated my father a little more. So i was out of my room, but I never acknowledged her presence in any way. I win again, even though it was a hollow victory.

When I started the 7th grade, I became obsessed with not being like my father. If he liked something, I was guaranteed to hate it. I discounted everything he said to me because I believed he knew absolutely nothing about me.

Alone

Traveling incognito, I seem to belong to this world of middle class worries and conceits. The people around me find me infinitely amusing and sage. They believe they know me. They believe they understand me. It's a testament to my great powers of disguise and assimilation. In fact, I live in another country from those who think they've defined me.

I have seen things others have not and I have lived through my own concentration camp. I know what it means to entertain your captors so they will spare your life. Have no doubt about it; I could have died at any time, either by my father's hand or by any of the people he brought into my life. I know how it feels to be hungry and cold and all alone with no hope in sight. I know how to continue in the midst of despair.

I've watched people's faces as I've revealed bits and pieces of my life and understand that most people don't have the courage or fortitude to hear it all. Sometimes it's too easy to recognize the revulsion they're trying to hide. They find my past disgusting, but like a twelve year old boy at a slasher movie, they just can't seem to look away. They'd like for me to believe in their compassion, but I know it's less a matter of compassion than an opportunity for self congratulation. They're too good to ever allow themselves to walk into the darkness in which I lived for so long. It's a different universe. I'm from the other side. I've studied the manners and customs in this alien land. Unless I choose to reveal it, no one ever guesses that iIm not as simple as I lead them to believe. Therein lies the problem.

I am still, after so long, alone. I've been alone ever since I can remember. It feels so familiar that I rarely even notice it now. No matter how practiced I become at blending in (and I am very, very good at it), I know that I'll always be separate from the people I come into contact with every day. I could have chosen to embrace the darkness, like many of my relatives, but I would be alone even then.

The problem is that, though I'm intimately connected to depravity, I'm unable to accept it as a way of life. I see it for what it is, a predictable end to a troubled life. My cousins haven't such a clear understanding. They engage in adulterous affairs leading to murder on occasion, they abuse substances, they believe violence is the perfect way to express one's unhappiness. It's normal for them, just as being alone is normal for me. None of us have any choice about that. They're unable to free themselves from the past and so am i. At least they have plenty of company; a lot of people live at the end of line. Check out any bar on any given Friday night and you'll find at least one person reveling in going as far down as they can possibly go.

I used to reach out to people, believing that if I just kept searching, I would find my own milieu. As it turns out, there probably isn't one. I'm still standing over here on the far shore, smiling and waving at all of you on the other side of the ocean.

Birthday Roundup

"Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other." ~Carl Jung

Okay. Birthday roundup. My mom and I had lunch yesterday and she gave me two sets of earrings...very pretty. After work, my husband was ready to take me some place special, but I just wasn't in the mood. I decided we could wait to celebrate this weekend. We went to Jason's Deli for dinner, I came home and did a Pilates workout and did some laundry. I guess that's how you know you're getting old...you don't even mind doing laundry on your birthday. Hubby gave me a lapis necklace. We had cake today at work and, since my boss wasn't in, we all had a pretty good time. My boss always either insults people or he starts talking about how none of us are going to have a job soon. He's also been known to launch into subjects he knows will gross everyone out. One of my coworkers once asked for a cheesecake with a praline topping. My boss pointed out ad nauseum that the pecans looked like dead flies. What a funny guy.

I met my husband thirty years ago on my birthday. I'd had friends in from out of town to celebrate and we had a little party. Later on, a male friend of mine from high school came by and we went to an Anne Sexton reading downtown. Sitting in front of me was this guy with a tee shirt on that said "Riot Squad Ballet" on the back. I think at some point he turned around and asked me for a cigarette (back in the days when one could smoke whether it bothered people or not). Of course I had one. I asked about the tee shirt and he told me it was the name of a play he'd written. We may have made some small talk between poems. I had to leave early because I had a 7:45 Hebrew class the next day. As we left, my friend commented, "He really likes you." I had no idea how he could possibly know that.

On a campus of 40,000 students, my hubby and I kept running into each other. I ran into him late one afternoon when I was delivering a paper for my Shakespeare class. I looked really ratty; I'd had an ear infection and was up late working on my paper. Suddenly, there he was. We stopped and chatted and he invited me to a reading on Sunday where he was going to be reading some of his poetry. I didn't really plan to attend, but when Sunday came, I decided to go. After he finished his reading, we went over to the apartment of a couple he knew and then he took me home. The really funny thing was that I wasn't even sure I was attracted to him. He's got very light brown hair and hazel eyes and I was more into men with dark hair and dark eyes. He sort of grew on me, I guess. Thirty years later, he still makes me laugh and he's still the most interesting guy I've ever met. He's had several nonfiction books published and I get to benefit from the research he did while writing them. I get the knowledge without having to do the work, really. Things haven't always been great; when I was younger I could be quite difficult to be in a relationship with. My history of abuse was the source of some problems when I was younger.

