Soul Mosaic

Before I get into today’s segment, just a moment of gratitude and celebration. It is my husband’s and my 38th anniversary. It is always a day of joy for us. But I will simply add that through the months of writing this book draft, and seeing all the struggle and pain, I find it an especially wonderful thing that we are together and thriving. So, to my husband, my partner through it ALL, my soulmate, thank you, and I love you.

Tara’s permission

After the large break in the family, the next few years had their ups and downs. For a couple of years, I stayed away. That was hard, especially when my uncle, my mother’s last sibling and a favorite uncle, died from cancer. I just chose not to attend the funeral, which, in my family, was no small absence. But it was also a time when Ed’s parents were sick, and his mother was dying, so my excuse was that we were taking care of their needs.

In fact, her death came the very next year, and his father’s death 3 years after that. The awareness of life’s mortality for our parents slowly brought me back into contact with my extended family over the next couple of years. As it had helped me to stop hating God, Buddhism, as well as my work on a medical ethics board, provided me a path toward a reconciliation of sorts with the family.

The ethics board’s work constantly forced us to consider how best to protect subjects in research studies, without taking away their power to make their own choices about participating. That work was about constant wrestling – with the study guidelines and with everyone else on the panel – to reach the best solution. Often I would go to the meeting with one decision, but after much discussion I’d sometimes change my mind. Our discussions and consensus-building taught me that the best answers were not achieved quickly, but with much thought and struggle.

Buddhism, too, was about taking each situation, individually, looking for the most ethical solution, and avoiding extremes if at all possible. It was about remaining flexible and caring, even when you had to be firm. And it was about holding two truths at the same time. You could love someone, even as you had to be a force against them. That was reinforced by my understanding of that Goddess, Tara, and seeing her as a force for love, but also for protecting when necessary.

Finally, my parents and I agreed to meet at a hotel in Virginia and have a conversation about the past couple of years. This time at least, I felt somewhat empowered to do this.

The meeting

We sat across the table from each other in the hotel lobby, Dad and I. Mom sat off to the side, silent as usual. This was the first time we’d seen each other in a few years, since I’d written the article about not trusting him. And it was difficult, especially sitting right across the table from him. But it had to be done.

I am by nature a person who doesn’t like to cause hurt feelings, even if it’s justified. I just want to get along. It’s my nature to want to spare another discomfort. I know pain. Why would I want to inflict it on someone else?

Also, for me, it takes so much energy to have to stand my ground against another, even if the situation requires it. After a lifetime of Dad always denigrating my opinions or even my right to have them, I had to fight decades of old programming and fear to sit across from him and tell him how it’s going to be. In person.

Normally, I prefer situations where things can be worked out collaboratively. Put things on the table, and find a solution. I just want to get along, not fight. Since there are very few things in life I am black-and-white about, I can be flexible about answers. It’s always amazed me when someone else is so rigid and intractable that there can be no way to resolve the problem. On the one hand, I wish I could be that way – it would be easier. Yet it’s not me, and at times I’ve even felt like a failure because of it.

But there are times where there IS only one, non-negotiable answer. Like in this meeting. And even though it was hard for me to be strong enough to insist on that outcome, I also wasn’t going to run from my responsibility. Especially when it was critical — like the kids in the family.

So, it was that “compassion goddess” who sat across from him at the table

“Our kids were at stake.” However nervous I was, I was not budging on this.

My father looked at me, his face an emotionless mask.

“You raised me to always take care of my siblings. You said it was my responsibility.” My voice stayed firm even as my gut was twisting.

“Well. If I had to protect my siblings, I will absolutely protect our kids. I love you…I want you to know that. I always have. You are my father….but the kids come first.”

I knew that was one thing my father would “get.” That was the family ethic going back generations. His father gave him hell one time for not looking after his brothers when they got into a fist fight with others. And he gave me hell if I didn’t look after my siblings. So I played his card — take care of the younger kids. And I wanted it clear that this was not negotiable. For the kids, I would fight him, always, even if I hadn’t fought for myself.

My mother said absolutely nothing. Registered nothing. But my father heard me. I had no idea if it would alter his future behavior. Or if he believed me when I said I loved him. But I sensed he grasped that I would never stop watching him where the kids were concerned.

He was also a master of assessing “relative power in situations” and of trying to manipulate someone to his side if he saw an opening. So in that moment, I made sure no chink in my armor showed, even as a part of me…that young child inside, still wanted his love and approval.

As an aside, that part never goes away. It is the ache, the hunger of all those years of not being loved for yourself. Of desperately reaching for any crumbs of his attention, something he would always leverage to his advantage. But still, you hunger for it.

Daria Burke, in her memoir, Of My Own Making, summed up kids looking for love when it isn’t possible in an abusive situation: “…we are hardwired to seek out and trust the familiar, even when the familiar isn’t safe or good for us…We are hardwired for hope.”

On some level, I kept hoping that he might yet change or be changed. Or just stop being interested in any kind of abuse opportunity. It takes a lot of years of therapy to come to grips with understanding the emotional hold an abuser, especially a parent, has on you.

But at least we managed a sort of “detente” after that.

The calm years

The next few years were actually calm by comparison to the past. The kids in the family were all getting older now, which meant they were probably safer than in the past. Also, my parents moved to Pennsylvania to a retirement community, which put more distance between him and the kids. So I was relieved.

For a couple of years, our own family things were going pretty well. We had opportunities for vacations, both with extended family members and on our own. Our son was working hard in school, and while he had some areas of struggle, he also had other places where he just thrived.

