It was the summer of 1985. I had resumed the dating service and met several generally nice men. I say “generally” because a few were just “non-starters,” but certainly not harmful.
There was the divorced man who spent all of our supper date talking about his ex-wife. No, thank you.
And the one who kept calling me to arrange to meet, but could never quite figure out if he wanted to because he also wanted to go play paintball with his friends. After several rounds of this, I told him to go play paintball and stop calling.
But the absolute “best” of the non-starters was the computer engineer who worked in the same company my father had. We met for lunch at a burger place. I’d been running around all morning and skipped breakfast, so when we met up, I was ready for my burger and fries.
As we talked, or rather, I TRIED to start a conversation, I made short work of my lunch. He was rather …aloof? No matter what I asked, it was one or two-word answers. I mentioned that my father worked at the same company that he did.
No response. Oh, he did note that I had finished my lunch quickly and said, “Gee, you eat a lot.”
I looked at him, and decided to laugh off his comment. Instead, I said, “This is nothing! You should see me with a 2 1/4-pound baked stuffed lobster!
Again, no response.
The dating service told me that he was building his own house. I figured THAT at least might be something he’d be excited to talk about. One of the guys I worked with in the hospital lab was building a house. All you had to do was ask him how it was going, and you were guaranteed 30 minutes of updates. So I thought that might work with this guy.
“I hear you are building your own house.”
“Yes.”
“Well, what is it like?”
Silence. Then he said, “It’s 2200 square feet.”
I must have looked either surprised or disgusted, because then he added the absolute finishing touch:
“Do you understand the concept of square feet?”
So many responses flooded my brain all at once that I was speechless for a moment. The absolute condescension and mocking tone totally enraged me. Four years of college in advanced sciences and…dammit, yes, of COURSE I understood square feet!
Anyway, at that point, I had decided this date was a wash, and he was a jerk. So I delivered my response slowly and deliberately, lacing each word with sarcasm:
“Yes. I understand the concept of square feet…So. Is it 2200 square feet STRAIGHT UP AND DOWN, OR DID YOU SPREAD IT OUT AT ALL?!”
That knocked him back a bit, and he stumbled to answer, giving a little more description. But by that point, I didn’t care if it was a pig sty. I was done.
When I got home, I called the dating service and left them a message: “PLEASE DONT’ SEND ME ANY MORE COMPUTER PEOPLE.”
I had dated a few of them by that point, and to a person, they couldn’t hold a decent conversation. No…more…computer…people!
It Might Be You
My overall sense of well-being was getting stronger that summer. If there was anything I felt at that point, it was just a growing longing for a something a bit more involved. It was nice getting to meet different professional men and learn about them. But…I could feel things shifting in me.
It really hit me one day when I was driving and the song, “It Might Be You” by Stephen Bishop, came on the radio. It was the theme song from the movie “Tootsie,” with Dustin Hoffman. A comedy and love story. The song’s lyrics and yearning tones exuded all the emptiness I felt. If only there were someone to share all the love I had in my heart. If only…
The new “Introduction”
By that point, it was August of 1985…almost 22 months since I’d moved out of my parents’ home and into my condo. It had been a hell of a ride. So much chaos and pain. Destabilizing. Despair. Depression. Trial and error. It was a lot to absorb and process. But I was hanging in there and just kept going.
A couple of weeks after my call to the dating service, I received their familiar yellow note in the mail with a new “Introduction” for me to consider. Someone named Edward Bailey, who lived in West Hartford. That sounded interesting, so I called the dating service to learn more about him.
They shared his age, a bit younger than me, but not a lot. And then they said what almost killed things before he might have had a chance:
“He’s a computer software consultant for a Boston company.”
I gritted my teeth and sighed. Computer consultant. God help me.
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The “family-style” restaurant
I don’t know why I even told them I would agree to hear from him, but I guess it was more like, Who knows. A miracle? But I wasn’t hopeful.
We had trouble connecting with each other at first because he was always on the road to troubleshoot software problems at different sites. And I worked second shift. So we played telephone tag for a bit, leaving messages on each other’s answering machines. Yes, that was the era of answering machines.