I still have a lot of problems with other men...power issues, competitiveness, anger. I've worked through most of that with my husband, though. He's a very special person. my therapist thinks I don't share enough of what's going on in my head, but there's always so much going on in my head that I'm not sure anyone could really tolerate knowing about it. Self-revelation is definitely something I haven't figured out how to do. I honestly don't even think about sharing with anyone. The only reason my therapist knows is because she's my therapist and I know she's supposed to know.

It's started to get a little cooler here and the trees are losing their leaves. as I look out my window at work, I can see my little squirrel friend that I keep track of all winter. He likes to lie on a branch and nap in the late afternoons. Right now he's busy burying nuts, which he won't be able to find when he looks for them. They don't have any way of knowing where they've buried things, I read not too long ago. It's all just dumb luck if they start digging and actually find something.

bushism of the day:"I understand small business growth. I was one."

Brief Update

George Bush for another four years. God help us.

Just a brief update. My stepson and his wife are still having problems. He just got out of the hospital after having an emergency operation. My husband spoke with his wife during the extended period of time they were trying to find out what was wrong with my stepson. She seemed to be open to continuing the relationship, but now my stepson tells him that she seems very distant. I think she's very concerned about expenses; her health insurance may not pay for much of the surgery. I'm just hoping for the best for both of them. I don't pretend to know what that might be.

It's my birthday today. I had lunch with my mom and then we came back to my office and hung out with the boys (my beloved kitties). I felt a little guilty about letting my mom take me out to lunch because I know she doesn't have much cash. As i said yesterday, sometimes it's a gift to allow someone to give something to you. I'm trying to remember that.

Gratitude

"At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us." ~Albert Schweitzer quotes (German medical missionary, theologian, musician and philosopher. 1952 Nobel Peace Prize, 1875-1965)

A fair number of people know about parts of my early life. Other than my therapist, no one knows everything. actually, I probably don't know everything myself at this point. I provide information based on my intuitive judgment of how much people are capable of dealing with. Some people cry. When people start to cry, I know I've gone too far. I've also had a number of people give me that train wreck look, like it's too horrible to continue to listen, but they can't bring themselves to stop. when I see that look, I stop it for them. It's a little akin to disgust. I take this very personally. Once someone has reacted that way, all of my protective barriers go up immediately and they never come back down. I'm sure at least some people don't believe me. I start to worry that they think i'm crazy. There's not much I can do about it if they do. Many of the people who've been able to tolerate hearing about my life believe that I've made choices which have kept me from becoming the person I probably should be--an alcoholic, drug-addicted prostitute who gets beaten up regularly. I tend to get impatient with those people who give me far too much credit.

I believe that I came here endowed with innate abilities which have allowed me to thrive under such destructive and barren conditions. Several weeks ago, I wrote about the seven qualities of people who are phoenixes. They are: Independence, initiative, humor, morality, the ability to develop relationships, insight and creativity. In my opinion, these are not qualities one can choose to develop. I suppose that people do have a choice betwen seeing the humor in difficult situations and being negative. I think people can develop some creativity if they don't come equipped with it, but I don't think it can be conjured from thin air. Just as an aside, I read recently that people with high iq's generally tend to have a sense of humor. I'm not sure I believe that's always true.

As for independence, I was raised as an only child, though I have a half brother and half sister. I've never met my half brother and I have absolutely no desire to. I knew my half sister until she was about five years old, but I haven't seen her in over 30 years. Not much interested in renewing the relationship. She was born when I was 15. My parents were always distracted by their own bullshit, so I really didn't have much choice in the matter. Independence was thrust upon me. I became very, very good at it...some people would say that I'm too independent. It certainly makes me less tolerant of people who don't think for themselves or are emotionally clingy.

I have a number of cousins on my father's side, none of which have fared well. it leads me back to the nature/nurture debate, but I'm guessing it's a little of both. I think most of them have never questioned whether their families created a lot of their own difficulties. For as long as I can remember, I've been noting the consequences of my parents' emotional issues and the choices they've made in their lives. It seemed pretty clear to me that allowing your life to be guided by emotion isn't going to result in a very happy life. Sleeping with people you're not married to, for instance. After the age of about 20, doesn't it become abundantly clear that that behavior will consistently result in heart break. so why do it? It just ends up making your life more difficult. Insight and a sense of morality did help me understand that lesson. I don't understand why I was able to see it and the rest of my dad's family wasn't. I'm infinitely grateful for all of the qualities that have helped me to survive and I refuse to accept the idea that I've somehow developed those qualities on my own. It feels like a great gift I've been given and I try to be worthy of it Every day. Some days I'm more worthy than others, of course. I remember people who've helped me along the way and I try to pass that help along whenever I can. Assisting other people (to whatever extent I'm capable) is a way to pay back those gifts in the name of the people who helped me survive.

Dark Days For A Birthday

"Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit and simply never leave. Our lives are measured by these" ~Susan B. Anthony

When I saw my therapist on friday, she suggested to me that I might want to take a break from my excursions into the past. It's been a really dark couple of weeks and this one doesn't seem to be starting out much better. Too many anniversaries.