There was a period during this time, though, that he became deeply quiet and sad. Almost despondent. And while a small part had to do with school, the bigger part was about a secret he’d kept to himself. Afraid to tell us. In fact, later he would share that he almost thought about suicide. Those middle school years are the hardest.

Finally, in his second year of high school, he opened up and shared that he was gay. I was actually relieved just to know what had been causing him such emotional agony. I will admit it gave me pause, not because he was gay, but because I feared what the world might do to him. There is so much hate out there. I was only sad that this would make his life harder.

But the wonderful thing was that once he opened up to us and saw our love had not changed, he just blossomed. Years of hiding his truth had taken its toll. So, finally able to be himself and be loved for who he was, he began to approach life with an enthusiasm and joy that had been missing for several years.

Also, through these years, I had not needed to work with a therapist. It was a wonderful stretch of feeling “settled” and calm. I actually found myself thinking: Maybe I am finally cured? Maybe this is all over?

All through my adulthood, through all the years of therapy and marriage classes, I had this idea that it was just a matter of toughness and determination. That if I worked hard enough, fast enough, and often enough, I could “beat this emotional burden.” Then, I would be all better, and this nightmare would finally be “over and done with.” After all, I truly hadn’t felt the need to see a therapist. So I started to consider life on the other side of needing therapy.

Until one weekday afternoon, when a wave of intense anxiety and panic showed up…

The naming ceremony

We stood quietly in the Temple, waiting in line as the Buddhist monk approached each of us in turn. We each had a “kata” – a traditional scarf meant as an offering to the monk – draped over our folded hands.

He stopped in front of each person, looked into their eyes, then wordlessly selected a small piece of paper with a Tibetan name on it and gave it to them. Whatever the monk saw in each person’s eyes determined the name he gave to them.

Finally, it was my turn. He moved slowly, with much peace. I was always amazed at how deliberately he executed even the simplest movement, as if he had all the time in the world. He looked at me, REALLY looked. His focus was like a laser boring through my eyes and into my soul. His expression was soft, and his own eyes were like clear, still pools of water. I felt serenity emanating from him.

His scan of me lasted only a moment. But he showed no hesitation as he sought out one particular decorative slip of paper and handed it to me. Whatever he saw in my eyes, apparently, he was very decisive in what name I should have. Handing him my kata, I bowed in gratitude.

It was only after he moved on to the next person that I looked to see what name he had chosen for me. Neatly printed on the paper were the words, “Tashi Dolma.”

The woman next to me saw my paper and said, with some level of irritation, “*I wanted that one!”*

Caught off guard by her comment, I just stared at her. The intensity of her reaction surprised me. It seemed out-of-place for a Buddhist Temple supposedly bathed in peace, non-attachment, and acceptance.

“Don’t you know what it means?!” She seemed even more irritated by my ignorance.

I shook my head.

“Tashi Dolma! Auspicious Tara!! You know, the Goddess of Compassion!”

At that moment, I considered that she was not exactly exuding compassion herself. I just thanked her for telling me, then turned away, actually taken aback at the monk’s choice for me.

I remember being in shock for a moment. This Buddhist monk, who did not even know me beyond what he saw in my eyes, had given me a name that was as esteemed as if he’d named me the Blessed Virgin Mary. In fact, Tara, the Buddhist goddess of compassion, is that equivalent.

Mary. He named me the equivalent of that spiritual mother I had turned to so many times in life.

I reflected on how many times I had looked to her for maternal care. Those years in childhood when I would go to Saturday Confession, then just sit by her statue for a while because I loved the caring in her eyes. The years of struggle and pain in our early marriage, where I cried for her to help me, because I’d had no other mother figure I could turn to. And even now, saying the rosary sometimes daily, on my neighborhood walks. For some reason, despite the fact that I was no longer a practicing Catholic, I still said the rosary as my way to just feel her help in my life. I didn’t feel so alone.

I smoothed my fingers along the paper and over his carefully scribed Tibetan letters and just felt awe. And responsibility.

This was no small thing. If he saw that in my eyes and my heart, if he felt I deserved that name, then that was not a coincidence. It meant I had a purpose I was supposed to fulfill. It meant I had a lot to live up to.

I still feel that way…even though I converted to Judaism, my final spiritual home. I will write about that soon.

But still, even today, I keep in my heart the awe and the responsibility that I felt from that day. Because he named me Tara, Mary, the Compassion Goddess. I can’t waste his faith in me.

She who saves…

Out of curiosity, I just looked up “Tashi Dolma” in Google AI. The words fill me with awe still, as I soak up each one:

“Tashi Dolma (or Trashi Drolma) is a common Tibetan name meaning “Auspicious Tara” or “Good Fortune Goddess.” It combines Tashi (”auspicious,” “good fortune,” or “luck”) with Dolma*(the Tibetan name for Tara, a revered female Buddha of compassion and liberation). It signifies a blessing for a fortunate life, often representing the protective energy of the Green Tara.* 

Tashi (བཀྲ་ཤིས་): Refers to good fortune, luck, or auspiciousness. It is often used in the greeting “Tashi Delek”.

Dolma (སྒྲོལ་མ): Means “she who saves” or “she who liberates,” referring to the female Bodhisattva/Buddha Tara.

Cultural Significance: This name is popular in Tibet, Bhutan, and Himalayan regions, representing a compassionate and protective force.”

I stopped at: “She who saves…or liberates…a compassionate, and protective force.”