But one night I came home, and the message was a bit different. He had programmed his answering machine to talk to my answering machine. It was hysterical. I admit, I was intrigued. THIS computer guy was actually FUNNY.
We finally managed after a couple of weeks to connect on the phone, at which point we talked FOR ALMOST TWO HOURS! I was in awe. Shock, actually.
I remember that I kept asking, “So, you’re a COMPUTER PERSON??” He was so different than any of the others. I figured he had to be on the wrong career path.
And I will simply add, as an aside, I think that in his heart, he is not “totally” a computer person. I think he’s always been more of an artist type, a more emotional, and a sensitive man. But computers were where the jobs and money were, he was good at it, so he put aside his other interests and went into software consulting. I could relate. I wanted to be a writer, but my hospital job paid the bills. Both of us came from really modest backgrounds, and our particular jobs were our tickets to something better. You do what you have to do to survive and put your dreams aside.
In any event, after talking for a long time, we agreed it might be nice to get together. And then I said what almost killed things for him before we got started. I suggested this small cozy place in Farmington to meet at for supper. I loved the place because it was like a diner-tavern, intimate, relaxed…a comfortable place to sit, eat, talk, and not be rushed.
But in trying to convey it was not a fancy place, I described it as, “It’s a ‘family-style’ restaurant.” His impression, which he laughed about later when he told me, was that “family-style” meant it wasn’t going to be much of a fun date.
However, I guess we were both willing to put aside our doubts, roll the dice, and see what might happen. So we agreed to meet…
After the chaos of the winter months of 1984, I’d like to say things quieted down, and I could then just proceed in therapy to full healing and live happily ever after. For sure, at the time I thought it worked that way — if I worked REALLY hard, fast, and fiercely, I could get over all of this quickly and be “normal” and healed. That statement alone indicates just how far from understanding myself and the situation, I really was.
Yes, I had stabilized and was no longer suicidal. And that was no small achievement. But it just meant I had finally landed at the bottom of that abyss, the crash hadn’t killed me, and I was now standing upright on two legs facing a mountain whose top was obscured by a heavy bank of clouds. I had no idea then just how high that mountain was or that I would still be climbing it today.
Anyway, given the rapidity of changes and experiences I’d undergone in the few months since leaving my parents’ house, this seemed like the perfect place to stop and do a status check. As a former lab person, when I feel overwhelmed by so many thoughts coming all at once, or confused about how to clearly tell the story next, I reach for my strongest talisman, and I make another mind map. Then, with all my thoughts spread out on the paper in front of me, I can see what they tell me — both about the things I was aware of then, and the things I realize only now, as I look back.
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To spare anyone the craziness of reading that map, I will distill the essence of what it told me. I think three main things were operating…driving me…in the spring and summer of 1984: Emotional issues, physical needs, and one big problem — sex. Of course. It was the ever-present elephant in the room. But first, the other two.
Emotions
In terms of emotions, there was so much whipping me around. I had just been through a meat-grinder of an experience, riding out the storm of whether to go on living or end it all. Now that I had decided to hang around, there were the issues of how to form a life for myself, especially when you have no idea how to do that.
First, it’s hard to live a happy life without “relationships.” Even for simple friendships, I had no real idea of how to do that well. For all of my life, I’d been cut off from having anyone “close” to me. There had been none of those teen sleep-overs and BFF experiences where you stay up all night baring your soul and talking about “everything.” And it would take me years to understand just how big a loss that was, how it stunted my emotional maturity and development, and how it would drive my needs and decisions very shortly, and for many years to come.
I knew I longed for someone. I FELT such a need for a “mother,” older sister, BFF, trusted confidant, protector, even as I couldn’t articulate that back then. But I’d had none of these growing up, and I FELT its effects driving my actions. I was lonely and insecure, and when I did get a good friend, I clung to them for dear life, desperate that they might abandon me. And I needed outside validation that I had worth, or even to know what was up or down, right or wrong. I didn’t trust friends. I didn’t trust me, even as I didn’t realize it then.