My birthday is this week. My co-workers are pretty excited about it; they never miss an opportunity to have cake. I hate birthdays. It has nothing to do with getting older; I've hated them most of my life. I would offer explanations, but that would mean talking about the past. I know birthday celebrations are important to other people, though. I've come to believe that allowing others to give you gifts is actually a gift to them. since I've come to that realization, I try to be as celebratory as possible. I find myself too down really to write about anything. I may be able to muster some interest in something tomorrow.

Torture

"Child abuse casts a shadow the length of a lifetime."~ Herbert Ward

I feel the need to backtrack a bit. It occurred to me yesterday that I hadn't mentioned the physical abuse my father meted out to me. There were a lot of instances, but I won't bore you with all of them. To be honest, I'm not sure i could stand to detail the ones I remember.

One of the clearest early memories of abuse happened when I was six (I think that's correct). As I think I mentioned before, I was a very precocious child. My father told me shortly before he died that he was amazed at my intellectual abilities. He said that, by the time I was two, if anyone asked me a question, I answered like an adult. My therapist thinks it's because I knew even then what I had to do to survive.

My dad was really into developing my intelligence, so he got me a series of workbooks for math, reading and vocabulary. I was great with reading and vocabulary--far above grade level. Math was more difficult and I was only a little above the first grade level.

One weekend, he was making me work in the third grade math workbook. I tried and tried, but I just wasn't intellectually up to the challenge. That's when the unpleasantness began. He began to scream at me and, when that didn't make me perform any better, he began to hit me. As I think I mentioned before, my dad was never satisfied with terrifying you once; he would stretch the terror out over as long a period of time as possible. He left the room and told me I'd better have it completed before he came back. Of course, if there was ever any hope that I'd be able to complete the work, that was completely out of the question then.

It went on for a while, possibly all day...he'd scream and hit me, leave the room, scream and hit me. It always infuriated him when I cried (unless I was crying out of pity for him). That meant that every time he came back and caught me crying, he had an excuse to escalate the level of violence. Sometime during the day, I looked beseechingly at my mom. My father said to me, "Don't look at her. She can't help you." As usual, I'm uncertain exactly how it all ended, but it did at some point. There was definitely a down side to being intelligent.

The other times he always liked to hit me was just before he would take photographs of me. Isn't that weird? He'd point the camera and decide that I wasn't smiling enough, wasn't posing properly. I don't know. It was always something. so he'd come over and hit me however many times it took for him to get the photo he wanted. I hate all of the photos from my childhood. If you look closely, you can see tears in my eyes in every one of them. To this day, I hate being photographed.

I remember an oatmeal incident that occurred around the age of five. I hated oatmeal. I still hate oatmeal; it's gummy. I would start to gag everytime I tried to eat it. My dad became enraged; he said it was because he was so poor when he was my age that he'd have been thrilled to get oatmeal. So it began. Screaming, hitting, leaving. Coming back, screaming, hitting, leaving. By that time, I had discovered that, if I had control over nothing else, I absolutely had control over what I put in my body. I have to admit that I settled in for the long haul. I was by god not going to eat the damn oatmeal...no matter the consequences. I remember that the struggle went on all day. Finally, at the end of the day, he relented. I did not eat the fucking oatmeal.

Lots of other incidents come to mind, but what would be the point of telling them? The important salient facts are that he loved to torture people and he didn't care how small they were. My dad was over six feet tall. My mom was a little over five feet. I certainly wasn't anywhere near that big. At some point, it became very clear to me that he was allowed to hit me because he was bigger than I. There was no real reason for it. Maybe I got on his nerves. maybe I looked at him the wrong way. All of those were just excuses for my father to have a little fun.

Pariah

I'm better now than yesterday. I'll try to continue.

The fifth grade. while I was staying away from school and attempting to elicit some comfort from television, I was also acting out sexually (in a peculiar way). I had two close friends at the time and I sent them a series of letters. I told them I was pregnant with a child by a boy in one of our classes. I have no idea what prompted that. I suppose it was another fantasy that someone somewhere loved me and wished to be part of my family. They never replied to those letters, as I recall. when I finally made my way back to school, those friends were gone. They wouldn't even look at me. Somehow i was not suprised. I was profoundly alone with my depression.

One of my teachers that I'd had when i was 9 was then teaching 5th grade. She called me in to her classroom after everyone else had gone and asked me what was going on. I believed that she was judging me, just like everyone else. I told her that nothing was going on. That's the first time that I remember being angry about the way i was being treated. In retrospect, I think it's possible she was really just trying to be helpful. I was unable to accept help then. There was too much danger associated with telling the truth. My parents were bound to find out if I did and, who knew, maybe the threat of institutionalization might become a reality this time.

There was another little girl who shared the same birthday with me. We had been in school together since the first grade, but we weren't really friends. We had had joint birthday parties before, so her mom called my mom and suggested that we do it again. My mom said okay. She told me that I needed to get a list of people I wanted to invite to the party. I didn't have anyone to invite, having become a social paraiah. But I didn't want to have to tell my mom.