If ever there was the purpose of my life, all those years, and now again as I write this story, that line is it. I tried to protect my family, save it. I was determined to give my son a better life. And for anyone I came across who was hurting, I always felt their pain and tried to soothe it.

My journey to find a spiritual path

By the mid-1990s, I had tried one last time to stay with Catholicism. Having a young son, I debated what to do for a spiritual connection with him. So I tried going back to Mass. Despite my anger and despair with God. Despite the priests who had told me as a child in the confessional that my father’s abuse of me was my fault. Despite those things, there was still Mary. So I tried.

But the last straw was the priest in that sermon on Sunday, scolding the women for not dressing up as well as the Baptist women at the church down the street. And then lecturing about the young mother with the baby who walked out of church right after Communion instead of waiting for the Mass to end. I almost got up and started yelling right then, “Have YOU ever tried to sit with an infant in church for a whole hour?! You’re lucky she MADE it to Communion!”

When I got home that day, my husband saw my mood and asked how Mass was.

I just snapped an answer: “No one should come out of church angrier than they went in!”

I felt like that lyric in Sting’s song, “All This Time,” where he asks where Jesus is if He is supposed to be here in the world. While I might have been angry at God, I couldn’t blame God or Jesus for the failings of that religion. And don’t even get me started on pedophile priests…..

So, with that, I was finished with the Catholic Church.*

Well, I put an asterisk there. I was finished with regular church and Sunday Masses with clueless priests. I did continue to search on my own for wisdom that went beyond them. I knew there had been mystics and saints who actually did have a clue about true spirituality.

So, I continued to say a rosary. Looked into the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. Read about St. John of the Cross and his Dark Night of the Soul, as well as the writings of his friend, the nun, Teresa of Avila.

I loved her comment, “May God protect me from gloomy saints!” Her thoughts that spiritual life should be joy, love, and hope, not rigid piety, convinced me that she was a person I’d have tea with now if she were still alive.

Continuing my search for answers, I read the poetic writings of the mystics – The Desert Fathers, the Dead Sea Scroll writings, and the Gospels of the Gnostics – Mary, Thomas, James, and others whose writings never made it into the standard Catholic Canon. Their thoughts went against the political hierarchy of the early Church, so their voices were muffled.

I flat-out decided that St. Paul needed psychological help. He had such hateful views about sex – essentially, get married if you can’t control yourself, but otherwise stay away from it. Nowhere did he offer wisdom on how to properly celebrate an aspect of life that God created.

Re-enchantment and celebration

However, thank God, I did come across the writings of a former Catholic monk, and now psychologist, Thomas Moore. His books, Care of the Soul, and Reenchantment of Everyday Life, were such a breath of fresh air, and a much healthier view of the role of sensuality in the world in everyday life:

“There is no reason why a workplace should not be a place of beauty, intimacy, pleasure, and desire — sexual values…The pleasure question is an important one and could be the most direct route to enchantment, because the line between sex and enchantment is a thin one. If we don’t live in a sexual world, then we place all our sexual expectations on a personal lover, and sexual love simply can’t thrive in such a loaded and desexualized context…in therapy, I listen to people trying to sort out their feelings of desire and sensuality in terms of their spouse or lover. They rarely consider the sexual nature of their work, their homes, or their experience in nature…involving aromas, memories, and sensations…When it is carried out without…power struggles and obsessions, sex can be an exploration of the soul.”

My God, here was a former monk who nailed the innate beauty and sensuality in all its forms and didn’t mention the word sin even once. These things he described, those had been my “Moments of Respite” — those moments where I found something around me beautiful and just reveled in it. Those Moments were the things I’d used all through my life to sustain me in that house I grew up in…through years of sexual assaults by my father, and now, through years of battling him.

My hat is off to Thomas Moore. He helped me put the world and sex in their proper perspective and learn to celebrate even the simplest things in life and nature.

Other dilemmas

As far as our son and church were concerned, we decided to do our own “church” at the table after Sunday dinner. For a little while each week, we’d read something and talk about it. Sometimes it was the book of all the religions of the world. Other times, it was arguing over a passage from the Tao Te Ching. And sometimes we’d watch those Great Courses classes on The Old Testament. Dr. Amy Jill Levine, who did that one, is funny, brilliant, and insightful. We loved her classes.

I continued to search for answers – to God, to my family battles, to the question, “Do I still maintain a relationship with them despite all the hurt of his abuse?” I read through the Course in Miracles book and Marianne Williamson’s book, A Return to Love.

Someone had to have an answer to the dilemma: “How do you maintain boundaries and healthy relationships when your family doesn’t have them? And can you still love them even if you hold them accountable?”

Life is Suffering

At that moment, I discovered two books, A Path With Heart by Jack Kornfield, a former Buddhist monk, and one by Lama Surya Das, Awakening the Buddha Within. They changed my life.

In fact, the first truth of Buddhism that they revealed to me also changed it: Life is Suffering. It was actually a relief, not a depressing thing for someone to just say it like it was. Life is Suffering.

Buddhism summed things up in “Four Noble Truths”:

1. Life is Suffering
2. Suffering Has Causes
3. These Causes can be healed
4. The way to healing is to follow the 8-Fold Path

Jack Kornfield’s book was about training your mind and heart to bring compassion to yourself and others. He showed how to make it through your own “Dark Nights of the Soul.” Kornfield’s approach is down to earth, as shown by the title of one of his later books, After the Ecstasy, the Laundry. To him, a spiritual path wasn’t just for monks, but most especially for those of us dealing with life’s myriad problems.

