Tightrope

I am walking a tightrope.  The rope is thin.  It sways and moves beneath me as I try to maintain my balance.  Storms assail me, bringing additional challenges to keeping a tenuous foothold on this frail, shifting rope.  Falling is not an option.  There are no nets.  There isn’t anyone to catch me; nothing to break my fall.  I certainly would not survive the plunge.  I wouldn’t be able to pick up the pieces yet again.  Nor would I have the courage or will to make another attempt at this treacherous crossing.  I am terrified.  All of my energy and concentration is focused on the next step, as I slowly make my way across the tightrope.  I am trying to maneuver my way to safety.  To solid ground.  I’ve been balancing here for a very long time.  I’m exhausted.  Overwhelmed with terror and despair.  And I’m running out of strength.  I’m running out of hope.

 

It’s worse at night, when the terror hits me full force, the distractions of the daytime no longer there to buffer and dilute the impact.  I cling to the rope, praying, praying, praying for relief.  For a respite.  I am assailed by feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness that further weaken me.  I am tormented by my failings: depression, isolation, weakness, self-hatred, distortion.  And there’s the elephant, the childhood abuse from which I’ve never recovered, the ensuing damage and all that it entails.   I am pulverized by my inadequacies.  I feel the full impact and struggle to stand against the wild and brutal storm.  There is nothing to protect me.  No shelter.  It lashes me without mercy.

 

I doubt my ability to make it across.  I regularly question whether it is possible to keep going while facing such a brutal storm. I don’t even truly know if there is “another side” to reach.  I certainly can’t see the end.  But I must try to keep walking for clearly, staying where I am is not a viable option.  At best, I can exist here short term,  for this is not bearable or tolerable and life is not sustainable in this precarious position; in this desolate, lonely place.  It is a place of certain death, this place of desperation where I regularly slip from the rope, frantically grabbing hold, climbing back up, scarcely able to cling to the fragile connection, this nearly invisible thread that is supposed to lead me to a better place.  To the mystical place of healing.

 

I am ashamed.  Ashamed that I have to struggle my way along this journey.  Yet others cross much more quickly.  With so much more style and pizzazz.  I am slow, clumsy, uncoordinated.  I want to hide.  I feel the extra weight of my shame because of my inability to traverse this tiny rope that others walk without hesitation or exertion.  I wonder at my complete inadequacy and deficiency.  It pains me to be so slow and faulty.  So inept and incompetent.

 

If I fall, who will cradle what is left of me?  Who will reach out a hand  to lift me up?  To give me a gentle touch, acknowledging my pain and brokenness?  Will it matter?  Will anyone even know I have lost the battle?  Will anyone care?

 

And what happens if the line snaps?

 

I cling to the tightrope, trying to regain my balance before attempting to stand.  Before I try to take another step on this slippery, swaying, rope that is my life.  Alone, without a net.  Always alone.

 

 

Shamed

I was shamed today.  By my boss.  I was shamed for having an emotion.  For feeling.  And oddly enough, I was not feeling the emotion for which I was shamed.

 

He assumed.  He said he could tell what I was feeling because he “heard” this emotion in an email I sent containing factual data.

 

I didn’t share my opinion.  I didn’t provide my perspective.  My thoughts.  My ideas.  I sent only facts.  Yet, I was judged because he “saw” emotion in the words I used when sharing this information.  And that emotion, actually all emotion, in general, wasn’t professional.  In particular, the emotion he had decided was present in my email, was entirely unacceptable.  He actually concluded it was his duty to call me into his office to reprimand me for feeling and expressing this thing I didn’t feel.

 

Had I be writing with emotion, or trying to express personal sentiments, sharing my heart or mind, I would have felt I had done something terribly wrong.  I would have been even more mortified.  It hurt, though it wasn’t true.  He was accusing me of being inappropriate and unacceptable, based on the fact that I am a human being who feels.  Who sees things differently that does he.  Regardless of what the feeling might be, it was WRONG to feel.  Because feelings don’t belong at work.  Especially feelings that don’t align with his own.

 

The rebuke hurt on a very deep level because this is the message I have heard repeatedly over the course of my life.  Every person who has been a part of my world, even if only in a small way, has let me know I needed to keep my feelings to myself.  They have communicated, in a myriad of ways, how offensive it was for me to have feelings, how unacceptable I was for having them, and how disgusting I was to let them show.  Others are allowed, even encouraged to be real.  To feel.  Even those who have shamed and rejected me have been granted the right to express their thoughts and feelings.   But this was a privilege not extended to me.

 

Their feelings were “good.”  Acceptable.  Mine were not.

 

Their feelings were “normal” and “understandable.”  My feelings were deemed ridiculous.  Inappropriate.

 

When what you feel is judged and labeled as being “wrong,” you are likewise judged and labeled as being “unacceptable.”  You are sentenced to a life of silence.

 

I have been silent for a very long time.

 

I have carefully repressed all emotion, ultimately reaching a point where I could no longer feel anything.  Not pain.  Nor joy.  Not anger.  Or even ambiguity.  I lost the ability to laugh or cry.  I had to push who I was, the real me, deep inside of myself.  Wrapped that deplorable person tight within a black hole.

 

You cannot connect with others when you are a robot.  When they cannot see you for your mask.  They will only see the worst and judge you.  Reject you.  You cannot connect with others when your soul is imprisoned in a black hole.

 

The isolation is crushing.

 

Black holes are empty.  I live a lonely life.

 

My only “social” interactions consist of the shallow connections I have at work  I have learned the lesson well; being genuine is for others.  For the acceptable people.  Not for me.

 

It’s difficult because I work in a field that urges one to be their “true self.”  Even at work.  To connect heart and passion with profession.  This is the “best practice.” This is what the “experts,” the successful people tell you.  I’ve been listening to several webinars this week and this exact message has been delivered multiple times by numerous presenters in various contexts.   But it’s not the lesson experience has taught me.

 

The lesson I have learned from the real world, reality, from the world in general, and at work in particular, is that one must wear a very clever and impervious mask each day when entering the office, while leaving their heart at the door.

 

When my boss shamed me for a feeling I didn’t have, for supposedly having a reaction, I found myself unable to respond, because that would have required expression of a true emotion.  Indignity, perhaps.  Incredulousness.  Anger.  Laughter.  Instead, I sat stone-faced as he told me I had expressed this unfelt feeling, which he assessed as being categorically inappropriate.  I sat, unspeaking, as he reproached me for being emotional, though, at least in this instance, is was not true.  And it felt as if he had driven a dagger deep into my heart.

 

I longed to be genuine.  But I know this would be a grave sin.

 

I wanted to defend myself, but I knew it would not matter.  His judgement would stand.  I had been condemned without the option to appeal.

 

I didn’t cry out, but I bled.

A Christmas Story

This is a lonely, painful time of year.   A haunted time.  Haunted by the ghost of Christmas past.  A cruel ghost who steals the joy of the season.  Far worse than the Grinch.  For the ghost who haunts me is a true monster.