Regarding trust, why would I TRUST anyone after what happened to me? The very people I should have been able to trust most – my parents – betrayed and destroyed that. As to self-confidence, given that anything I had ever felt or thought, my father discredited and replaced with his own programming, I didn’t feel I could make my own choices. And since he raised me to serve him and his needs, I was not brought up to see myself as a separate person. I wasn’t allowed to have my own needs, sense of self, or personal power, much less that I was allowed to use it or know how. I was trained that to follow my own path was hurtful to others and I should always defer to their wisdom.
So I felt the effects of these things and operated from that broken core. I knew I was broken. I just didn’t know how badly or what was causing it, much less that it needed fixing.
In terms of “broken,” I knew I was not a “full adult,” yet. I felt like a baby, ashamed of who and what I was. Not good enough. I felt desperate and like a hopeless case because I was so far behind all the other adults. I was that aberration of nature. I feared that I was so far behind that any normal methods of healing wouldn’t be enough, and worse, that it would show, and others would see my brokenness.
And then, regarding fear, there was one other one…that elephant in the room – sex. I was terrified of men, and especially the idea of having sex with them. Sex seemed like this out-of-control force that caused harm. I didn’t know then that I was deeply traumatized, or that there was even such a thing as trauma.
I only knew I was like this “child-adult,” a child in an adult’s body, desperately wishing she could be like all the other “grown-ups.” They dated, fell in love, made love…were normal. And I wasn’t.
I also didn’t understand then that the programming he’d drilled into me taught me another useless lesson — that all my self-worth was measured by sex. That was all Dad valued me for, and it was the thing he risked everything to get from me. So “sex” had a HIGH value tag attached to it. And from that programming, I equated the ability to be sexual with my self-worth, and with being loved. Without being a functional sexual adult, what good was I?
Physical
And then, add to this volatile emotional stew, a lit match — hormones. I may have been immature emotionally, but I was an adult with a body that had needs. And longings.
I was tired of “waiting for love to find me.” And even if it did, worried that I’d be unable to respond because of my fear. I’d been passive my whole life, always having to just wait for something to change, or wait for someone to rescue me, until I finally learned I had to rescue myself. So I was impatient and determined to take action. Never again would I wait and settle for passive patience.
The “Problem”
So the problem was: How does an adult who is emotionally more like a pre-teen in certain areas, with a background story no one could ever understand, much less accept, and who is way behind in terms of knowing how to find or develop relationships, meet men, and have a healthy, intimate relationship?
“As you can see, I’ve been remiss in my journal writing – 21 months. That last retreat (Nov 80) really did me in, and I just wanted to tune it all out for a long time. But since then I finally got up the guts to go to another retreat…a FEW of them actually. One-day retreats at a new place — The Cenacle in Middletown…”
Looking back, what a difference a place makes…though, maybe it was a difference in the person going to the new place that mattered, too? At the very least, the fact that I sought out a new retreat center in spite of how the previous one triggered me, implies that I was willing to trying again…fertile soil just waiting for the right seeds to be planted?
Either way…this became the turning point of my life. More on this, shortly…
Expanding my skill set
Continuing with the steps I began over the last two years to “spread more seeds in the garden of my life,” I started the new year with an investments course at the local community college. I had managed to save a little bit of money and was looking for the best way to invest and grow it. If I could do that, I might have some options for moving on with my life. I also purchased a 35mm camera and took a photography course. If I wanted to expand my chances for my articles to get published, it helped to provide my own photos for the them.
In general, I was discovering that I loved adding to my knowledge of life and the world. Whether it was for writing, music, art or business, all of them fed my self-confidence and sense of wellbeing. I had grown bored with some of the social things – the bowling league, parties, and trying to figure out who I might date. Taking classes put me in contact with a wider group of people. And even if I didn’t meet anyone there, the classes gave me the sense I was building more and more life skills. Even if I didn’t know yet where my future was leading me, I would be ready when I got there.
The person between
Home was still the same — more and more angry fights between my parents, and Dad was still pursuing me. Even as I was still terrified of his rage, I was equally exhausted with putting up with it all. And so guilty about what this had to be doing to my mother. I found it hard to believe she didn’t notice how he fawned all over me and treated her so poorly. I had reached the point where no matter how he spun it, it just felt more and more wrong. I was the person always between them and I hated it.