Covering topics in everyday life, from relationships and sex to psychological and emotional healing, it was like a manual to effective living skills. And he taught how to meditate, and answer the question: “Did I love well?”

Lama Surya Das’s book was a practical guide to living these ideas in the real world. There were great things like, “*As we think, so shall we become*.” And concepts on how to have good intentions and see the world more clearly, instructions on ethics, how to live well and peacefully, and how to meditate. His book opened my way to see the world with NUANCE. Life isn’t black or white, but a thousand shades of gray. It’s not just right or wrong, but what is something’s ethics in a given situation.

This training was what I needed to continue to both love and hold my father accountable.

I spent the next ten years studying Buddhism. Working with different variations of Buddhism over the years, and different meditation groups and temples, I found my way to some peace.

Reading books by Jack Kornfield and Sharon Salzberg, I learned about Vipassana or Insight Meditation methods. Shunryu Suzuki taught me that you keep a “Beginner’s Mind,” — that is, a true master approaches life always as a beginner because there is always something new to learn, even in the familiar. As long as you are open to new ideas, you can learn. Instead, if you think you know everything, you are like a cup filled to the brim with water. Nothing more can be added or learned. It just spills out, wasted. You leave room for the new ideas.

Pema Chodron, an American Buddhist nun, wrote many books in very frank and funny stories. But all of her writing conveyed the importance of “not running away from your truth.” She taught about how to handle “when things fall apart,” and also how to use a “tonglen meditation practice” to send out compassion into a hurting world.

And books by the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, were especially helpful. He taught how to accept ALL your emotions, how to hold your anger and calm it like a mother calming a crying baby. Most especially, here was a man who had every reason to hate Americans for what they did during the Vietnam War. Yet, he spent decades working with Vietnam veterans to help them heal their pain from their war experiences. Just an amazing example of compassion.

The lessons learned

What you think,
Is what you feel,
Is what you do…

(From my journal)

Through all of this work, I learned about unconditional love. About how to hold both pain and love in your heart. About what true “unconditional” love is. And how to walk a “Middle path” in life – neither a doormat, nor a rigid judge. And I learned I could take the pain, but not let it destroy me. The one area I will write about later, though, is the question of forgiveness. That question has a LOT of nuances, so I will write about that topic separately.

As to my family, because I speak my own truths, I suspect I am an anathema to them, and that can hurt. The rules are to follow the family system’s dictates, or you are not acceptable. All those years, his rules meant I could not be myself and be accepted. But through Buddhism I learned that I can, and MUST think my own way to truth.

Through all of this, I came to feel that God didn’t fail me, but that God has been with me through everything. My strength, my ability to still love my family, my willingness to fight for our kids, and even every one of those song lyrics or books that helped me and fed me when I needed support – to me, all of it came from God.

As to the evil done to me, well, my own feeling is that a God who gives us free will in life can’t interfere even if something horrible is happening. The best that I think God can offer is those subtle messages in the moment from “somewhere” that inspire each of us to give the world the best we can, even in the worst moments.

And About God?

Thus, coming back to the question – What sustained me? A world full of sages who wrote books about their own struggles in life and how they transformed hate and anger into love or healing. Many meditation masters. Stray song lyrics. Book quotes. Buddhist Compassion Goddess names….God.

And God would be the next step on my journey to my ultimate spiritual home – Judaism. I would eventually move on from Buddhism alone, because….I missed God.

About that family system

And coming back to my family? No, it has never been easy. And it was not going to be easy going forward, even as the coming next few years would be calmer.

For sure, I would still get comments like, “When are you going to get over this?” Or they wouldn’t really talk to me that much. Or my family would try to pull in my son by making a “joke” like, “Come with us. We know how your mother is.”

And I had failures and reacted badly at times. Or didn’t handle my communications with them as well as I could. But I tried.

The more I studied Buddhism and later, Judaism, the more tools I had to “see,” understand what was operating, and respond in a way that matched my soul. And even now, I remember that monk’s expectations of me as “Auspicious Tara.”

So, why did I stay or return and keep trying to find a way to have a relationship?

• It was my nature.
• It was my early training as the oldest.
• It was fed by stories from Catholicism, like: Greater love hath no man than that he lay down his life for a friend.
• It was reinforced with Buddhism, and its lessons in compassion, stretching the heart, healing the world, and facing truths
• It was cemented by the examples of those like Thich Nhat Hanh and Pema Chodron
• It was my belief that everyone has some shred of good in them
• It was the examination of why my father caused harm, even as I don’t excuse his choice not to try to fix his abusive ways or even admit them
• It was the help of therapists
• It was the LARGE doses of unconditional love, cooperation, and support from my husband
• It wasGod, and especially, Mary

Now, for a few calm years before things blow up….

TRIGGER WARNING – DESCRIPTIONS OF FEAR AND VIOLENCE IN NIGHTMARE DESCRIPTIONS

Unaware

I didn’t know it at the time, but bubbling deep beneath my surface was a huge, roiling well of trauma. And it would be another 10 years, with events in 2006-2009, before it would surface and blow me apart. Until then, I would live “unaware.”

I was unaware that my intense fear reaction to my father’s “look” in the hotel that day was an emotional flashback. I didn’t know there was even such a thing.

I was unaware that the intense anxiety I always felt on Saturdays and Sundays were “body memories.”