As the time for the party grew closer, I desperately tried to think of a way to get out of going. I may have even floated some trial baloons to see if I could persuade my mom to not make me go. If i did, they didn't work. On the day of the party, my mom drove me over to the girl's house. She had probably five or six friends there. Her mom was surprised that no one was coming to celebrate my birthday. I was miserable. I ate the cake, watched my birthday twin open her presents and got through it all.

I think my mom was puzzled when she found out I hadn't invited anyone, but I doubt that I offered any explanation. I was a precocious and creative child, but I was so emotionally dead at that point that I'm sure I couldn't have come up with an explanation if i'd tried. Besides, what would I have said? "You and dad have screwed up my life so much that I started creating fantasies to help me continue living?" I don't think so.

The year trudged on. I sat by myself in the lunchroom, I stood outside by myself when I got to school early. At some point, I guess I couldn't stand the isolation anymore. I struck up a relationship of sorts with another outcast. She was a very large girl, both in height and weight. That may have been why she was rejected, but I'm not certain. I started hanging out with her during those awful times when I wasn't in a classroom. I somehow felt that I was doing her a favor. I believed that even though I was a pariah, I was less of a pariah than she. Yeah, I know. Creepy. Or maybe just delusional.

I doubt that she liked me any better than I liked her. I invited her over to my house at some point that year. I can't imagine what possessed me to do such a thing. We had moved to another house than the one I lived in when I started fifth grade. (We moved around a lot, but as my mom likes to point out, it was usually just a block away from the last house we lived in.) For some reason, when we moved, we didn't really bring any furniture with us. I recall that there was a television (one of those console types that also had a record player/radio) and a mattress in the living room. We did have a dining room table. I shared my bedroom with my mom, since my dad was sleeping with his (then) wife. (But that's another story for another time.)

The next week, several people came up and asked me why we didn't have any furniture. I don't know what I said, but I didn't invite anyone else over until I was 17. I gave up the pretense of liking the child who was spreading the info around the school. I don't think I ever spoke to her again. It was back to hanging out by myself and hopelessly enduring.

In Which I Take A Step Back From The Abyss

Yesterday's exploration of my father's suicide and my own attempt probably wasn't the best idea I've had lately. Today I'm feeling so down. I've been trying to think of something I can do for myself today. I haven't called my therapist, but if I did, I know she'd ask me what I'm going to do to take care of myself today. Right now, the answer is: Not talk about my father or my past. Beyond that, I have no idea.

I've been hiding in my office this week. I'm reluctant to venture out when I'm feeling fragile. There's that guy who likes to walk up behind me so he can make me gasp. The more I think about that, the more pissed off it makes me. I'm waiting for the next time he does it (and oh yes, there will be another time) to have a come to jesus meeting with him. Unlike others in my office, if I'm feeling down or testy, I just don't venture out. I hate spreading my bad mood around the office. Did that sound snotty? I really don't care today...I am snotty.

We finally got some anti-viral software installed here at work. The computer guy has no idea what he's doing. I was actually hopeful when I walked in on monday and turned on my computer. Definitive proof that I'm either losing my mind or just losing iq points. I started having problems immediately. It took me about 30 minutes to figure out what he'd done to fuck it up. Then other people started calling me to ask me how to fix their problems. Everybody (well, mostly everybody) wants to get someone who actually knows something about computers, but the owner of the company wants the guy to stay because he's almost dead. At a certain point, apparently one gets so old that no one wants to fire you, even though you can't find your ass with two hands and a compass. Oh dear. I guess my depression is manifesting as irritation today.

I took another office kitty to be neutered today. I'm going to try to get the nutty mom kitty and her ailing baby in to the vet tomorrow morning. I'm just going to have to bring nutty mom home after she's spayed because she belongs to someone in the neighborhood. I wouldn't normally even consider getting a cat spayed without the owner's permission, but having a rapid succession of pregnancies is going to kill the poor thing if I don't do something. My boss just takes them to the vet and never brings them back. I know for a fact that at least one of the cats he did that with actually had a family. If I take the cats in, I'll at least bring them back so they can be with their people again.

I did the voting thing today. I voted for Kerry/Edwards and a spate of Democrats running for other state offices. If there was no Democrat to vote for, I voted for the Libertarian candidate. I know they tend to be far, far right wing. My general position on government is that I want them to butt out of my personal life. Just the fact that I'm required by law to wear a seat belt pisses me off. I think it's a violation of my constitutional rights. We have a city ordinance requiring helmets for bicycle riders. That makes me crazy. You know, if I want to run the risk of dying, that is my absolute, god-given existential right that no government should be wasting its time trying to stop me. Feel good laws. They don't really do anything particularly constructive, but it allows out lawmakers to avoid the serious, but highly controversial and complex, issues they should be focused on. I was going to get around to complaining about a new public transportation initiative on the ballot, but it appears I've run out of time. I'll get around to that and to the issue of toll roads at another time.