 

It’s a time of laughter that never reaches the heart.  Happiness that never touches the soul. 

 

Supposedly, it’s a time of families and close friends cheerily gathering, celebrating, sharing love, magic, joy.  But some of us, people like me, must paint a smile on our face and pretend.  Our hollow laughter lacks the warmth and delight of those around us.  For us, this wonderful time of the year is just another empty, disappointing day.  Even more empty than normal because it’s supposed to be magical.

 

Those of us who are haunted by the ghost know the dark side.  We feel its icy touch.

 

Christmas past…Christmas break.  My father was a teacher, so he was home with my brother and I.  It was a few days before Christmas and it had snowed…a big, deep, delightful snow that turned the world into a frosted, glorious wonderland.  My father was born and raised in Michigan.  He was in his element.  And while this wasn’t a major snow by Michigan standards, it was significant for Missouri.  The snow was knee deep in the shallowest of places.  It was thigh high in the drifts.  My brother and I could barely contain our excitement.  We bundled up and rushed outside to enjoy the breathtaking frosted landscape.

 

My father didn’t often play with us.  But he too seemed enchanted by the beautiful snow that shrouded the world in clean, pure white, like icing on a cake.  Being from a state where a heavy snowfall in the winter was an everyday affair, he knew lots of outdoor winter games.  He asked if we had ever played fox and geese.  We both shook our heads “no.” Shivered with anticipation, as well as with the cold.  We were excited because he was spending time with us.  In a good mood.  Teaching us a new game.

 

Soon, he had us clearing a big circular path in the snow in an open area of our yard.  We kicked and dug and packed and tramped, working up a sweat.  Once the circle was complete, he had us make two more paths through the circle, cutting the pie into four quadrants. 

 

He was the fox.  We were the geese and he chased us around and through the pathways we had created in the snow.  The goal of the fox was to catch a goose.  Once tagged, the goose would become the fox. We ran for our lives!  Laughing.  Falling.  Laughing some more.  We played until we were soaking wet, freezing cold and totally exhausted.  Then we all tumbled back into the house to change into dry clothes and to warm our frosted, runny noses, red ears, and stiff, numb fingers and toes.

 

This is where everything changed.  Where the darkness swallowed the light.  Where the shadows became a heavy blanket of fog that blocked out the sun.

 

I was in my room, staring into an open dresser drawer.  I was trying to decide what sweater I wanted to wear.  As I poked through the 3 or 4 sweaters I owned, I was startled when the door to my room opened and quickly closed. 

 

It was my father.  He had an odd expression on his face.  Something felt wrong.  Time stood still as an eerie silence enveloped me.

 

In that moment, playful daddy turned into a dangerous predator.  A true fox.  He became the monster I called “sick daddy.”  Breathing heavily, he sucked the air out of the room.  Stood quivering with anticipation.  His stare filling me with an overwhelming sense of dread.

 

“Let me make you warm,” he said quietly but firmly in an odd, trembling voice.

 

Then he removed my clothes as I pleaded with him not to.  Begged him.  But he didn’t stop.  He seemed not to hear me.  He kissed, fondled, groped, invading me.  And when he was finished, he said, “There, now isn’t that better?  Don’t you feel warmer?  Get dressed and come on out to the kitchen.  I’ll make us all some hot chocolate.”

 

And he was gone.

 

I stood shuddering in my room, unable to move for what seemed like a very long time.  I watched the shadows gather and dance all around me. 

 

Finally, I picked up my discarded clothes and placed them in a pile.  I dressed quickly.  Quietly.  I felt numb.  Frozen by ice that was colder than the snow that covered the ground outside.  Once dressed, I picked up my wet things to put them in the laundry and cast a glance back into the room before walking out the door.  I wanted to make sure everything was in order. As if anything could ever be put in order again.

 

But what I most remember…vividly remember…is looking back and seeing myself still there in my room, hopelessly broken, barely breathing, laying on the floor.  Bloody.  Splintered. Destroyed.

 

I knew I had a choice.  I could either go back, hold her tightly and die with her or turn my back on her and walk away.

 

And so, I turned and left the shattered little girl behind.  I left her there, a pile of gore and broken bones, crushed spirit and ruptured heart, dumped where my wet clothes had been laying, hideously destroyed, fractured beyond recognition.  She wasn’t able to walk out of that room.  She wasn’t capable of facing the monster that waited down the hall, ready to ply me with hot chocolate and marshmallows.  She couldn’t pick herself up and go on; couldn’t stop screaming.  She was in a million smashed pieces and I left her there to fend for herself, half angry with her for leaving me, for making me walk out into the dangerous world alone.  I saw her body, ripped, torn, decimated.  And instead of rushing to her side and comforting her, I turned away.  I walked out of the room.  And joined my brother and father in the dining room to sip steaming mugs of freshly made cocoa.  As if nothing had happened.  As if nothing had changed.

 

Why do I remember this particular moment so clearly; so vividly?  It wasn’t the first time my father sexually abused me.  Nor was it the last.  It wasn’t one of the worst memories to haunt me.  Certainly, there are far more horrible recollections of perverted things he did to me, things I couldn’t blot out or from which I couldn’t disconnect. So why is this one day, this one event, etched so deeply and perfectly in my mind?  Why can I still see it as if it happened only yesterday?  Only seconds in the past?

 

Several things seem pertinent.

 

When my father began sexually abusing me, I was around 4 or 5 years old.  The memories I have of that time are veiled in fantasy.  I didn’t have the maturity to understand what was happening.  I didn’t like it.  It scared me.  It felt wrong.  But I didn’t have the ability to grasp or process what he was doing or the implications of his actions.  I was able to create a make-believe world and escape into it. 

 

As an older child, escape became more difficult.  I finally reached an age and a point where it was no longer possible to ignore, warp, or wrap what he was doing to me in an imaginary world.  I could no longer deny or fictionalize the abuse.  This is when I shattered. Completely, utterly shattered. 

 

I believe the crystal-clear memory I have, this memory that haunts me still, is of the day, the moment in time, when that horrible shattering took place.  So, even though what he did that day was not the vilest thing my father would ever do to me over the years he abused me, it was a significant moment in time because of the internal impact.  It was the moment my soul was utterly obliterated.

 

I didn’t stop loving Christmas.  Not then.  I do, however, hate snow.  And Christmas was never again a carefree or magical season. 

 

The holiday has never again been wonderful or innocent.  I find myself looking over my shoulder.  Waiting for everything to morph into some unspeakable reality.  There remains a hidden razor’s edge, cutting into my deepest and most vulnerable parts and wounded places.  There is now unbearable pain mixed with a momentary expectation of happiness.  Fear mixed with the shallow laughter.  Terror mixed in with the carols that are exuberantly sung.  And I have stopped believing Christmas will be special.  Because everything that was once special has been stripped away and destroyed.