I was unaware that the rage that would flare up in me instantaneously if someone held me back even gently, or if my shirt got caught on a doorknob, was a reaction to past abuse.

I was unaware that my intense fear of darkness, of driving on dark, rainy nights, of inexplicable body pain or tension, or a deep sense of foreboding in unexpected moments, were trauma reactions to “things only my body remembered and knew why.”

And I was unaware that there was even a thing called “trauma,” much less something called PTSD.

I will write more about these in the next book section about what I’ve learned over the years, and what it all meant.

But at that time, I was unaware because I was too busy taking care of life. And because medical science itself was only starting to understand all of this.

If there was any hint or premonition of the trauma reaction to come, it was in my nightmares. They really ramped up in this period, with many recurring scenes and themes. While nightmares continue to this day, which I will write about later, there is one difference now — the nature of them. Now, they have evolved to give me more power and let me fight back. The ones in the 1990s until very recently, though, were all about being the victim.

Sleep was no respite

My journal notes from December of 1995 relate dreams of darkness, dismembered bodies, and scenes of my past sexual abuse, laden with shame, guilt, need, and no escape. Snakes started to appear, harbingers of danger. Along with knives and axes.

There were dreams of dark rooms filled with a sense of foreboding and an evil presence. And everywhere, shadowy figures.

And there were many dreams of being unclothed, looking for bathrooms, and only finding ones that were broken, closed, or out in the open.

Also, I had many, and still do, of trying to call someone on the phone, but being unable to dial it right, find the number, or get the call to connect.

The other characteristics of my nightmares were that they were in locations that felt “familiar,” and they frequently started out with a full-angle view of things. But in the most critical moment, the scene would suddenly zoom in on some specific detail that filled my whole view.

The overpowered victim

Many of the nightmares of this time period were about being attacked, unable to get help, or in a place where I was about to be overwhelmed.

On that last one, which I still have to this day, I am driving on roads near or almost in the ocean waves. Walls of water are racing up, swirling all around me, and I am about to be swept away.

As to the former themes:

For years, I had a recurring dream of being alone on a rainy, dark street in the middle of the night, being chased by a lone, shadowy man with a knife.

Another recurring dream had several variations, all set in a house that was supposed to be “home.”

They almost always involved an “upstairs” where I could literally feel an intense evil presence, and I had deep fear to go up there. There was a sense that something terrible happened up there, or was about to.

One time, my father was behind the door with an ax. Another time, I watched as the “unseen” evil presence went from room to room, axing people. I could see what was happening and felt what the victim felt, but I wasn’t the perpetrator or the victim. I was the “camera.” And in one of those, I actually met the killer face-to-face. I knew because I saw it in his eyes.

The most intense version of this “house” dream was set in the actual apartment where I grew up. In the dream, my husband and I were sleeping in the spot my parents would have been, and our son was in my old bedroom. Ed woke up and saw a man heading for our son’s room, so we raced to stop him. But I got separated from Ed. Alone, I headed for my old bedroom. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a dark figure raced full speed at me, rapidly swelling in size until it loomed over and overwhelmed me. All around me was a sense of pure evil.

No one cares

A version of those same “house” dreams ended with the sense that no one cared, and I was on my own.

In that nightmare, I went up into the darkness, again feeling total terror and the presence of evil. Suddenly, I felt someone behind me, very close, breathing. I couldn’t move at first, but finally was able to turn and attack it. I stabbed at it with a sharp, ornately decorated letter opener. I killed the evil person, but the next day, when being questioned by the police, I was aware that the rest of the family in that house was indifferent to my situation. They were glad I took care of it, but then went on as if nothing happened and with no concern for what would happen to me.

One nightmare with a more realistic setting was my trying to get my family to accompany me to a therapy appointment. They kept stalling until we were late. At the same time, I had to push a heavy file cabinet to the appointment and up a set of stairs. No one would help, and no matter how much I yelled for them to hurry up, we never made it to the appointment until the time was over.

Feeling I harmed what I loved

This dream came shortly after the intense last confrontation with my family, when I wrote the article about my father abusing me. I had tried to help the family, but all it did was blow up.

In the dream, for some reason, the situation required that I kill our pet hamster, whom I loved. I don’t know why, but it had to be done. I didn’t want to, and I knew he trusted me. So I tried to make it fast and painless, but failed. Instead, he died slowly in agony and pain, looking at me as if to say, “These hands that used to stroke and snuggle me and that I trusted…look what you did to me!” Even as I wrote this in my journal, I felt like throwing up.

Was this a very early real memory?

The most realistic dream…if it was a dream — I cannot say if it was a dream, or a mix of dreams and early memory — but it showed up in my journal entries from 1995-1997 more than once. In it, the victim switches between my son and me in that role. At times, I am that observing “camera” again.

3/30/95

I am in our old house, in a sibling’s bedroom. I have the sense that something has been done to me/my son. The doctor is there to examine one of us, and I have this feeling that finally, there will be proof of what Dad has been doing.

Mom is there, not believing. I am watching as the doctor does the examination….I (or my son) am about 4-5 years old. The view suddenly zooms in on a vagina….the doctor says that it has been opened up. My mother doesn’t think this is possible as the vagina is too small and says it can’t be done, but the Dr says it is so. I have the sense my mother can’t/won’t understand that this is possible. Dr asks …what my dad does with his penis, and now it is my son answering. He says my father puts it in a little bit and pushes back and forth – so the doctor knows this had to have happened because either one of us, as the victim, is too young to know about this unless it happened.