My Own Good Reasons For A Suicide

"No one ever lacks good reasons for suicide." ~ Cesare Pavese

"It would be hard to define chaos better than as a world where children decide they don’t want to live. "~Edward Hoagland, “Heaven and Nature”

Today is the anniversary of my father's suicide. I was considering starting this entry with a Sylvia Plath quote, but I couldn't bear to read any of her poems. Too bad. She's the perfect source for quotes of self-destruction.

On this day, my father left his house while my mother was on the phone, got his gun, went to a neighbor's house and asked for a bullet (my mom had hidden them all) "to kill a snake," stepped outside on the neighbor's lawn and shot himself to death.

I used to think killing oneself was the existential right of every being. I still believe that, but the cost of checking out is unbearably high for those of us left behind. I tried to commit suicide once and I've had suicidal thoughts for months on end, at times. After my father's death, I decided that, no matter how much I needed to escape, there would be no escape as long as there were people who would suffer from that destruction. It is, without question, the worst injury one can inflict on people who love you.

In honor of my father's death, I will share my own attempt. I was 11 years old. Life had become unbearable in so many ways. My father had taken up with the neighborhood girl and the violence in my house was escalating to a level that left me in a continuous state of terror, nothing I tried could fix any of it. I so needed comfort and respite from the agony of getting up and going to school every day and pretending that everything was just fine. My mom was working, so I came home every day to a cold and empty house. We had space heaters and I wasn't allowed to turn them on by myself, so I spent a couple of hours every day being miserably cold. As a matter of fact, every day had begun to seem dark and cold.

I decided one day that I just couldn't show up at school that day. I stayed home, lay on the living room floor, covered with blankets and watched "I Love Lucy" and "The Dick Van Dyke show." It wasn't much in the way of comfort, but it was all I had. I don't really recall how long I stayed away from school, but it was long enough for the school to notice. They called my mom at work one day. When she came home, she was furious with me.

When my father came home, she told him. He called me into the bathroom where he was taking a dump and had me stand there while he raged at me. My father loved to have people come stand in the bathroom while he was taking pooping, but he especially loved it when he was angry. It was a profoundly demeaning act. I don't recall how long I stood there, petrified, or what he said to me. I think there was some reference once again to committing me to a mental institution...always one of my dad's favorites.

There was nothing to be done about it; I was going to have to go to school the next day. after my mother left that morning, I searched around for some method of dying. Part of my problem was that, if I wasn't successful, I shuddered to think of what might happen. There would be plenty of punishment meted out for attempting to kill myself. I lit upon the idea of sleeping pills. My dad always had over the counter sleeping pills around. I didn't know how many it would take to kill myself, since I was just a novice 11 year old. I took as many as I dared; I didn't want anyone to know I had done that if it didn't work. For good measure, I took off my shoes and didn't wear a coat as I walked the four blocks or so to school. It was January and a cold, raw wind blew through my clothes. The sky was dark. I remember there was a robin in the schoolyard as I walked up to the door.

By the time I made it to math class, the pills were making their way into my bloodstream. Unfortunately, being an amateur, I was unaware that it's best to eat something before you take the pills. Otherwise you'll throw up and waste the opportunity. I was standing at the blackboard, trying to do a math problem when I started to gag. I knew no one was going to send me home or have any sympathy for me whatsoever. Best just to try to keep anyone from knowing what was going on. I threw up and a bit of it got on my blue pleated skirt. I managed to swallow the rest. I spent the rest of the day walking around with vomit on myself. I think I was pretty spaced out, but I just kept swallowing whatever arose and putting one foot in front of the other.

Several of my teachers felt justified in making snide remarks in front of everyone in the class. I did not respond. I hated them. I hated myself. I just wanted to die and get out of everyone's way. No such luck.

A Small Bright Spot

"It requires more courage to suffer than to die." ~ Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)French statesman and soldier (Emperor: 1804-1815)

It is with great trepidation that I begin to recount the period of my life extending from the time I was ten till I was eighteen and moved out of my parents' house. As I look back on it, I'm amazed I managed to survive and/or managed not to murder someone. I was actually able to talk at some length about this time to my therapist last week. It appears that there is, indeed, some value to this retrospective.

I don't feel quite up to just wading in today. I've decided to recount the only positive thing that happened during the year I turned twelve. Just how pathetic that is will soon become apparent.

Once again, my uncle reappeared on the scene, without wife or twin boys he fathered. He seems to have just abandoned them. They were probably fortunate that he did. He stayed at my parents house while my dad helped him find a job and lent him money until he had some of his own. my grandmother didn't accompany him for some reason. One of the things I recall about this visit is his comment to me that I would be pregnant before I graduated high school. You cannot imagine how much this still raises my blood pressure. I wonder if he anticipated taking care of that job himself. He did buy a ring for me during that visit. I suspect it was a form of bribery, but it did him absolutely no good.