 

Magic no longer exists.  The lights are not as bright, the ornaments aren’t as shiny.  I see the shadows.

 

A hideous monster hid beneath the bows and colorful paper that covered the gifts under the tree.  I knew the monster.  And the monster knew me.  He watched me, waiting, pouncing, taking.  Christmas that year was when I finally understood what he was.  And seeing, I firmly put the lid back on the brightly wrapped box in which he hid, disguised.  I stood, walked on trembling legs, and carried on, acting as if everything was as it seemed.  As though nothing evil lay beneath the tinsel, glitter and lights.  As if nothing foul had happened.  Pretending the Christmas snow was yet unmarked and undefiled.

 

He is long dead now, this vulgar, unclean monster.  This ghost of Christmas past.  But he haunts me still.

Secrets

Secrets.  I am buried in them.  Buried beneath them, every bit as much as they are buried within me.

 

My life has been punctuated by secrets.  Woven into and hidden within my story.  Carefully camouflaged, masked by deflection, by the many things that are never spoken.  By all that is never revealed.  Weighted under layers of silence.   Dusted with denial.   Until they are all but invisible.

 

These cautiously placed exclusions form a highly effective smokescreen.  I prefer to call it a smokescreen rather than to call it what it actually is.  A lie.  My smokescreen obscures the truth.  Blurs it.  Keeps everyone from seeing the full picture.  Reality.  A lie of omission, but still…

 

It is a necessity.  For secrets must remain hidden.  I have hidden them well.

 

I have let those who have stumbled into and out of my life believe what they wanted to believe.  Allowed them to fill in the blanks.  To build their own version of my story based on assumptions of what they believe those blanks represent.  I have let them create a story they are comfortable with.  It is easier this way.  For all concerned.

 

I have held my secrets close.  Protected them for most of my life.  In truth, you, poor reader are the only ones who hear them.  Who are allowed to peek through the smoke.  Who are given glimpses of what I have been hiding.

 

From childhood, I have known to keep them.  To hide certain things about my parents, my family, what happened inside our house.  I can’t recall being told to keep them until I was much older, and  my father only occasionally remind me.  Threaten me.  But even as a toddler, I knew.  It was communicated to me through a million subtle actions, glances, looks.  Not verbalized, but shouted in a primal language that deeply penetrated.  The message was driven into my heart.

 

Never tell.  Keep your mouth shut.  Smile.  Keep the secrets.  These are things you must not divulge.  To anyone.  Ever.

 

And so, I kept them, not even daring to tell a counselor until after my parents were dead.  I keep them still, for my remaining family doesn’t know the depth or breadth or width of the depravity.  The abuse.  I have no close friends, but those who are the closest to me only know something happened.  Something loosely labeled “child abuse.”  Nothing of what is encased in that general term.  None of the details or the agony those acts caused as they were carved into my soul.

 

The secrets are safe even now, all these years later.

 

I write them here to record what was done, at least in part.  What those things did to me.  I try to express the pain and annihilation, though it comes only in fragments and jagged pieces.  These are the things that made me.  Destroyed me.  It seems important to write them down, at least in part, to chronicle what I can remember of the murky past.  It seems important to tell someone of my brokenness, even if it is only released into the universe here, still obscured, while remaining anonymous.  Even if my story is never heard or shared with another human while face-to-face.  At least it is being told, as best I can scratch it out, with words on a screen where there is little risk of rejection or reprimand.  Or harsh judgement.

 

I kept the secrets so my parents would never have to face the consequences of their actions.  Never have to own up to the things they did to me.  They were able to live their lives as respected members of the community.  That is what I did for them…because I thought it was the right thing to do.  I tried to rise out of the ashes and forgive.  To wish good for them.  Even as I struggled in the aftermath to simply stand or crawl away.

 

But secrets isolate you.  They make you different.  Strange.  They change you; break you.  And they have kept me from connecting with others in a meaningful way.  I have remained hidden behind this invincible mask.  Concealed.  Keeping secrets.  Acting as I should act.  Pretending to be a normal person.  Pretending to fit in, while knowing I never will.  Knowing I can never let anyone see the real me.  The damaged, disfigured, shattered being behind the curtains.  The secret keeper, shrouded in smoke and haze.

 

I am alone with my secrets.  I keep them.  And they keep me.

 

I have paid a heavy price to pretend I have nothing to hide.

When “Everything” Isn’t Enough

Some recent hurtful events have prompted serious contemplation.  As I look back over my life, trying to understand, to change and grow, still hoping to put all the broken shards of my soul back together, it’s difficult to not feel like a failure.

 

I have worked very hard.  I’m one of those people who puts everything I have into everything I commit to, be it a relationship or a job.  I’m the employee who works with focused effort, accomplishing more in a day than most do in a week.   I do everything to the best of my ability because I care and want to make a difference.  Sure, I make mistakes, but errors are rare.  And I take my responsibilities seriously, giving all that I have to give, including my time, rarely working less than a 48 hour week.  I get things done and I do them well.  My goal is to contribute more than my pay requires.

 

I am the spouse who makes a commitment and stands by it, regardless of rejection, of being unloved and unappreciated, even when the commitment is not reciprocated.  I’m a lousy cook and a so-so housekeeper, but I make the effort for my partner, though not for myself.  I contribute financially to the household, assuming the role of breadwinner, paying the bills, taking care of the “business” of life while supporting my husband’s dreams.  I’m far from perfect.  Far.  From perfect.  But I put everything I have into the relationship.  And yet, all I have is not enough.  It doesn’t even take long to replace me.

 

I don’t have as much energy to burn with friends, so I have to budget my resources.  I try to hit all the bases, juggle the craziness of conflicting demands, all while trying to repair my own shattered personality.  It is important to me not to inconvenience or burden anyone else throughout the process.  I battle depression, but determinedly strive to keep my pain to myself.  I smile and expend the little oomph I have on doing what I have to do.  Making time for a friendship or two when I can muster the vim and vigor.  Typically falling into the role of the empathetic listening ear, one who isn’t afraid to walk through the darkness with them…because, well, “Hello darkness, my old friend…”  It’s a familiar path; one I’m able to navigate without need of light.

 

I know there are many people in this world who are far more gifted and capable than I am.  I fully realize my effort may appear paltry and insignificant when compared with that of others.  What I have to labor to achieve, others do routinely, without effort, without pause.  I, however, must focus my thoughts, visualizing the task, the event, the encounter, talking myself into doing what I must do, should do, need to do, slowly mustering my strength, drawing the fumes from my tank until I have enough fuel to force myself into action.

 

I give my everything.

 

But my everything is not enough.

 

It hasn’t been enough in the past and chances are good, it won’t be enough in the future.  No matter how hard I work, how much I give, how diligent I am, how much effort I expend, how deeply I love or care, and how well I perform, it’s not enough.  Somehow, beneath all my determination and labor, as I strive to be the best person I can be, I fail, simply because I, inherently, and at my core, am not enough.