My mother is still puzzled, and I remember explaining to her (I am the adult observer at this point), with frustration at her ignorance, that of course he could. She was angry because he felt it necessary to get off like that…like it was some sort of shortcoming in him, and she almost seemed familiar with the act, like it wasn’t the first time he did this. But there was no anger that her child had been violated.

Later in the dream, we are in the doctor’s office, and he is telling my mother that I have been abused – there is skin trauma there. My mother is horrified and can’t imagine who would do that

What sustained me?

In the next section of the book, which will be coming soon, and where I make sense of my questions and share the things I have since learned, I will write more about nightmares, trauma processing, and my healing. The dreams are much different these days, but they took years to evolve into my taking charge and claiming my power.

For now, I will focus on completing this section of the book — “The Old Country” — which is my life story. And for now, I will simply say that I feel these dreams were my subconscious trying to hold and process so much trauma that was there beneath the surface. I think the nightmares were the only tool my subconscious had then to try to manage it all.

Looking back at everything I’ve shared in this “Warrior” section — all the things Ed and I were dealing with in those years ourselves, then the family confrontations, and finally all the trauma I was carrying even as I was unaware of it, I found myself wondering: HOW did I sustain?

Because by this point, I was approaching middle-age and growing weary. I no longer felt like the fierce, strong warrior. More like one who’d been through one too many battles. And I was at a loss for what to do anymore with my father and his “system.”

So, next up – what sustained me.

Summer, 1995 – The weekend of flashbacks

In 1993, Tears for Fears did a song called “Break It Down Again.” It was about recognizing that things are not what you thought, but are instead a time bomb building. And your only choice is to face it, and yet again, tear it down and start over….

The same was true for the cycles of Dad’s “promises.” Another family gathering. Another round of “seeming too familiar,” and too “in control of the situation.” Things that just seemed wrong.

On this trip, we were gathering to celebrate an uncle’s anniversary. Everyone was arriving and checking into their hotel rooms.

Stepping out of my room, I encountered him in the hallway. He was smiling, happy, and in a hurry. Commenting that he was going to arrange for a cot so that one of the kids could sleep in his room, he turned to rush down the hall.

“What?!” Fire flared through me. I had to have misunderstood him.

“What do you mean sleeping in YOUR room?!”

I hoped I was wrong. I WANTED to be wrong. I didn’t want to have to fight him yet again…but I couldn’t let this go unchecked.

He stopped in his tracks. Smile gone, he turned and stared at me for a moment. Then he just turned away and walked down the hall without saying a word.

I was reeling. Did I hear him right? I started questioning my reality. Was he just baiting me to see if I would rise to the challenge?

To say I was triggered was an understatement. But I was totally knocked off balance.

Shaking, I retreated to my room to try to pull myself together. I was just frozen, emotionally. I don’t recall if I even said anything to my husband. I just remember that at that moment, I couldn’t think straight. And the rest of that day was a blur.

As an aside, I will note that for whatever reason, none of the kids ended up sleeping in my parents’ room. Whether that had never been the intention, or he changed his plans, I have no idea. All I know is that he refused to even answer me. If you really cared about your family and wanted to show good faith, you wouldn’t walk away without answering a question like that. All of it smacked of mental mind games.

The next morning at breakfast, he glared at me from across the room. Terror shot through me. It was that LOOK. The one he used to terrorize me all those years. It was pure hate.

I froze, and my stomach twisted. It didn’t matter that I was an adult. The emotional flashback he set off in me was so powerful that it was as if he’d hit me. I was staggering, struggling to regain a shred of emotional footing or control. And losing. If this were a boxing match, I was the boxer going down from a head punch.

That weekend would continue to haunt me over the next few weeks. What was he doing?

Fall, 1995 – The agony…and the choice

For the remainder of that summer and early fall, I was in agony. I wrestled with what to do or believe. In talking with Ed, we slowly began to conclude that Dad had not changed. His actions seemed more like someone “testing the boundaries,” manipulating and maneuvering, or toying with me.

I couldn’t shake the conclusion that “the good dad” display had been an act. A facade. The real dad, whoever he was, seemed like a wisp of smoke that floated through your fingers when you tried to grasp his essence. He was a chameleon — something different to each person or in every situation. It was like that advice he gave me years ago in high school: “Find out what people want and need, give it to them, and they will like you.” He operated from the place of “be what you need to be for each person.”

Even as my certainty grew, so did my fear of confronting him. Was it me? Was I imagining it all? Maybe he WASN’T doing anything wrong this particular time…

But then, he never kept his word on doing therapy. He had admitted abusing me. And I remembered the therapist’s description of him as having no remorse and little ability to maintain love.

Also, I had read the research and knew the recidivism rates were high, especially for sexual crimes. With no therapy, why would he change? Why give up the power and the pleasure? What was in it for him?

In one book I read, Father-Daughter Incest by Judith Lewis Herman, I felt I had an answer:

“The offender should never be considered entirely ‘cured.’ Just as the alcoholic never loses his susceptibility to addiction, even after years of sobriety, the incestuous father can never be expected to lose sexual interest in his daughter entirely. Even after he has acknowledged full responsibility for his crime and recognized the harm he has done to his daughter, he will still crave the incestuous relationship and may attempt to revive it in subtle ways. A man who has had many years of practice in concealing, excusing, and indulging an antisocial compulsion cannot develop secure inner controls in a few months of even the most intensive treatment…some therapists have argued that it is naive to imagine that fathers can ever be safely reunited with their families. Even if the overt sexual behavior is brought under control, according to this line of reasoning, the father will never abandon his effort to dominate his family and to control his daughter’s life.”