There came a day when he and I were at my house alone. I was very wary and trying to keep my distance. At some point, he grabbed me and started tickling me. I could see where this was headed. As soon as I was able, I escaped, ran out to an old truck parked in our backyard, got in and locked the doors. I was terrified, but I was also committed to not letting him abuse me ever again. He could no longer pick me up and force me to allow the abuse. He came out of the house and banged on the windows of the truck for a while and then went away. I stayed in the truck for quite some time, in fear that I would get out and just encounter him again. Finally, I came out of the truck and he was gone. I can't remember if the pregnant remark came before or after that incident. It was the last time he ever touched me. I recognize what a victory that was and what courage it took.

Sometime after that, he moved out and started to live with an aunt of mine who had moved to the city in which I lived. She had a little girl herself at that time. What a coincidence. My aunt told my mom that she thought he'd raped some woman while he was living with her. There was some news about a woman being raped and then, according to her, he refused to go out of the house for a couple of weeks. Incidentally, this aunt told my mother a couple of days after my dad's suicide that my dad had raped her when she was a teenager. Great timing. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if that was the case. I've always thought my dad was sexually abused by his father. I know for a fact that one of his sisters was; my grandmother and the rest of the children hated her because of it. That was the aunt who was institutionalized several times. I've also wondered if my grandmother wasn't committing a little abuse herself. I'll never know the answers to those questions. Anyone who could tell me (other than the abusive uncle) is now dead and, even if they weren't, I could never trust information I got from anyone in that family.

I saw my uncle again briefly when my grandmother became ill for the last time. I worked at a political fundraising company at the time and it was difficult for me to get away to see her, but I caught a plane and arrived at the hospital at about 10 in the evening. I saw the family members camped out in one of the waiting rooms, but I just kept walking and found my grandmother's room. I sat with her for a while and then my dad wanted me to go out to the waiting room and greet everyone. Yes, he knew at that point that I'd been repeatedly sexually abused by this uncle. I refused to honor his demands. Needless to say, he was angry with me and pointed out to me that my intractability was really making this terrible situation worse for him.

The last time I saw my uncle was at my grandmother's funeral. He stood directly behind her casket at the mortuary, holding his daugher's hand. It literally turned my stomach. I had no doubt he was using her sexually. I never exchanged a word with him, nor did I even look in his direction until I saw flash bulbs going off. He was photographing my grandmother in her casket.

When my father killed himself, my mother never heard anything from him. One of my cousins called him and my uncle said that he didn't want to call because he'd just end up paying for the funeral expenses. He didn't call because he knew I might well be confrontational. I had dreaded my father's death for so long because I was afraid I'd have to bar him from coming to the funeral. at least I didn't have to do that. By the way, I paid for the funeral. Asshole. I hope he lives a very long life and suffers every single day of it. No, I haven't forgiven and I don't think I ever will.

Alcoholism, Revisited

Tuesday and Wednesday I went with my husband to the coast. I was able to escape my sadness for a couple of days. It was so wonderful to be near the ocean again; it's one of the only things I miss about leaving the town where i grew up.

My husband talked with my stepson last night and found out he's having marital difficulties. I'd been concerned for several years about the amount of alcohol my stepson (I'll call him norman) consumes. However, I recognize that i have a thing about alcohol, because it was always one of the things that provoked my father to violence when I was a child.

As it turns out, I had good reason to be concerned, though. Norman told my husband that he's had a couple of bed-wetting incidents when he was drunk. This past weekend, he was supposed to be playing somewhere, but when he got onstage, he was so loaded that he threw up on himself and then passed out. It wasn't the first time this has happened, either. This weekend, his wife went on stage to check his pulse and couldn't find one so she called 911. When the emt's arrived, they told her he was just wasted. His wife has been unhappy with him over this issue for some time and I guess this weekend pushed her over the edge. She's going to go somewhere this weekend (Saturday is their wedding anniversary) and mull this over. I find all of this very alarming. It really indicates that there is a serious alcohol problem here.

Norman told my husband he's thinking of "getting some help." Unfortunately, thinking about it isn't going to solve anything. His wife told him that she's tired of hearing him say he's going to address the problem and then not doing anything about it. My husband is optimistic that this may help Norman get it together and stop drinking. I hope so, too. He's a musician and plays in bars, so I anticipate some problems right off the bat. Furthermore, it generally takes a few tries to really get to the point that someone is able to do the difficult, ongoing work of learning to live without the addiction. As a former smoker, I know how hard battling an addiction can be. I'm so sorry that I was right about his problems with alcohol. It's one of those times when you really wish you could be overreacting.

Monday is the anniversary of my dad's suicide. since I've been trying to get my history down on paper, I vaccilate between guilt over not having been there to stop him and anger over the many, many ways he fucked up my life. Suicide was just the final fuck over. As I write this, I can feel the anger rising up inside of me. Emotions can be so inconvenient. I'm at work; I can't have a meltdown right now. I have to calm down now, maybe I'll have more to say later.

Deeper Into Darkness

"I shall despair. There is no creature loves me; And if I die no soul will pity me: And wherefore should they, since that I myself Find in myself no pity to myself." ~ William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Richard III, V.iii

The summer I was ten, things were unravelling quickly in my life. I had become fearful of leaving my house because I thought I might be able to intervene if my father became violent. Sometimes I seemed to be able to stop things, but I'm no longer certain whether that was just a delusion. I know that I came to a great realization that year which forever altered my relationship with my father.