 

I’m mindful of the needs of others and careful to avoid stepping on toes or being a burden.  I perform and achieve; have never left a job but what it required two, or even three, people to replace me.  But I still fall short in some inescapable and unforeseen way.

 

I’m not cute and flirty.  I’m not happy-go-lucky or bubbly.  Or delightful.  I’m overly serious.  And introverted, requiring alone time to recharge.  In the world today, that’s considered a grievous failure.  Laughter, witty sayings and humorous stories don’t flow from me.  I am a bit awkward, unable to adequately put others at ease.  The people who are drawn to me are those who are hurting.  They pour out their pain and anger, sharing dark secrets and desperate fears.  But once they regain their footing and find solid ground, I am of no use to them.  I become a reminder of their past hurt and struggles.  Of all they have put behind them.  And so, I, too, am left behind.

 

Those in authority over me have focused on my weaknesses instead of encouraging my strengths.  And none of my assets and accomplishments could ever offset my faults.  Whereas others make errors that must be fixed, my errors, though small and quickly rectified, are counted as critical failures.  I must work at least twice as hard as their best employee and a hundred times harder than the worst slacker beneath them.  Even so, the slacker is rewarded and considered satisfactory, while I am judged harshly and rejected.

 

I’ve searched myself, also questioning counselors, family, and the few friends I’ve kept over time, in a desperate effort to discover what it is about “me” that makes me so unpalatable.  What prompts them to label me unworthy?  Why am I repeatedly rejected and deemed worthless, in spite of all I accomplish, produce, and contribute?  I’ve worked to fix flaws, to overcome deficiencies.  I’ve done more and given to the point of exhaustion.  Yet those who do nothing but giggle and twirl their hair, who lack experience or wisdom, who believe others exist to serve and bow to them, are regarded as credible, extraordinary, and valuable.

 

They are enough.  Regardless of their actions, who they are is considered adequate.  And they are appreciated, if not revered.

 

My everything isn’t acceptable.  Who I am, all I have to give, coupled with all I do, doesn’t translate to adequacy.  Because I, intrinsically, am not enough.  There is obviously something hideously wrong with me, with the core of my being.  Something I can’t fix, that can’t be altered, no matter what I do or how well I perform.  At my best, I’m still miles and miles behind the place where others start.

 

Even if I manage to reach that starting point, I’ll never catch up.  Everything I am, have to offer, all that I accomplish, is not sufficient. There is no remedy for my inadequacy.  My everything simply doesn’t measure up.  It isn’t, nor will it ever be, enough.

 

 

Sometimes the Pain Wins

I, along with the vast majority of human beings currently living on our planet, are incredibly saddened by the news of the death of numerous high profile individuals over the past several years.  Just this week, Jarrid Wilson, a megachurch pastor known for his own battle with depression and mental health advocacy, became one in a long line of suicides.  Kate Spade, best known for her iconic handbags and fashion line, took her own life last year, in spite of her success, wealth and fame.   Anthony Bordain, Celebrity Chef and television personality, hanged himself in France, while working on Season 11 of his highly lucrative show.  Robin Williams, one of the most successful comedians and actors of his generation, lost his struggle with depression in 2014, taking his own life, a loss still grieved by those who loved him and who were touched by his art.  There are more.  Many more.  Deaths that were premature.  Unexplainable, to those of us watching from the outside.  “Senseless,” we call it.  Some are using these suicides as a lesson:  Money can’t buy happiness.  Fame and fortune will not bring fulfillment.  A few of my friends have made comments about the selfishness of their acts of suicide.  A few are even angry.  But I can’t go there with them.  Not to the place of being angry, judging or moralizing.  Because I know something they don’t understand.   Something they simply can’t comprehend.

 

Sometimes the pain wins.

 

Until you have experienced this kind of intense, destructive, unrelenting pain in your soul, you can’t understand.   But I know what it does to a person.  The agony and isolation can take you down and knock you out of the game permanently.  Depression doesn’t fight fair.  And its goal is to forever destroy.

 

Depression is ugly, and because it’s ugly, a lot of people will do everything they can not to glance in your direction when you struggle with this beast.  That’s how pain gains the advantage.  How it wins.  Ignorance.  Rejection.  Being judged as unacceptable.  Defective.  Weak.  Troubled.  A burden.   When we who fight this multi-tenacled monster mingle with the mentally healthy and emotionally whole, we must wear a mask and pretend as if we, too, are strong and happy.  To reveal the depth of our despair is considered bad form.  Like picking your nose in a posh restaurant.

 

It gets excruciatingly lonely behind the facade.

 

When others see you as a burden, it’s unbearably hurtful.  But when you are the one who sees yourself as a burden, a negative in the universe, a nothing, pain will use this advantage, this crack in your armor, and it will take you down.  It will overpower you with one huge knock-out punch.  It will win.

 

This is the place where hope breathes its last breath.  The place where the aloneness and emptiness become terrifyingly overwhelming and shattering.  The place where there is absolutely nothing and no one to cling.  All strength and the will to fight is annihilated.  Nothing seems worth it, especially not you…your life.  You realize you are asking too much from the world when you ask to be wanted.  You’re more trouble than you are worth.  A toxic substance in the life of everyone you touch.  And you can no longer stand to contaminate the world or live such an empty existence.  Not one second longer.

 

At this point, the emotional pain becomes vividly, viscerally physical.  And excruciating.  Your heart feels as if it will explode.  As if it is being ripped apart from the inside out.  Your mind stops functioning and the wiring in your brain smokes and fries.  You try; still you try.  But that kind of rending, tearing, shredding, utterly consuming pain is more than most mortals can handle alone.  And when you have been marked by depression’s touch and are defined by the significant fracture it causes in your soul, you simply don’t stand a chance.  You are hardwired to self-destruct in times of such consuming emptiness and overload.  You don’t have the skills or the connections that are needed to survive.  The circuit breaker pops.  Darkness becomes complete.

 

And let’s face it; we live in a world of superficiality.  You aren’t supposed to be real.  To “over-share.”  Which means, you aren’t supposed to share at all except in vague snippets in very limited circumstances.  You’re expected to focus on the positive, even if you have to make it up.  What you learned and the blessings that resulted.  How the journey of your life has delivered you to the amazing space and place you now occupy and how grateful you are for the overflowing goodness that came from those non-specific, we-don’t-talk-about-it struggles.

 

You aren’t permitted to be vulnerable, to disclose weaknesses, skirmishes, destructive thoughts, or hurts. Self-doubt and feelings of worthlessness point to glaring flaws that are meant to remain hidden. You are not allowed to have emotionally dark and difficult times.  It’s not acceptable.  You’re compelled to be upbeat and positive.  To perform as if nothing is crushing the life out of you.  To see that damned glass as being half full even when the sucker is bone dry empty.  Smile!  Look for the silver lining!  Don’t share your heart.  Whatever you do, don’t be real, don’t be weak, don’t fail, don’t cry, don’t tell, don’t acknowledge the ugly darkness that is destroying you, and put on your big girl panties before you walk out the door.