The book noted that apparent transformations could be based on “…the father’s ability to assess their relative power in any situation and to vary their behavior accordingly.” In an example shared, it was noted that the father “changed only as much as he had to.”

While he was no longer after me, with no treatment, there had to be little to no chance he would stop trying to find someone for his compulsion.

I was at a loss for what to do anymore. I had tried directly confronting him in 1984 and 1988. I tried writing and threatening jail in 1993. And now, again, I had directly confronted him. Instead, he was acting as if he were back in power.

Could I count on others in the family to fight him? I only knew that no one was comfortable when I threatened him with jail 2 years earlier.

Why was it so hard for any of us, myself included, to see who and what he was, and to effectively stand up to him?

Another book, Alice Miller’s Breaking Down the Wall of Silence, offered an answer:

“Without a helping witness, a mistreated child does not regard the damage done…as psychic mutilation…A mistreated child must repress all doubt to survive. If it were to doubt the benevolent purpose of what it suffered, it would place itself in mortal danger….That is the logic of repression: ‘I refuse to know what my parents did to me and to others. I want to forgive them and not to condemn them…They are my parents…’”

She indicated that even as adults, “many choose not to confront the painful facts…People whose only experience has been the wall of silence cling to the wall, seeing in it the solution to all of their fears…”

So that explained why anyone who’d been a victim of such abuse, directly or indirectly, would struggle to fight him. Yet, I did keep trying in spite of my fear. Why?

There too, Miller’s book had an answer: “…if they (the victims) have once glimpsed an opening in it (the wall of silence), they will not endure its illusory protection…Now they wish to save others from the same fate…”

Whatever my fears, I wanted to protect everyone from him. While I still so wanted a healed and unified family connection, I couldn’t pretend he had changed. The more I read, and the more I spoke with our therapist, the more I realized…he was the same. All my previous efforts to get him to seek help had failed. And I had to do something.

The decision

In all of this, I also wondered if I had a responsibility to contact authorities to say I felt he was a child molester. But in discussing it with Ed and the therapist, we realized a few things. It was too late to charge him for the things he had done to me – statute of limitations. Second, he’d never been arrested or caught in anything. Third, I had no proof he had actually crossed a line with any kids, ours or others. And fourth, regarding anyone outside the family, the therapist mentioned that there are abusers who only go after close family members whom they can manipulate and control, but never go after outsiders. So, to call Social Services was not an option. And again, this was a time of little awareness or conversation about child abuse prevention. I was looking for solutions that didn’t yet exist.

After wrestling with this whole thing for over a month, I did the only thing I felt I had left. Write. This time, I was going to write an article for publication. Maybe by telling my story publicly, it could bring pressure on him to finally get help. And, if anyone else out there was struggling with the same problems, maybe it could help them feel they weren’t alone or crazy.

It took me over a month to research the topic. I found expert quotes, wrote very clear descriptions of the ways he abused me, used a pen name, and called the article: “Should We Trust Him?” And my conclusions were a strong, “No.”

I proceeded to send it out to various magazines in the hopes of getting it published. And then, I pulled together my remaining courage and mailed it to my family. I told them why I was doing this and that I was using a pen name. Lastly, I reminded everyone again that he could not, and should not ever be trusted around our kids.

And then, I waited….

The immediate answers I got back were rejections from the magazines. While they thought it was a good piece that needed to be out there, it “wouldn’t work for their particular publication.” I think it just wasn’t the time in the world yet for putting those kinds of words in print. Except maybe in obscure academic circles.

The family responses came a few agonizing weeks later.

It can be dangerous to be a truth-teller

My intentions with the article were honorable. And I had done my best. But my execution had some mistakes, the biggest one being that I shared details others had told me in confidence. Even with a pen name, that was a flash point.

There is also the fact that even just sharing my own details was a flash point. I was speaking openly about our family, even if I used a pen name.

First, one family member responded with yelling, rage, curses, and accusations. My husband said later that even though he was across the room and I had the phone up to my ear, he could hear the yelling clearly.

And about a month later, another followed – less rage but more accusations.

From my journal notes after those calls, the feelings were clear:

“What the hell is wrong with you?!”

“Who the fuck do you think you are?!”

“Why are you doing this?”

“You’re stuck in the past!”

“At some point, you just have to get on with your life!”

“Why don’t you work in a shelter?!”

“You can’t work in a shelter until you fix yourself!”

“But maybe working in a shelter will fix you!”

“Writing doesn’t help anything!”

“When are you going to stop this?”

“You have no right to write this!”

“You didn’t get the story right. Why didn’t you ask?”

“You just want everyone to feel sorry for you.”

“You’re just trying to make money and end up on talk shows!”

“Stop telling me what to do!”

“You’re dragging us into something that is between you and him!”

“He’s changed.”

“He’s never going to change. Just accept it.”

“Maybe if you had more kids, you wouldn’t have time for this.”

“Yes, there were bad things, but there were good things!”

“You’re just trying to destroy him out of hate!”

“They’re just two lonely old people.”

“There are people in hospitals who have it worse!”

The one thing lacking in all responses was any acknowledgement of the research I quoted, or of the horrors in the scenes I wrote showing his abuse of me….

Oh, and my father’s response? Silence.