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So I made it a point to be busy with my own pursuits, whether classes or personal retreats.
Spending more time away
I also spent more time with friends, though I had to navigate that carefully because if I was out too much, Dad would get angry. But more and more, I tried to get out with friends, whether with people who had similar interests in gardening, homesteading, and raising animals, or another friend whose family had some country property where they spent weekends. In fact, as the weather warmed, I joined them for weekend trips camping at their property.
It was a simple pleasure and so relaxing. Time in nature, campfire cooking, sketching landscapes, and just being away. It was like another world.
And one friend was also a mentor of sorts. Being well-versed in classic clothing styles and makeup, she helped me up my game in those areas.
Of course, Dad hated it when I went out a lot, and especially if I took those trips away. For one, he didn’t like it when anyone “pulled me out of the family circle” and didn’t hesitate to make his feelings known. And, yes, as always, for those trips, he would again put a sexual implication to why I must be going away.
While I had shrugged off that pattern a few times already, it’s only now that I see just how constantly his mind was focused on just one area of life. It was his addiction; he saw the world only through those glasses.
Nova Scotia…and his words
But the two key things about this year were the retreats to the Cenacle that I was taking — even Dad didn’t interfere with things relating to Catholic practice — and a fall trip I took with my parents to Nova Scotia.
First, the trip to Nova Scotia, which was a beautiful place with lots of raw, pure nature and seaside towns. We took a 6-hour ferry from Maine, which was a bit rough. Making that trip in the fall risks more choppy waters, so I was seasick and spent the entire time out on the deck. At least the crisp, fresh air helped me feel a bit better.
On the island itself, we visited a number of museums and toured seaport towns that, in the nice weather, were filled with visiting artists. I could understand why – the landscapes and sea villages provided an infinite number of subjects to paint.
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If the trip had involved sticking to those areas, I would have loved it more. The long drives through gray, lonely back country felt more bleak.
9/24/82
“From our trip to Nova Scotia, I learned several things. The first is that I cannot live in an area that is very isolated. I thought I could make myself fit that mold, but I can’t. A small town, maybe…close enough to a large city so that I can still be in touch with the things I enjoy, but isolated enough to give me peace and quiet.”
Just like that experience during my 1980 retreat when I was kept off by myself and couldn’t interact with anyone, it was clear I was not “hermit” material. While I kept looking at property to buy in New Hampshire or Vermont, more and more I had my doubts that “isolation” was my direction.
As we drove through the miles of countryside, my parents kept stopping to eat at small places with the “all-you-can-eat” buffets that, while cheap, were not the best experiences. When we reached Halifax, I finally put my foot down. It’s a lovely city with many opportunities for fine dining, something I had developed a love for over the last couple of years.
So I made us reservations at an upscale seafood restaurant, and it was the whole deal. Located in a historic warehouse, it had beautiful old stone walls, nautical decor, old wood beams in the ceiling, exquisite food, and an ambiance to match. If the fresh seafood wasn’t treat enough, the dessert was the finishing touch: Parfaits of vanilla ice cream swirled with creme de menthe and fresh whipped cream. Even my parents had to agree it was worth every cent.
But no matter how beautiful or peaceful the place, it’s only as nice as the company you are with. Heaven can be hell with the wrong people. And, again, that old saying, no matter where you go, there you are. Just because we were on vacation doesn’t mean Dad wasn’t still a bear to be with. And then there was how he treated Mom:
9/24/82
“I feel that this is the last vacation I will take with my parents. I need and want to go places on my own to see and do what I want, when I want, without waiting for ‘Mommy or Daddy’ to say okay. I am tired of their bickering — they need time now to be alone with each other and become closer and happier with each other…I feel deep down that I sometimes come between them. Dad pays more attention to me than Mom, and I know she feels it, though she never says it. Dad has always done this…and it makes me feel guilty and angers the hell out of me. I resent it greatly. The time has come for this to cease…I represent a threat to my mother’s self-esteem. He puts her down so much, but shows me attention and respect. I can’t stand it, and I feel smothered.”