 

You can’t be real on Facebook (which is probably wisdom), nor can you be real in church.  And while wallowing and spewing your puke in everyone’s face all the time is certainly not the goal, nor is that what I am suggesting, every heart longs to see and be seen.  To connect.  In spite of marring cracks and gaping wounds.

 

In those times of darkness when your own soul is slashing you to pieces, you need someone to tell you that you have value.  Even more, you need them to show you.  To be there.  They don’t have to have answers.  They aren’t expected to fix you or ease the pain.  Staying though they see you at your worst, viewing you as a person who matters and are worthy of love and care…this is what will transform you.  Someone who believes in you, even when you can no longer believe in yourself.  Who accepts the real you, no matter what, because they can see beyond the scars.  This is what your soul pants for when you’re trapped in a black hole.  Someone who will invest in you…time, heart, connection.  Who believes you are worth the trouble.  Someone who will sit with you in the deep night until you can gather the strength to stand and start walking again, even though you still can’t imagine the sunrise.

 

You need a safe place to rest.  So you can stop struggling for just a moment.  You need to be able to lay down the cumbersome mask; to be real.  Finding a place where it is safe to be real…well, it’s hard to come by.  Real is vulnerable.  Real means giving someone the ability to rip you apart and slice you open.  You hand them the knife and trust them not to use it.  Being real is dangerously risky.

 

And it’s strongly discouraged.

 

Many will accept the weapons you hand them and then stab you in the back.  They don’t see value in you, nor do they care about your survival.  They triumphantly realize you have provided them with the key to your defeat.  And they skewer you through the heart.

 

Being able to trust someone with the knife is what will pull you through.  If you don’t have someone who will hold that blade to your throat, yet not draw blood, the pain wins.  And when it wins, it wins for keeps.

 

I am saddened that Kate Spade, Robin Williams, Jarrid Wilson and so many others were in that catastrophic place.  That place of grasping for a hand in the darkness and coming up empty.  That place of desperately seeking a hint of light in the black, dense fog that obscured their view of anything and everything worthwhile in the world.  Of not being able to see even a pin prick of light to guide them through. It breaks my heart that, when they gave up because they simply couldn’t walk one…more…step, there was no one there to catch them when they let go.  No one to persistently reach out to them.  Who would tenderly hold the knife, fully able to gut them, but who chose instead to slay the darkness that imprisoned their soul.  I’m distraught that when they began to fall for the final time, they were alone with their pain and hopelessness, unable to see their own beauty.

 

They needed something solid; someone to tell them they were worth it.  That they could make it through the night.  Someone to walk with them.  To hold them as they collapsed.  But when they reached out a hand, for whatever reason, no one was there to reach back.  Their fingers found nothing but empty air.  And the pain won.

 

I pray this tragedy will cause us to begin to break through the facades we spin for ourselves, to rip off the masks and to start a journey to the place where we share our hearts…good, bad, ugly, dark, broken, confused.  Where we embrace, encourage, accept instead of ridicule, reject, renounce.  Where we love instead of judge.  Where we offer a hand instead of a fist.  Where we share the pain until the darkness recedes and is defeated.

 

Nothing can fix the world now for those who have surrendered to the darkness.  Nothing can give them a reason to hang on.  To live.  Nothing can help them to see how wonderful and special they were.  And how valuable.  It’s too late.  The door is closed.  They closed it, alone in the night of their soul.   I am saddened these who brought so much happiness to the lives of others through their gifts and unique talents ran out of joy.  I’m troubled they found themselves alone in the darkness at the time of their greatest need.  I regret that these wondrous, unique, creative, beautiful individuals couldn’t find a reason to hang on and couldn’t find anyone or anything to hang on to when they needed help the most.  It should never happen.  To me, this is our ultimate failure.  The pain should never win.  But it does.  Over and over.  And we are all diminished because of the loss of another special individual who should have never had to know what it is like to be this horribly alone and without hope.

 

Depression colors and clouds our perspective.  We need the eyes of another, their hand to hold, their arms around us, their heart beating with ours, to survive those times. If indeed, there is any hope for survival.  We need intense intervention.  Someone to whisper encouraging words in our ear when we are utterly lost.  We need every ounce of support available, including professional counseling, medication, group therapy and genuine friends.  Whatever it takes.  For we are battling an unrelenting monster who delights in our destruction.

 

When we reach out, desperately grasping, and find nothing but empty air, the pain wins.  There are no second chances.

 

I hope we will not continue to be lulled into complacency, believing if we deny or do not look too closely, things will turn out okay in the end.  Because sometimes they don’t.  Sometimes the pain wins.  And when the pain wins, the winner takes all.

 

 

#EndTheStigma  #SuicidePrevention

Sometimes the Words Will Not Come

Sometimes the words will not come.

 

They get lost in the deafening silence that echoes throughout the emptiness of my world.  Swallowed by the black hole of isolation.  I cannot speak them.  They are sucked back into the void before I can form a single one.  I am too numb to shape them.  It is too difficult to put them together in a way that makes sense, much less that tells my story with any degree of coherency.

 

I am trying to explain a perspective I can barely see or comprehend.  Trying to connect dots that are so distant, they reside in different dimensions.  The picture the connected points would form remains a mystery.   I can’t remove myself far enough from the memory to gain a bird’s eye view.

 

The words stick in my throat, strangling me, as unformed as the insight I am trying to grasp.  I’m attempting to put all the pieces back together…to make myself whole.  Trying to put the words together to explain the unexplainable.  How does one explain nothingness?  A brokenness so absolute, there is nothing left but atomic-sized particles of dust.  How can words begin to make sense of it all, much less paint a picture of the reality where I now exist?

 

Sometimes the words will not come.

 

Sometimes, they sit on the tip of my tongue, but I cannot spit them out.  They are peanut butter, stuck to the roof of my mouth.

 

My entire life, I have been silent.  I have choked back all the words that were oozing from my pores.  Choked them back along with the anguish and agony.  Focused on anything other than the abuse and the destruction it caused in my soul.  Struggled with crippling depression.  With hopelessness.  Obliteration.  I have pushed the words, the emotions, down, down, down, until the volcano within me formed a seal and lay dormant.  Remained dormant for decades, the molten flow contained, denied release.  I have held the lava and let it burn me deep within; never spewing.  Contained the toxic gasses, the scorching fire and excruciating hurt.

 

Sometimes the words won’t come.  I have held them back too long.  They charred my tongue to a crisp, leaving me unable to speak.  Seared my brain till I have forgotten how to discharge my anguish.

 

Not even the Heimlich maneuver, however artfully performed, can successfully dislodge them from my throat.