But there is also the bigger picture

Before I go on, I need a moment to explain things that have taken me years to understand about that whole incident.

The way this played out is all about those family systems. They seek balance. If the abuser throws it out of balance, the rest of the system compensates. And conversely, if someone upsets the balance of silence by speaking, the rest of the system compensates…sometimes with attacks.

On that last point, there is one aspect, though, to keep in mind. In family or community systems, there are many victims. My father had abused me directly. But the damage he did went beyond me.

In any family or community system where there is abuse, anyone nearby is also hurt. Maybe it is because they are silent witnesses to it all, or because they hurt from the ugly energy in the household. Or maybe the abuser’s focus on one target means everyone else is given less attention and love. They may not understand why, but they feel it.

Certainly, my mother reacted with rage when she saw me having to pay more attention to Dad when I was a child. She didn’t get that if I didn’t show him that attention, he would make me pay for it later. She just saw something out of balance, and that the attention he paid to me, she didn’t get.

That said, she was another adult and should have called him on it. But she was an abused spouse, so beaten down and financially powerless. So all she could do was ignore it and glare at me. As to others in the family, they were even more powerless.

The bottom line is that everyone in an abusive household is an equal victim trying to deal with the situation the best way they can. Each person holds trauma and struggles to survive it in their own way. Just because I felt the best thing to do was openly confront and publish, doesn’t mean that was right for another.

For me, it was an impossible situation because there were kids involved. My own actions were going to always land on the side of never trusting him, and always sounding the alarm. Even if everyone else was being careful, I was still going to sound that alarm again and again.

The aftermath

In this case, by the time the dust settled, I was so terrified and visibly shaking so badly, I didn’t feel safe anywhere. After one of the phone calls, I went outside and just sat in the very darkest spot in the yard. Yet no place felt dark enough, isolated enough, or safe enough. I felt like the reach of that system would always get me, no matter where I was, and it would destroy me.

After this particular round, I struggled with thoughts of suicide. And I was thrown back into that place of feeling I had been totally wrong. I’d broken trust, rules, and hurt people. I was wrong. I was bad. I was crazy.

No matter how brave you are, or if your intentions were well meant, an enraged system takes its toll.

My husband changed our phone number so it was unlisted because he saw how afraid I was whenever the phone rang…my dread in answering.

And I feared that my father, feeling he had regained power, could somehow harm us – sue us. Come “get me”? Certainly, that was the terrified child convinced that his power was invincible. But I did change our house locks as my mother had a key. And it was clear Mom was never a protection against him.

In my mind, no matter where I went or hid, I would not be safe.

My journal entries from the time noted my struggle:

“I feel like the child who did something wrong and is frightened…So I’m careful and apologetic…I have to stop coming across as a needy child, but rather as a strong, aware, confident person…I forget that I sent that article out because it is my truth and opinion…my ‘Declaration of Independence’ from that system.”

I also wrote that I was concerned about whether I had caused harm. I even wondered if my father would crumble in this and blow his brains out. But that wasn’t him. He would always try to come out on top.

The bottom line was that yes, I had stirred up a hornet’s nest. I’d spoken out loud. Was I right or wrong? Yes. I may have assessed him correctly. I may have handled it all wrong. Or maybe it was right. Frankly, in these situations, there is no perfect way for any of us in that household.

For example, in looking back, I also realize no one asked: What about him? What about his being unwilling to change? To get help? If he loved his family so much, weren’t we worth that effort? Even some alcoholics decide to change because they love their family. And what about the horrific details I’d shared of what he did to me?

For myself, I only know that my desire to “fix the situation” was rooted in love. I really tried to get him to get help. I didn’t pursue legal action against him. I hadn’t sued him either. And I gave him repeated chances. I did all I could. I did the best I was capable of at the time.

But, those repeating cycles…they just kept going round and round and round…

So, what came next?

One truth in life — things never stay the same.

I wanted to leave a brief update about the piece I have been working on – Battling Dad. It is a piece that covers about a 12-year period during our kids’ childhood.

It is a period that was incredibly difficult, because it was such a painful layer of life, on top of all the things Ed and I were dealing with in our own lives. In dealing with and confronting Dad, it required wrestling with fear, pulling together courage, and living through the flashbacks and other trauma symptoms. It is the reason I call these years of my life the Warrior Years.

Writing about it also requires much thought and reflection. I am reliving some intense times as I craft the piece. It also requires skill, as that time period involves others. Since I will not speak of them, I need to tell the story well and in a way that is helpful, yet preserve boundaries. Hence, it is taking some time. For now, simply know it is coming. The paintings below will be part of the essay. Thank you for your patience.

Just a momentary reflection as I write this book:

As I go through this process — writing my life story, then moving forward through the questions, answers, insights, and transformations — in the back of my mind, I ponder what the best structure should be going forward.

While it is not quite time for that yet — I need to finish this first draft — I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do.

But one question popped up today:

What is the first thing I want to say to the reader, at the very beginning, to let them know what this is all about?

And this showed up in my brain as an answer:

“It Happens”

After our first night together, Ed, who was then my new boyfriend, said to me,

“So tell me about you! I want to know who you are!”

I answered, “You don’t want to know who I am. Let’s go to breakfast.”

Later, after breaking up, and then finally getting back together, I answered him.

“My father sexually abused me for 28 years.”

It gave him pause. Until a conversation with his mother, who simply said, “It happens.”

This book is the story of the journey back from “It happens,” to what happens next…

So, It happens. At the very least, that will continue to guide me as I keep writing….