An Epiphany

In a recent "Dear Abby" column, a man in his 30s wrote to say that he had a lifelong problem controlling his anger and he was afraid that his outbursts were hurting his children.  Abby's response stated that "[w]hen a bigger person yells at a smaller person, the message is often lost because the smaller person (in your case, your children) simply shuts down out of fear that physical violence might follow."  I fought back an urge to vomit because of the powerful memories this statement evoked.

My whole life from the time I became aware of myself as a person, until I started taking Prozac and doing the hard work of psychotherapy, had been a time of terror.  My father routinely exploded with rage at my mother over her shortcomings as a wife, mother, homemaker, and person, and at his growing children for being "ungrateful little bastards," among other sins.  By the time I reached school age, I was completely cowed into submission, a victim ripe for picking.  All anyone had to do was raise his or her voice and I would collapse into a quivering, gelatinous mess on the floor.  Whatever beliefs or opinions I might have had disappeared before I could become aware of them.  The only thing I knew for certain about myself was that I loved horses.  Otherwise, I tried to be a chameleon and blend in but it never worked.

After college, I married a man who, like my father, had a violent temper but unlike him experienced and expressed great love and affection for me.  The angry outbursts felt very familiar as did my emotional collapse, but when the storm clouds parted, there was always love and tenderness and I found a way to pretend to be fully human, until I could figure out how to stop making my husband angry.  In my family of origin, there was never any demonstration of love and I grew up starved for it which is why during my young adult years I had sex with a handful of strangers, but avoided anyone that appeared romantically interested in or attracted to me.  It took a brush with my own mortality to shock me into caring enough about myself to allow someone else into my life.

If my father had been capable of loving me, my mother, and my siblings in a way that felt safe and happy perhaps I might have been better equipped for friendships and romantic relationships.  Instead, I trusted no one with my heart or my inner life, not even my husband.  I loved him deeply, and even more today, but was convinced that if he knew what was in my heart of darkness, he would be frightened away.   To a degree, that is still true which is why I will not let him read what I write.   Yet.