He KNEW
But the most telling moment of the trip was the evening we got to Halifax and stopped in a motel there. Mom was taking a shower, and I was writing some notes, oblivious to the news he was watching. At least that is, until he demanded my attention to a particular report.
The newscaster spoke about a man who had been arrested and imprisoned because of “something” he was doing to his daughter. I hadn’t heard the whole thing. What struck me was Dad’s reaction – he was upset, almost…I couldn’t tell if he was scared, or outraged, or both. He immediately turned to me and said:
“Would you do that to me?!”
Having only heard half the story and irritated at him interrupting my quiet time, I just shrugged it off and said no. For one thing, I never thought of the things he did to me in terms of abuse. I viewed our family system as generally okay and loving, mixed in with times where he couldn’t control his temper, and “those things he did that I never talked about and tried to stop.”
The other thing was that in those years those kinds of stories were almost never in the news. No one talked about it. Maybe that’s the reason he was so upset. Someone called it what it was and a man was actually put in jail.
So he wouldn’t let up and asked me again: “Well, YOU were abused! Would you do that?!”
The odd thing, which shows just how much I had compartmentalized, normalized, and minimized the things he had done to me, was that his comment didn’t really register. I was still in that place of, “Well yeah he does a lot of mean things, but also good things. So you just move on.”
But it was his level of upset over the report that got my attention more than anything. For me at that point in time, arresting him for something I still hadn’t called “abuse,” was not in my mind at all. All I knew was that he was upset, so I tried to reassure him. “No. I wouldn’t do that.”
Whether it was my words or my flat emotional response to the whole thing, he seemed satisfied and went back to the TV.
It is only now, years later, re-reading that in my journals, that his words scream at me off the page:
“Well, YOU were abused! Would you do that?!”
There it was…You were abused.
He knew it was abuse.
He knew it was wrong.
He did it anyway.
He was a conscious, insidious, cold, calculating abuser.
It would have been bad enough if he actually thought he loved me during all of that time, actually believed the lines he was feeding me. But he never did. They were manipulation, pure and simple
Despite all his messages to brainwash and program me, in the end, he knew exactly what it was…abuse.
Painting by author
The Cenacle
But if there was one experience that totally rocked my life that year, it was discovering the retreat center called “The Cenacle.” It was not quite an hour from where I lived and thus was an easy place to get to, even for just the day. And unlike the first retreat I had done two years ago, this one did not trigger me at all.
Maybe it was the nature of the Sister I worked with. She was relaxed, friendly, and not pushy at all. It could have been me, and where I was emotionally two years earlier, but I just felt like that previous Sister at the other center had more of an agenda, such as pushing me toward being a nun. That might have been my own fears speaking. But no matter what, this Sister felt totally…safe. Collaborative. In my corner. It was like she was my ally, ready to help me peel the layers back to reveal the real “me” and find my true destiny. She wasn’t determined to force me into a preconceived format for a retreat, but instead helped me to define my own needs and experience.
If that wasn’t remarkable enough, her mention of their July weekend retreat WAS. The topic was “Effective Living.” If EVER there was a topic I WANTED, and NEEDED, and was READY FOR, that was it. I went. And it would change my life from then on.
A “revolution in thinking”
Over the course of that effective living retreat, several rich and deeply empowering statements were shared with us. So many of them spoke to my soul like water on a parched plant:
“Unconditional love is the key. It is love without conditions.”
“You take responsibility for your own choice. No one has power over you unless you give it to them.”
“Inner direction is the key to happiness. Happiness does not come from outside of you, ie, seeking it from others, money, jobs, or things.”
“Self-image is vital to the use of our potential to love and live.”
“Fear is the big key in negative habits.”
“Life can be changed in three steps: Determine what you do REALLY want and need; Get information so you can act; Repeat until this becomes your habit to live.”
“If you’re faced with a decision and can’t decide because both seem right, wait, gather more data, then listen to your gut for the answer.”
“If someone makes you feel guilty, they have control over you. They have power, and you are giving it to them. GUILT IS NOT FROM GOD.”
“God is not about punishment. He is the means to achieve the positive.”
“Never use self-devaluation. We may do stupid things. But we are NOT dumb.”