Ever since I could remember, my father would, from time to time, start talking to me about "my poor old daddy" who was going to die alone. It always broke my heart; I could never tolerate other people's suffering. He made me cry for him every time. The summer I was then, I finally realized that he actually liked making me cry. I think, in addition to being a sadist, seeing me cry for him made him feel loved. Once i understood the dynamic, I never cried for him again. I started to harden my heart.

I spent a lot of time outside in the summer, trying to escape from the threat of violence against me or my mom. There was a girl, India, who rode her bicycle around the block where we lived. She was a couple of years older than I. My father started to hound me about getting to know this girl. I didn't see much point in it. She was too old to be of interest to me and I didn't really like the idea of my dad choosing my friends. Finally, I gave in to his badgering. I don't recall how much time I spent with her until she became my father's friend. He started out by telling me I should feel sorry for this girl because she had a bad homelife. (Even now that strikes me as hysterically funny.)

Slowly but surely, he groomed her until at some point they had intercourse. My mother saw it all happening and didn't like it, but she was powerless to do much about it. Complaints were bound to result in terror. I remember I started to hate this girl really quickly. That didn't matter, though, because she had long since ceased to hang out with me. It's interesting how angry this still makes me. I can barely tolerate writing about it.

As summer ground to a close, she was practically living at my house. I felt abandoned and angry. not being really clear about the sexual aspect of the relationship, all if felt was that my dad was choosing someone else over me. Not all that unusual, really; he frequently made unfavorable comparisons between me and other kids I should "feel sorry" for.

I got ready to start the fifth grade, sinking into despair. One of my favorite songs was "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying." Even today when I hear it, it makes me want to cry for the little girl who was so abandoned. I had a diary at the time and I wrote a lot about my sadness. I don't know who read the diary, but my father was the person who confronted me about it. He was angry. He called me in to the bathroom where he was taking a dump and asked me if I was crazy. What can one say to that when one is 10? I said no. He told me he thought he might have to have me locked up because it sounded to him like I was crazy.

Like so many of the stories in my life, I no longer remember exactly how the evening ended. I never kept a diary or journal again until now.

Just the Dreary Facts...Even More

"The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother."~ Theodore Hesburgh

I remember very little of the fourth grade. I recall being at school still when the news arrived that John Kennedy had been shot. I was cleaning the blackboard for my teacher; I always tried to develop caring relationships with all of my teachers. I suppose I recognized the need for more nurturing in my life. My mom's attention was becoming more and more consumed by my father's insanity.

My teacher sent me home and I think I was a little dazed. Later, I grieved for the family he left behind. I also had some firm belief that I was somehow responsible for it. My birthday is in November, but there was no particular reason to take resonsibility for the tragedy, other than that it seemed I was behind all of the tragedies happening around me constantly. When it became clear that I would have to be home for some time, I was really miserable. At that point, any escape from my home was a blessing...even if it only meant going to school.

When i spoke earlier of my father's insanity, I was referring to an actual psychiatric illness, although I couldn't have known that at the time. I could identify crazy behavior, but my only real knowledge of mental illness was related to my father's sister who had been institutionalized more than once. My father seemed to like to believe that my aunt was just faking it or maybe that she just refused to pull herself together and get on with things. Whenever I did something he didn't like, he always threatened to institutionalize me. I wasn't sure what that meant, but it didn't sound good.

much later in my life, I found out that my father was actively psychotic for most of my childhood. I used to believe he suffered from schizophrenia, but it's more likely that he had some schizo-affective disorder. Psychosis explains his firm belief at some point around this time that my mother was trying to kill him by putting glass in his food. She wasn't, of course, but no one could have blamed her if she had.

My mom had a job at that time and my father believed she was having an affair. My mother would never have had an affair. After being with my dad, no one would wish to embark on another relationship with a man. So he got to torture her for that. I remember one weekend things got really scary. He was making my mom drink alcohol. My mom didn't drink; she was also a tiny person at the time, around 5'3" tall and 103 pounds. A little aochol went a long way with her. He made her drink, beat her, made her drink, beat her. It went on all weekend. He reassured me there was no reason to be afraid. Right. Then there was the glass in the food incident. That may have lasted an entire weekend, too, but all of this tends to run together after a while. More later. I've just reached my emotional limit.

He Loves Me Anyway

"If [man] is not to stifle his human feelings, he must practice kindness towards animals, for he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals." ~ Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German metaphysician & transcendental philosopher

It's been a really hard day. I spent most of it dealing with the (previously) feral kitties at my office. I got one of them back this afternoon (Cary) and, though I was fearful he'd reject me because I betrayed his trust, he loves me anyway. Jonathan is spending the night at my vet's office after being neutered. Owner and I managed to grab five of the six baby kitties and I delivered them to his vet to be vaccinated, treated (if need be) and given away (we hope). It's all been so stressful and traumatizing--as much for them as for me. I have a few kitty-inflicted wounds, but none too serious.

