How’s the water?
By this point in my posts — in this “Citrinitas” section of researching and learning — I’ve written a lot about the tools my father used…and how they affected me. But homes are systems, family systems, which means that anyone living in that environment was harmed by it.
Most have heard the metaphor of a frog in a pot of water that is being heated so slowly that by the time the water is hot and the frog is cooked, it never realized what was happening. That was us. We were all living in our “family pool of water” and didn’t even know it.
I say “family water” as a reference to our home environment. And the “water” metaphor comes from a story told by David Kenyon Wallace in his 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College:
“Two young fish swim along together and pass an older fish swimming in the opposite direction. The older fish nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” The two young fish keep swimming for a little while, and eventually, one of them looks over at the other and asks, “What the hell is water?” [1]
You’re in it…affected by it, and you don’t even know that it’s there.
Little bites…
How did Dad manage to gain control over my mother, and then us?
Slowly. Insidiously. A little bit at a time.
Most have heard the story of the frog in a pot of water that is being heated until it is so hot the frog is cooked. It happened so slowly the frog never even noticed.
Okay. So we weren’t frogs. Setting abstract examples aside, I recently heard author James Romm in an interview with Stoicism podcaster and author Ryan Holiday. They were discussing the topic of how good people lose themselves to tyrants, and Romm shared an example given by former FBI director James Comey.
Comey wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times about how the many high-level people around President Trump could go along with outright lies. Paraphrasing Comey about Trump, Romm said:
“He eats your soul in little bites.”
Romm explained that Trump tests the people around him to see the nature of their soul. If he can get them to remain silent in the face of obvious lies, or go along with absurd statements, this tells him what he needs to know. And it’s not about loyalty. It’s about: Does the person want the job more than they care about any of their principles regarding truth and honesty?
In our house, my father would go along being nice and loving. Then he would do something abusive, before switching back to nice. He would cycle through this over and over again.
Each thing that happened, while upsetting, might not be big enough in itself to be worth the risk of a huge blowup with him if he got angry, because then things would be even worse. So you go along letting this small thing go. Then that one, then another and another. Before you know it, there has been a whole series of things.
The real problem was not each individual incident. It was the accumulation of them all into a calculated pattern of abuse. By then, it’s too late. He already had the upper hand and knew he could do what he wanted. Then if you objected, he would come back with “Well, it never bothered you before?”...and suddenly, you felt complicit and at fault. So you stayed silent even more.
Dad ate our souls in little bites.
Impacts – the big picture
I’ve talked about all the individual tools, how he alternated or combined various ones at different times, how he ate our souls one bit at a time to achieve his power. But what did it look like to see it all from the 20,000-foot view…see the entire thing working at once, all the pieces humming along?
I knew we’d all be played and harmed. But so far I’ve only been looking at it in pieces, like listening to one instrument at a time in an orchestra. What did the whole orchestral performance look like?
Sometimes, the only way to know what something did to you…to all of us in that house…and what it might CONTINUE to do to us in life… is to SEE it all of it laid out at once. The whole picture. Yes, for me, that meant going back to “make a mind map.”
I started jotting down notes and phrases of the various things going on: Dysfunctional marriage. Abused wife. Emotional neglect. Dysfunctional parenting. I listed all of the individual tools I had learned about.
But this time, I started stringing all the various pieces together into his full orchestral arrangement to see how everything connected and interacted with each other.
At that moment, I remembered videos of how schools of fish moved through the water. The entire group moves in unison like professional dancers. And each time one fish shifts, the others instantly pivot to match. They keep everything in balance.
Family systems demand the same balance. If my father was in a vile mood and about to become violent, the entire family system went into overdrive to compensate and try to shift him back toward center. Aware or not, each member mobilized in some way to try and thwart the impending threat. As a result, the very forces at work on any one of us chipped away at all of us. And in that same vein, even if my father only sexually abused one of us, all were still harmed.
I kept adding more things to my map as I thought of them, and in short order, the “water of our family system” suddenly came into view, as if I’d added a colored dye to the water.
It was in this moment that I finally understood how far-reaching trauma damage is. And how it wasn’t just in those past moments. I saw on the map how my own self-abandonment led to isolation in early adulthood, messed up friendships, and struggles to move forward in my life. I could see on paper why, without help, I would have never been able to have a healthy marriage.
It was only because I fell off an emotional cliff when I left that house, and, terrified that I might not survive it, I reached out to get right into therapy. It was a life-or-death survival moment of truth. Thank God I did. I wouldn’t be here right now if I hadn’t.
But healing me alone wouldn’t solve the long-term problem. Faced with becoming a parent, I wanted to make sure I did not pass down the emotional wreckage I’d been given to carry by my parents. And that’s when things really started coming clearer. This wasn’t just my individual problem, or even that of my immediate family growing up. It was an issue MUCH bigger than that.
When my husband and I took a marriage skills class, they had us make a map of our family trees going back at least two or three generations. Then they asked us to mark any members with alcoholism or drug problems, gambling problems, divorces or affairs, abuse or violence issues. WOW, what an eye-opener.
Our respective charts practically screamed “family dysfunction” going back generations. It went WAY back and touched MANY family members down through time. With a young child at home, I felt scared. If we didn’t do something about this, it would just keep going into future generations. Both of us were determined that if we accomplished nothing else in life, we wanted to make sure our son would be free of this mess. And it IS a mess if you don’t.
These days, when people learn of a family tragedy or crime and say, “Who could have seen this coming?” my question is, “Without intervention or a major change somewhere, why WOULDN’T this have happened?” It was all in that bigger picture.
Can this be stopped?
Up next — Breaking cycles…but it’s not easy…for anyone.
Note:
I am seeking financial support to complete my memoir, work with an editor, and make a visit to my home state for fact-checking. Your help would mean the world to me as I take this step toward healing and giving voice to my journey.
Please like, comment, and share this post to help spread the word. The link for my fundraiser is on GoFundMe. Thank you for your support.
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