And probably **the most revolutionary** thing for me, especially coming from a nun:
“God wants us to spend life doing things WE ENJOY, that give us peace. HE DOES NOT WANT US TO HAVE A LIFE OF DRUDGERY!”
THAT had been the terror of the retreat in 1980 – that God would demand that I do something I hated.
Listening to Sister teach about how the different levels of the mind worked and how to change our attitudes and outcomes, I jotted down some things for myself:
“I am completely self-determined. I decide what is best for myself, and I allow others to do the same.”
“There is no knight on a white horse coming to rescue me. I need to rescue myself.”
“I am completely responsible for all of my responses to all persons and all events.”
“I used to think in terms of someday when I get married, or when I finally do this or that. But now I am thinking in terms of what exactly I am going to do NOW. I can’t wait until everyone else in my life has their life in order before I consider mine.”
“I have to NOW formulate a plan of action for myself for the next year, or nothing will change.”
The seminar was not just revolutionary for me, but I think for all the people there. The particular Sister presenting the course spent a lot of time talking about the psychology of the mind. How our thoughts and programming determine our feelings and then, by extension, our choices and actions.
She spoke about “habits,” and the kinds of thoughts about ourselves that we reinforce in our minds. Those mattered, she shared, because they determined what we feel and do.
Concrete actions for change
Other things she spoke of that I’d never heard of: Meditation techniques as a way to center and calm ourselves so we can think clearly. How to identify what goals we feel are right for us and how to bring them about. And something called “affirmations” – positive statements we can use to change how we think about ourselves and our lives. Lastly, Sister gave us concrete instructions for how to do all of these things.
During the course of the weekend, I also met a woman who worked in the field of gerontology – working with the elderly. I’d never heard of it, but it intrigued me, so I jotted down a note to see if there were any study programs available should I want to change career paths. And, I made a list of what specific choices were available to me right now, and my thoughts about them:
Decide if moving to New Hampshire and buying land was really the right thing for me. Given my reaction to the bleak solitude of Nova Scotia, probably not.
Take a leave of absence from my job and join Vista or a church organization geared to helping in underprivileged areas. This one could be possible.
Join the military and travel. This one had lost its appeal for me.
Become a nun and help people as a counselor? This one was a contender.
Write to my old boyfriend and see if we had any connection left or not. This didn’t feel right, and I tabled it.
Talk to a job counselor about gerontology and other career paths. Good idea.
While I didn’t walk out at the end of the weekend with my life all magically fixed, I did walk out with a totally altered way of thinking about myself, my life, and what was possible. This was mind-blowing in itself and a totally unexpected outcome from that weekend.
It was SO mind-blowing in fact, that I immediately knew I needed to do the course again. They were offering another round of it in November, and I immediately signed up.
There was so much “meat” to this course that it almost overwhelmed me, not in a bad way, but in the excitement of its possibilities. Like sitting at a feast with so much food you know you’ll have to come back later for more because it’s too much in the moment. I saw the immense power of all that wisdom and knew in my gut that this could help me change my life. So I didn’t want to miss a single detail.
And it wasn’t so much that it was a religious thing. In fact, the connection with God was secondary to the immense revelation that I had power I could and should claim. Maybe for another person, they would have discovered this in some course in college, time with a therapist, or a self-help group. But this was the option that presented itself to me, and I wasn’t going to pass it up.
A sudden jump forward
In fact, even before the November seminar came around, I had taken some actions that were not even on my above list of choices. One item I hadn’t considered at the time was the simple choice of finding my own place to live. There still weren’t any apartments, but there were houses and condos. And this time, I had saved some money, which meant maybe I could buy something? An investment? That class I took had taught me a lot more about money management. Perhaps having a place of my own was not an impossible dream?
Looking back from now, I was surprised to see just how quickly I mobilized on that idea. On the back of one of the handouts from that first seminar, I had jotted down a bunch of notes regarding a mortgage. I had called a few banks and spoken to one woman in particular who was very helpful. She explained about mortgage points, indexes, and how a variable rate mortgage worked. After calculating costs, that one actually seemed possible.