 

When I was a child the words were near the surface and readily available, if not fully understood by my immature brain.  A bubbling brook, they flowed.  The wounds were raw.  It would have been so easy then to discharge them and let them flow away.  But there was no one to tell.  No one to listen.  Certainly no one who would have believed me.  That’s when I blocked the brook and began to repress the lava within the deepest caverns.  To hold my feelings, my words, down in the dark depths of my soul.  That’s when I learned to stop talking.  To hide.  Behind a mask and a wall of silence.  I learned to pretend everything in my family was normal. To act as if I was an ordinary kid.  That’s when I learned how to lie.  To still my tongue.  To close my mouth.  To stanch the flow. And that is when I became acquainted with shame.

 

Shame sealed the volcano.  For surely I must not let anyone see the ugliness that was me.

 

Love could have freed me.  But sometimes there is no love.  No prince to ride to the rescue.  No shining knight.  No escape.  Sometimes, it really is as hopeless as it seems.

 

Now that more years than I can count have passed, I try to pry the words out of the crevices where they have been lodged for such a long time.  I try to articulate them.  To allow the lava to flow again.  To let them dissipate into the atmosphere.  I try to form them, to allow them roll from my mouth like a brook and be whatever they are. Whatever they want to be.  To say what they want to say…what they have wanted to say since I was a child with nowhere to turn.  They are not beautiful.  They are not skillfully crafted.  They are not inspiring.  But saying anything, I have learned, is far better than saying nothing at all.

 

And so, I write whatever words I can find and I send them out, hoping they will somehow give my life meaning.  I cast them into another dimension. And I leave them hanging there to fall where they may.

 

Whatever comes, however they sound, I let them go.  I let them tell my story in whatever way they can.

 

Perhaps when the lava settles and cools, a new reality will be born.

 

In spite of my attempts to rid myself of this molten, toxic pain, sometimes the words are not reachable.  I fish for them and come up empty.  But I have learned, catching any fish is better than catching no fish at all.  So I grasp at whatever swims by; whatever words I can seize.  I turn them over and examine them, then release.  Watch them go.  Grateful for having finally been able to say anything, however poorly expressed.

 

I held them, those slimy words.  They lay for a moment in my hand, gasping for breath.  I felt their barbed fins.  Let them make me squirm.  Let the lava burn my flesh.

 

Sometimes the words will not come.  But sometimes, if I sit very, very still in my silent world, I can hear the child I once was, all those many years ago, crying in the endless night.  And occasionally, I can find a tiny word or two to let her know her pain has not gone unnoticed or unacknowledged.  She recognizes every dot in the picture.  She knows all the atrocities I can never adequately express.

 

It is then that I realize, I do not need to speak.   It is enough to simply sit with her in her empty, lonely room, to hold her hand and quietly breathe so she will know she is not alone in the darkness.

Mistake

Right or wrong, this is how I feel.  I feel it deeply because over the years, it has been driven into the most innermost part of my being.  Until what I feel has become an unshakable belief.

 

When I make a mistake, it simply proves that I AM a mistake.

 

Long ago, before I was born, my mother almost had a miscarriage.  It happened fairly early on, when she entering her 2nd trimester.  She used to tell me about how they gave her some kind of medication to prevent the miscarriage and the medication eventually caused her very premature contractions to stop.  Crisis averted.  She managed to carry me to term.

 

Whew!  Dodged the bullet.  Right?

 

I was due to arrive on July 4th.  Luckily, I was 3 days late.  Otherwise, I would have been born in the car where my parents were stuck in a 4th of July traffic jam.

 

Before giving her the medication, the doctor had cautioned her that when a mother miscarries, it’s because there is something wrong with the baby.  Even when they could “save the pregnancy,” almost losing the baby was a clear indication something, somewhere, wasn’t right.

 

Something was off.  There was a defect.  A fatal flaw.

 

Something so off, it was better for the baby to die.  Better to let nature run its course.  Have its way.

 

They worried about that as they sat in the hot car, at a dead stop on the expressway, days before I was born.  They worried and wondered.

 

Through the years – years filled with so many different levels and kinds of abuse and so much pain, it eroded and fractured my soul – I have wondered if I should have died then, before I was born.  I’ve questioned whether the doctor should have intervened and worried there was something hideously wrong within me.    I’ve been afraid something was terribly off.  Something that made me unworthy of living.

 

For as long as I can remember, I have felt I must be a mistake.  Some kind of really awful, disgusting error.  When I was very young, I questioned my parents about their desire to have a family, concluding they must not have wanted to have a baby.  It would explain their rejection.  The way they treated me as if I had no value beyond what I could do for them.  But they denied this.  Claimed they did want to have children.  Leaving me perplexed and searching for answers.

 

I then questioned them to discover if they had wanted their first-born to be a boy.  To find out if they were disappointed when I arrived  Again, they denied it, saying they had wanted a girl first, then a boy.  Said they were delighted when I was born.  Claimed their wishes had been fulfilled.

 

I couldn’t find the reason for my deep-seated belief that their affirmations covered a darker, more ugly truth.  How could they have wanted me and been pleased when I made my appearance three days after the 4^th of July, becoming first-time parents to a daughter they swore they wanted, yet reject me so thoroughly?  Their demands and my disappointing inability to fulfill them created an environment of palpable disgust marked by endless criticism.  One plus one didn’t add up.

 

The sexual and emotional abuse taught me I was nothing more than an object.  To be used.  To provide pleasure and service to others.  Rejection from teachers, parents, bosses, friends, family, husband and peers over the course of my childhood and adult life made it clear I wasn’t worth knowing, much less loving.  No matter how much I did or how hard I tried, I could never do or be enough.  I was gravely flawed.  Incurably broken.

 

It wasn’t simply that I made mistakes…and I did make them.  But when I misjudged or somehow fell short of perfection, it was an indictment of my utter worthlessness.  It proved my worst fears.  That I had no worth.  That I WAS a mistake.

 

If you make a mistake, often, you can find a way to fix it.  To make it right.  To get back on track.  But when you ARE a mistake, there is no remedy.  There is no way to fix who you are.

 

You can try harder to do more and to present yourself in a more favorable light.  But you’re still putting makeup on a pig.  That pig, no matter how good it looks, is still a pig.

 

This core belief persists.  I have tried to dig out the roots and plant new beliefs in my heart, but I continue to struggle with the overwhelming “knowing” that I am, have always been, and will always be, a mistake.  A fault in the universe.  Something that can never be rectified.  I can never do or be enough to balance the scales.

 

My heart whispers to my mind in the dark night.  “You are a house of cards, created with defects, and therefore, beyond redemption.  You are a mistake.  A mistake that can’t be fixed because you’re made from faulty material and the very fabric of your being is flawed.  Substandard.   Inferior.  Unacceptable.  You can smile, give and do wonderful things, but you will still be second-rate.  No amount of hard work, no matter how great your performance, or how amazing your achievements, in spite of how much you bequeath to others, nothing can transform you from pig to human.  You are subpar.  Inadequate.  Fatally and horribly flawed.”