Tonight's the final debate, so i guess I'll need to work out while watching. Luckily, this is a weight night, which is much easier to do when I'm listening to the television.

I don't really have the time or energy to write more, but I wanted to make a note of how the day went.

Just the Facts, Part 2

"Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it."~Michel de Montaigne (1533 - 1592)

In the third grade, violence in my home escalated. My paternal grandmother was staying with us for a while...I think primarily to act as a babysitter for me. My mom must have had a job then. One of the very worst things that ever happened to me occurred then. I was out driving somewhere with my mom and we got into a traffic accident. It wasn't my mom's fault...not that that mattered much. The front of the car was kind of crunched in, as far as I can remember, and we were able to drive it home. My mom let me play in the car, since it was clearly going nowhere. I remember turning on the turn signals.

My dad came home and things went rapidly downhill. He liked to beat up people over a period of time. It could go on for hours. I think this was one of those times. My clearest memory is when the violence went outside. My father had a butcher knife and was straddled on top of my mother, who was on the ground. I was absolutely hysterical. I tried to get my grandmother to intervene, but she just sad there in the living room. It was left up to me to try to stop my father from killing my mom. I was nine. I managed to get my courage up and went outside and stood there, begging my dad to stop. He kept yelling at me to go inside. I think I did go inside for a few minutes, once again trying to enlist my grandmother's help. Nothing. I know I went out again and my dad threatened me.

Just another ptsd memory snippet. I don't remember how it all ended, but it did end. Maybe someone called the police. I know that, as I stood in the yard, I was frantically looking around at the houses surrounding us and wishing someone would call the police or come over or do something.

I spent the next 20 years of my life believing that I had been the cause. At some point in my history, I forgot about the accident and began to think that I broke the turn signals when I was playing in the car. I thought that was what had incited the violence. When I was about 30, my mom mentioned the wreck. I'm sure she would have told me sooner had I asked. It's probably a fairly common thing for family members to maintain silence with each other about violence.

My uncle came for a visit at some point...in the summer, I think. Oh, actually I think he and his wife stayed with us for a little while. I specifically remember someone going to the little convenience store about a block away and getting ice cream to make floats. While everyone was having a good old time, I somehow got the assignment (from my dad, I'm sure) to go sweep out the garage. I dutifully went out and started the work, only to be interrupted by my uncle. He sexually assaulted me in the garage. While everyone else was just a few steps away. I know I must have looked traumatized after the many sexual assaults, if anyone had really looked at me. No one ever did. My father was constantly occupied with looking at himself, like any narcissist. My mother was constantly occupied with my dad. That was more of a life or death kind of situation. I just tried to maintain the peace, whenever some small peace existed.

I remember reading "Charlotte's Web" sometime that year and, when the spider died, I began crying in school. In retrospect, I suspect the crying had less to do with the poor dead spider than the great sadness in my own life. If anyone saw me crying, no one ever mentioned it.

For right now, that's the extent of my memories of being nine. I know that I was doing well in school and I came to see it as a refuge from the madness at home. Enough dredging up the past for one day.

Why I Hate October

I started off the morning by thinking of my dad. It's exactly a week until the anniversary of his suicide. For some reason, I was reminded of an incident that took place when I was around six. I'm thinking six because I started school when I was seven and I know it happened before I was in school.

I was quite precocious, I guess. Before he died, my father told me that he was so amazed that, even when I was two or three, I would answer questions like an adult. I suspect a lot of that was related to survival instinct. My parents used to get these workbooks that purported to teach various subjects. I had already completed all of the first grade work and had progressed to the second or third grade. Unfortunately, I had reached my limit. Maybe under different circumstances I could have been successful at higher grade levels, but I don't think so. My memories of childhood tend to focus on one aspect of an event; this is a ptsd symptom. My recollection was of sitting at the dining room table with one of those workbooks (math, i think) and being completely unable to complete the work. That made my dad very angry with me. I just remember that he yelled and hit me, left the room while I attempted to complete the work. As I said before, I was unable to complete it, so he kept coming in and hitting me and yelling at me. I can't say how long all of that went on, but in my child's sense of time, it went on for a very long time.

It's incidents like this that make the anniversary of his death so difficult. Despite his paranoia and sadism, he was the only father I will ever have and I did love him. I get bombarded by all of these bad memories, followed by memories of how I felt I failed him as a daughter. I wish I could have saved him from himself, but if I had been there at the time, I fear there would have been two others dead--my mother and me. The idea that I could save my father from his mental illness is absurd, but he was kind enough to instill in me a sense of responsibility for him. I was also responsible for my mother, too, and just as unable to really help her. Days like today are filled with self-recrimination. I'm very sad today. I still have a week to get through. It's going to be a long week.

Qualities of Resilience

Just to cheer myself up, here are the qualities psychologists have found which enable children to survive serious, long-term abuse with some measure of wholeness.

independence
insight
creativity
humor
the ability to develop relationships
initiative
morality

I'm profoundly grateful to have received these gifts.