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Just having this information set me on fire. There might actually be a way to a better life, and it might not even need some huge, drastic move to achieve it. I just had to set goals, gather information, and tap my own power. And it was a tremendous relief to consider that God might actually want me to be happy, not suffer.
The snowball transformed into an avalanche
Suddenly, where before there had been no path, now, there just might be a way forward.
As a final thing the end of that year, I made a note to talk to a relative who was a realtor to see what I might be able to afford. And then I set up more retreat dates for the coming year.
There was no stopping me now. It was like that snowball from a year or two ago was now an avalanche racing down the mountain.
The previous entry was one of the very hardest to write so far. Every fiber in me just wanted to beg off writing it. I could barely force me to the keyboard, and I felt such a heavy load of pure exhaustion.
My husband asked me, “Was the desire to avoid writing because I was afraid to show my shame publicly to my readers?”
I thought that was a good question, so I wanted to answer it here.
My mentor’s question
In reality, at my current age, I don’t really care if I share my moments of shame publicly anymore. What is the worst anyone can do to me? Think poorly of me?
And do I think I am the only person who has ever failed to live up to their ideals and ethics at some moment of their life? As a mentor once said to me:
“Did you expect to be perfect?”
If anyone thinks that this story is of me being the totally strong, ever pushing hard forward hero, who never slipped and fell or erred in choices, they will be disappointed. There are more shames to come, more poor choices. I was not perfect. I can simply say I did the best I could at any point, even in my mistakes. Sometimes our best is wonderful, and sometimes our best is flat-out poor. But I tried. And when I failed, well, in writing what it was like then, I can now see I was simply human, pushed too far.
I was waiting for Dad to pick me up from my dorm at the main UCONN campus at Storrs. My stomach was tight, knowing that, as always, I had to go home for the weekend and back into that atmosphere.
This was my third year of college, the one I got to live on campus, like a REAL college student. It was early in the fall semester, but I was already loving it. I was rooming with a friend from high school and the branch. Her father had set our room up with bunk beds, and we had a good arrangement.
Photo by author
Also, I reveled in being surrounded by the other students, having real connections with the other girls in the dorm, and making friends. There were all different personalities and attitudes, but I was learning how to “work and play well” with them all. They even seemed to enjoy me, and one of my late-night study companions in the dining room would leave me funny notes when I fell asleep over homework. It was all so NORMAL…
Even the campus grounds were a pure joy to be in. A campus the size of a small town. Leaf-strewn walkways, farm land across from my dorm, even a campus dairy with fresh ice cream. Being on campus made home recede into a background a million miles away, and let me lock that reality into a little compartment…at least for the weekdays.
How to make this end
I realized that, somehow, as I continued my education, the whole sexual thing with Dad needed to end. And even his whole wanting to control all my time to be with him. I wasn’t sure how it would work out, but certainly, this new level of separation had to be the next step to finally bringing things with Dad to an end. After all, he couldn’t expect “it” to go on forever, right? I mean, once I finished college — and I wasn’t exactly sure how it would play out — but SOMEHOW, no longer being a student, but an actual adult, it had to stop.
My path to a future…whatever that might be, even as I didn’t yet know.
The expectation that somehow by the end of it, I would be independent, on my own, somehow no longer being abused, and just living a peaceful, “normal” life.
What else could I want?
Yes…..
My own world
The University of Connecticut, Torrington Branch, may have been only a mile away from our new home at “the Lot,” but in another way, at least for me, then, it was a world away. It was a place I could go and “stay all day” and into the evening if I wanted. Classes were not the solid schedule of high school and strict rules, but were on a schedule you set. And you were your own boss. You failed or succeeded on your own, and no one interfered with your right to that. As long as you paid your tuition.
Most of the friends I had in high school had gone away to college. But a few of my friends continued on here and there were new people from the local towns, all of us in the same boat — able to go to college only because this local branch gave us low tuition. We bonded over our mutual situations.
For the past few days, I have been in 1972…1979-1983…1986…then 1995-1997….teens through my forties, the incomplete adult through escape, suicidal to the warrior trying to fight him.
And it has been GRUELING. I would sit in the back room where I write, reading those years, and just reeling from the intensity of it all.