 

I plug my ears.  Try not to listen to the whispers.  But I cannot dispute the truth of that soft voice.

 

I believe.  There is nothing I can do to compensate for the fact that I should have never been born.

 

Fighting An Invisible War

You’re running under water.  The harder you strain and pump your legs, the more resistance there is to your motion.  It’s exhausting and you get nowhere.  You can’t breathe; water offers no oxygen to sustain you.  You push yourself to the point of breaking, every movement forward taking more than you have within you.

 

You’re trying to walk when you are paralyzed.  You will your legs to move, nerves to transmit, your body to respond, but nothing happens.  Occasionally, you experience a sensation that gives you a taste of what it would feel like to shift your legs, but you just can’t make yourself twitch, much less stand up.  You are unable to take even a single step. Wiggle a toe.  There’s a huge disconnect between “I need to do this / I want to do this” and actually doing it.  Everything requires super-human effort.  And in spite of the energy expended, you still can’t walk.

 

You feel completely exhausted, no matter how long you sleep, how many naps you take, how many days of vacation you’re given.  “Rested” is not a state you have experienced for as long ago as you can remember. Not a feeling you’ve known. Muscles lack strength.  You can’t motivate yourself to break the inertia. To get up.  Do something.  Anything.  You’re frozen in ice.  Without energy.  Though you dig deep, there’s nothing there. 

 

The car is out of gas.  It’s not going anywhere.

 

You’re rock climbing, not because you want to, but because it’s what is expected of you.  You find yourself in a position where you must ascend the face of a mountain with a 500 lb. boulder tied to your back.  You may be strong, but no one is that strong.  You can’t overcome the force of the weight that is tethering you to one spot on the ground, no matter how much you struggle or long to be unchained.  There’s no way you can scale the sheer barrier before you, weighted down as you are, nor can you ever begin to reach more distant heights you long to reach.  You know you should be able to do it.  You know other people have made the ascent now before you many times.  And they have made it look so easy!  You have to try, but you simply can’t move.

 

Your body is encased in stone.  You’re trying to break out of the rock shell, to move, feel, participate.  But no matter how hard you strain, how hard you push, how much you drive yourself to break free, you remain frozen within the cold stone coffin that restrains you.

 

There isn’t any air.  You struggle to breathe, but you’re choking, gasping, sucking frantically as you panic and fight to survive.  But you’re supposed to act like everything is “fine.”  Act as if you aren’t suffocating.  Dying.

 

Your batteries are drained dry, every last particle of energy used to do those things that are required of you if you want to appear to be a “normal” person.  But nothing is left.  There are no additional resources or reserves within you from which to draw.  No backup batteries available.  No wireless charger you can lay across to slowly begin to regain strength.  Sleep brings minimal relief, providing you with just enough energy to appear as if you are functioning.  But you know you aren’t really fooling anyone.  You can only keep up the act for so long and it’s never long enough.

 

This is what it’s like to live with major depression.

 

It’s actually very difficult to fully paint of picture of what it feels like to be depressed to the point it severely impacts your ability to live your life.  Your illness is invisible; without a physical manifestation.  Your handicap is not one that can  readily be seen with the eye.  People who have never experienced it tend to think overcoming depression is a matter of willpower or making a choice.  “Just do it,” or “Get over it” are common phrases thrown carelessly at those suffering from this illness. You are blamed and shamed for not measuring up.  For not getting over it and moving on.  But it’s not that simple.  

 

Those of us who struggle with this massive, many-tentacled monster certainly wish there was a quick way to recover.  We long for that magic pill or easy fix as we search for the strength to make it through yet another long, exhausting, draining day.  If we could make a choice that suddenly freed us from the murky depths of the ocean of depression in which we live, I assure you, we would make that choice.  But all the willpower in the world won’t set us free.  Unfortunately, it’s much more complicated.  There aren’t always answers.  Or a cure.

 

My personal journey with depression began when I was a child.  I was an abused child.  The kind of abuse that typically lands parents in prison and children in foster care.  There are times when I have wondered why no one noticed my predicament.  I was so broken and despondent, I would have thought it was obvious to even a casual observer.  Because no one noticed or reached out to me, I concluded that what I felt inside wasn’t valid.  That I didn’t matter.  I didn’t have any value.  I wasn’t worth the bother.  I deserved what was happening, therefore I had no reason to complain.   But that didn’t make the pain any more bearable.  Nor did it lessen the overwhelming sense of melancholy, hopelessness and joylessness that was my constant companion.

 

I tried to take my life for the first time when I was in Jr. High School.  I took a bottle of aspirin…I had heard that would do the trick.  It didn’t.  I was disheartened.

 

I can’t recall a time when I was free of depression.  There have been brief periods of time when I’ve been less miserable than others. When the lows were not quite so desperately low. But for the majority of my life, I have known only the deep darkness, the struggle of running under water, of trying to breathe when there was no air, of trying to walk as a quadriplegic. 

 

The second time I tried to kill myself, I was only a few years out from divorce, from being dumped for another woman.    I plummeted to the darkest depths of the ocean of depression and suffocated there. It was just before Christmas, an altogether depressing season when one is alone.  I took plenty of a prescription drug to do the trick, more than tripled the lethal dose to make sure it would kill me.  I should have died.  But for some reason, I survived.

 

There is a boat-load of shame associated with being depressed.  Feelings of being defective.  Totally worthless.  Of knowing you should be able to carry the weight of that 500 pound boulder up the face of the mountain.  Knowing you should be able to do what you need to do.  Knowing you should.  But can’t.

 

Depression has deep roots.  It’s tangled, impacting our genes, neurotransmitters, cells and brain function.  It’s not a matter of getting beyond the darkness, of stopping the feelings of hopelessness and worthlessness, of not letting it get in the way.  It does get in the way, impeding your journey and joy.  It isn’t easily overcome, particularly when medication doesn’t provide any relief.  Depression is an invisible barrier that keeps you imprisoned and enslaved.  It’s a massive spider web that entangles you endlessly in sticky threads, wrapping you up tighter and tighter. 

 

You live in a coffin, buried under mounds and mounds and mounds of earth, unable to breath with no escape.  Sometimes, with lots of counseling and a miracle or two, you can find a way to remove those spider webs, those tentacles, those walls, those barriers, those boulders, that ocean, that dirt…one particle  at a time.  It’s tedious, heart-breaking work and progress is measured in minuscule increments.  

