Unpacking the Past- Case 1

Sometimes the past haunts you more than you expect it to. Part of me wishes that somehow, magically when I turned 18 everything that made childhood hurt would be wiped clean and I could forget all the hurt, and words, and the messy negative feelings of my adolescence. But as we all know, we don’t get an emotional memory wipe when we become legal adults. We have to carry around our emotional and psychological baggage just like everyone else and unpack it and sort through it if we ever want to take care of it.

So today I am taking that step of unpacking my baggage. There are going to probably be several posts that deal with me processing my past, all in an attempt for me to heal. This is me showing my metaphorical injuries that have been festering and, currently, infecting my current day to day life. And I refuse to let the infection continue to spread. So it’s time to metaphorically cut out the bad tissue, let myself be vulnerable and exposed, and let my tribe of friends and family support me while I heal. 

So today's surgery is delving into some things that I have kept hidden for years. 

I was verbally abused all growing up. 

I’m not talking about the occasional yelling by a parent who has lost all patience.

I’m talking about being called a piece of crap and trash for every wrong doing. I’m talking about being shouted at until I cried because I broke a toy or spilled something. I’m talking about hour long lectures about how I was a terrible child because I didn’t stop my siblings from hitting each other, or not cleaning up their toys, or if they ruined a nice thing.

I’m talking about feeling like you weren’t allowed to eat, because if you ate too much bread, or used up the last of the peanut butter, or went through the packages of ramen "too fast", then you got a lecture about how expensive food was. If you opened another package of something when another bag was already open, then you could expect a yelling match and being sent to your room for the rest of the day, with my dad possibly hiding it later. If you touched one of his favorite foods, or something he planned on using for a meal a week down the road, another lecture. If I was cooking and I wasn’t doing it exactly how he did it, I would get shoved aside and told exactly how I did everything wrong.

Nobody could do anything right, in my house. And for almost half my life, I believed that I deserved it. The yelling, the threats to drop kick us, slap us silly, lock us in our rooms for weeks, the complaining about how we never listened or did anything right, that as soon as we were 18 he’d kick us to the curb… I believed that my siblings and I were the most unruly children to ever grace God’s green earth. I honestly thought that we must have been terrible burdens not only to my parents, but to everyone around us, if we needed to be yelled at and threatened so much.

I was responsible for my siblings… that philosophy was drilled into me so much that it is now an essential part of my character- I am responsible for everyone around me. But most importantly, I was their protector from my dad. When I finally realized that this behavior was not just awful but abnormal- normal dads don’t make their children cry for opening a bag of cheese, I started to talk back. Yes I was a moody teenager. And oh boy did I have a beef with my dad. So I called him out on it. Often. I asked him hard questions… like “if we’re so awful, why did you have six of us?” and “why do you live with us if you hate us so much?”

Of course, a 13, 15, 17 year old didn’t deserve an answer. I was a moody, disrespectful teenager. Who was I to question his authority? And I would often be told after an argument like that… that I was just like my mom. And no, I never took that as a compliment. Not when he complained about my mother to my aunts and uncles for getting distracted by reading. Not when he condemned my mother for being a terrible mom because she played video games – the same video games he played right along side her. Not when he belittled her in front of me and my siblings. Telling me that I was like my mother only drove in the mentality that I was an annoying burden in his life.

I would like to say that I treated my siblings with kindness and love, and sometimes I did. But often I was just as angry and yelled at them too- because in my mind I was far less scary and mean than my dad. That really was the scariest thing; saying “Do I need to go get dad?” because getting dad meant a shouting match that would make you cry, a prison sentence in your room, and a possible physical punishment as well- usually spanking.

But you know what the hardest part about the abuse was? The fact that my dad could be so kind to complete strangers. The fact that he could be charming, and funny, and sweet to everyone but us- his own flesh and blood- made me feel like I WAS the complete garbage I had been called all my life. I can recall a good friend of mine and a coworker of my dad that said: “He must be so fun to be around at home.”

Boy did I want to correct her and tell her everything… but I couldn’t. Why make people think less of my dad when he hadn’t done anything mean to them. They wouldn’t believe me. They’d think it was the complaining of some angsty teenager. Nobody would believe that my sweet, charming, kind dad was a raging man who belittled and verbally tore his family to shreds.

So when we got kicked out of our house right after Christmas my senior year, I moved out. My dad may have been “joking” every time he had threatened to kick me out as soon as I was 18, but I didn’t want to find out. So I beat him to the punch. I lived with friends for a few months, and then with my Uncle. And boy did I learn… learn that I really couldn’t have cared less about finishing high school, or musicals, or anything else. Because no matter what happened, I was stupid and a burden to everyone around me. A lot of my social anxiety comes from these years of abuse. Because if I was a burden and inconvenience then, it still must be true now.

Thankfully, my friends and family did help me. I learned a lot of self confidence and I learned that I didn’t have to be around people who made me feel small or worthless. It took me 17 years of listening to that kind of talk to believe those lies and it might take me another 17 to unlearn it.

So why am I writing today? Why share all this, today of all days?

Because I am angry.  Angry, that the man who called me garbage for a majority of my life, wants everyone to forgive and FORGET the pain he inflicted for 24 years. He wants people to be happy that he’s making positive changes and pretend that the past never happened- that the hurt will just magically disappear. And that makes me angry, because deep down, it makes me cry. Because the apologies I received growing up- still made his anger my fault. There was never “I’m sorry, what I did was wrong.” It was always- “I’m sorry, but what you did was wrong and I was right to yell at you.” I can count on one hand the times my dad has attempted to apologize.

The only real apology he gave me was at the beginning of June this year. And this was the first time that he had asked for my forgiveness.

Now I am a believer in change. People can change. The person I was, the yelling 13 year old big sister, is not the woman I am today. And I did forgive him. I forgave the man that was sitting on my couch that asked for forgiveness- because I knew he was trying. And I really do forgive the man who is working on becoming a better person. However, I did not forgive the man I think of when I hear the word “Dad”. I did not forgive 17 years worth of abuse in that moment, because I am still working on letting it go.

In order for me to let it go… I need to write it out. I need to let my tribe know what I’ve gone through. I am done letting the dad of my past hide behind his charming exterior, because I no longer feel a debt to him anymore. I no longer feel like I need to please him, because I’m never going to receive his praise or approval- so why should I need it now? My pain is just that- mine. Hiding my pain for the sake of his reputation will only continue to hurt me.

So this is step one in my process of healing. And this is the hardest thing I have ever felt compelled to write.