I thought I was ready for those pages…and I AM strong enough, but, oh God, I was still taken aback by the crushing pain in them.
To read the journals was to be back there again…living all the moments drenched in despair, confusion, fighting, and fear.
I had not read those journals since I wrote them. For a long time, they lived in a box in a closet, those parts of my life literally hidden. At some point, knowing I would eventually write this memoir, I emptied out every last box of photos, journals, and life documents, and put them in order.
I flipped through the pages of those books just long enough to see what was there and thus put them on a shelf chronologically. But that was it. I resisted actually taking in the full meaning of the cursive writing on those pages. I wasn’t ready, yet, to see, much less, feel, what my agonized and despairing younger selves wrote.
But the other day, I knew it was time. I can’t just “wing” writing about the worst part of those years. It would be wrong to trust my memory when I have actual, in-the-moment records soaked in the pain and despair of those days.
Every day when I sit down to write these entries, I wear a specific ball cap:
Photo by author
It is my “talisman” of writing power. It is less a reminder of why I do this but more a reminder that I can.
On the especially hard emotion days, though, I have a super-weapon to help me through.
Photo by author, of “Dotty”
It is a lavender-seed-filled otter my husband named “Dotty.” It was a gift from a friend who never realized it would be needed. On those harder days, I hold Dotty against my chest. The pressure helps me feel “safe,” protected, and loved. And on the worst days, I can even warm the otter in the microwave, and it will give off a calming lavender scent. If anyone thinks this is silly, I will tell you that I know better. It is, instead, empowering and a gift of self-love to admit that I am brave even in the face of scary emotions. So, for anyone out there who needs a “writing buddy,” I recommend this.
Time to assess things before the hardest part…
Before moving into the next section, I just wanted to take a moment to assess how this process evolved, how it’s going, and how I am doing with it emotionally.
It was a long hallway. They all were. Our trek seemed endless as we moved from one locked ward of the mental hospital to another.
I was vaguely aware of the noise of the institution drifting in — voices…clangs from gurneys and carts being moved. The narrow walkway was framed on either side with sterile tiled walls and locked doors.
But our eyes stayed focused on that one locked door at the end of the hall. I remember someone on the other side of it peering through the small window as we approached. Words were exchanged. Then there was the clunk of locks being opened.
Closing the door behind us, the aide immediately re-locked it, then pointed us to the left. Three or four empty beds lined the wall. But in the last one, right next to the nurse’s station, was the person we’d come to see– my grandmother…
Painting by author
The impending crisis
The weeks after my grandfather’s death were difficult for my grandmother. They had been married for 46 years. Four children — one killed in a car accident, way too young. A lifetime of joys and disappointments. So it was understandable that the grief ran deep.
Oddly, though, she never spoke about my grandfather again after the funeral. Ever. That upset my mother, who tried to speak to her mom several times about both of their feelings about losing him. But Grandma went silent, as if he’d never existed.
I keep speaking of having to keep my feelings to myself. And that included showing no trace of any negative reactions to things he said or did. I was risking physical injury if I did that. He would come at me in a split second if I dared to make a face.
Drawings by author
And while he “might” not react as badly to angry eyes, because that meant you were “tough,” if you dared to do an eye-roll…God help you.
Drawings by author
The difficulty was that the further into my teens I got, the more my emotions were all over the place. That is true of the teens, even under normal circumstances. But to add shame, alienation, despair, suppressed emotions, and building rage into the mix — that was difficult.
But I wasn’t really aware of WHY I was feeling the way I did. I just FELT it. And so what registered mostly on my face was either surly defiance, but not to him. Or…despair.
Photos by author
The misplaced self-hate
For a long time, when I looked back at my teen self, I often viewed her with disdain and thought, “Why couldn’t she have stood up to him more?!” I was so ashamed of her and for many years, just HATED that part of myself.
Well, in going back over my life through this writing, and studying the photos and paintings, I regret that self-hatred…and how I’ve treated my younger self. Seeing what I had to live with and the mental and emotional twists he put me through, I realize how grossly unfair my self-judgment has been.
Soul Mosaic 