 

I am very slow.  I have not yet found a way to untangle the web or to carry the boulder…even when I’m not expected to climb a sheer cliff while it’s chained to me.   So far, I manage to make it to work most days, though it can be a challenge.  Usually, I can find a way to function in the areas where I must interface with others.  I’m embarrassed by my lack of ability to overcome.  I’m mortified by how difficult many things are for me in comparison to others.  I plod and barely trudge, at best, while others dance and run and jump and sing.  I look at them with envy.  Wanting to be like them.  Wanting to run and jump, unhampered by the darkness that lurks within me, weighing me down, paralyzing me.  I wish for a magic pill that would allow me to live uninhibited by the monster’s massive, restrictive labyrinth of tentacles. A maze that, once entered, offers no immediate means of escape.   And even as I doubt it could happen, I long for a miracle that will finally transform me, heal me, make me whole and set me free.   

Incest

I was raised in small town America, born before the days of the internet, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or email.  Phones had cords and rotary dials.  Initially, when I was small, we had a party line, no area code and our phone number started with HO.   We played tether ball and dodge ball at recess.  Jumped rope.  Rode the merry-go-round.  And ran everywhere for no reason at all.  Doors were seldom locked and during the summer, once school was out, my brother and I took off on our bikes each day, only returning when the sun had started to set and we were weak with hunger.

 

No one worried about kids being grabbed and sold to the highest bidder or school shootings.  Murders may have happened, but they were rare and in places far away.   News was delivered by a paper thrown on, or in the vicinity of, the doorstep and you could still have milk delivered in glass bottles sealed with pleated wax paper tops.  The principle was empowered to spank unruly students with a big wooden paddle and parents repeated the “whooping” when their misbehaving progeny came home.

 

By the time I was in junior high, computers filled rooms, punch cards held the programs that made use of their amazing power and technology was becoming a “thing.”  But only the biggest businesses and prestigious colleges could afford them.  Home computers were yet a dream in the head of their soon-to-be inventors.  Universities were experiencing labor pains, birthing the internet and slowly connecting with each other, but navigation was complicated and totally lacked an intuitive interface.  DOS operating systems put unheard of computing power in the hands of the masses.  A GUI interface hadn’t even been imagined.  You typed in words and words appeared on the orange or green or black and white screen.  Slowly appeared.  One letter, one word at a time.

 

It was a very different reality than the one we know today.  A very different world.  Innocence wasn’t something people typically lost.  There were bad people in the world, but no one knew them personally.  They existed somewhere else.  Probably in the big cities.

 

My parents hid themselves in this world.  They were one of the “bad people,” those no one thought they personally knew.

 

My mother was a self-centered, selfish, manipulative, narcissistic woman who believed everyone owed her and should make her life a pleasant fairytale experience.  She felt she had been cheated by life because she didn’t get everything she wanted and deserved.  And we should all atone for this great injustice.  She was unstable, hiding in the closet when visitors came to the door, and she never tired of talking about others, attempting to diminish them, believing it elevated her to the top of the pyramid.  She was not loving or nurturing.  And when expectations weren’t met, she lost all emotional control, crying, slapping, saying ugly and hateful things with the intent of deeply wounding.  And she succeeded.

 

I was a frequent target.

 

And my father.  My father.  He was the kind of monster no one could believe truly existed, even in those faraway places where murders were committed.

 

He, too, was physically abusive, often exploding without warning for no apparent reason.  He was cold, demanding, mean, and there was something disturbingly scary about him.

 

I was in high school, in history class, and I was looking up a word in the dictionary.  Yes, we had encyclopedias and dictionaries…no Google or apps for that.  I can’t remember what word I was trying to find, but it was in the “I’s.”  I can still see my finger moving down the page as I read.  And then…there it was.  It jumped out as if it was waiting for me, freezing me mid-page.

 

“Incest.”

 

Why did I stop there?  No idea.

 

I had never heard the word before.  It wasn’t something I was trying to find; to check out.  But somehow, it caught my eye.  And that was when I realized I wasn’t the only one.  There was an actual word in the dictionary that was used to define what my father was doing to me.

 

Growing up during that time, when the news at 6 and 10 were your major sources of information about what was happening in the world, when newspapers from distant, larger cities were where you went for details, news didn’t travel fast.  A lot of it didn’t make the cut and was never broadcast or printed.  So, in my little dot on the map, where a parent striking a child in anger was the only kind of abuse that was acknowledged and where any parent who would do such a thing was shunned, it never occurred to me that there were other kinds of child abuse.  Totally lacking the framework to understand what my father was doing to me, I assumed it was something that felt really awful and horrible, but was normal.  I blamed myself for shattering, attributing it to my weakness or worthlessness.  Having been taught it was wrong for me to have needs and that I had been born to meet the needs of others, I didn’t comprehend the abnormality of my home environment.  It was fairly obvious I wasn’t like the other kids at school.  And considering their lack of knowledge about sex in general, I was fairly certain I was the only person alive to have been forced to have sex, or act out various disgusting sexual fantasies, with their father.

 

Finding that word in the dictionary – an actual word that labeled my experience – was a game changer.

 

Intuitively, it had always seemed wrong.  It made me feel dirty and ugly.  But my father said he was teaching me.  Doing me a favor.  It was our special secret.  A secret I couldn’t share with anyone because if I did, our family would be destroyed and my mother would kill herself.  It would be my fault if this happened.  So I must never tell or the secret would be spoiled.

 

Conflicting messages that confused and silenced me.

 

The dictionary wasn’t conflicted or confusing.  It called it a crime, confirming the suspicion I had denied, validating the feelings I squelched and strangled.  What he was doing was wrong.  And I was not the only one who knew this word from the inside out.

 

Incest.  A word that changed everything about me.  It broke me, destroyed the child I was, changed neuropathways and eroded my DNA, impacting every cell and molecule of my being.  Blinded my eyes to the good others saw; the things that made life worth living.  Distorted the truth.   I knew things the dictionary didn’t know because I was living it.

 

Though I now had a label for the sexual abuse, small town USA wasn’t ready to acknowledge such evil.  And my parents were good at hiding the monsters in their hearts.  I remained silent for most of my life.  Even in the age of information, when you could Google anything for instant answers or ask Alexa any question that popped into your brain, child abuse, particularly incest, has never become a topic for discussion.  It is still a dirty secret that is not supposed to be acknowledged or shared.

 

Perhaps a time will come when a child can speak and adults will listen.  And take action.  When adults can freely share their childhood nightmares and still be loved.  Valued.  Maybe when technology has made everything known and computer chips are embedded in every item we interact with, including in our own flesh, this hidden tragedy will no longer have a place to hide.  Maybe then the lies will be exposed and the abuse of innocent children will become extinct.

 

Until that time, I write.  Pouring my secrets out into the cyber universe, whispering what I have never dared to speak, exposing this evil that often hides in plain sight.   Whispering of the damage those acts of parental abuse do to a child who longs for love and acceptance.  A child who has no defenses or ability to process what they are experiencing.  An innocent being who needs security and parents they can trust.  I try to express the pain and shame of it.  The hurt and decimation.  Adding my own definition of incest to the paltry lines written in the dictionary.  Leaving it here for the next little girl to discover, letting her know she is not alone.