Tag Archive: father


How the abuse affected me -Writing Exercise #1

Filed under: The Courage to Heal — 4 Comments
September 14, 2012

It is hard for me when I think about how Eddie’s abuse affected me.  I hate that his actions have had such an influence over my life.  It has tainted how I view people.  It has made it nearly impossible to trust anyone – even myself.  I feel isolated much of the time – afraid that if people really knew me they wouldn’t want anything to do with me.  Because of what Eddie did I feel dirty and broken inside and that is not fair.  I feel like I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop – waiting to be abandoned and forgotten.  I grew up feeling invisible – I became the perfect chameleon, it’s how I survived.

I am still affected by his abuse today – I am so broken and so afraid.  I cannot function in a healthy relationship without constant guidance and reassurance.  I am afraid to have sex because I dont’ want my marriage tainted by Eddie’s touches.  I don’t want to think of his hands touching me when I should be enjoying my husband’s caress.  Because of the abuse I suffered as a child I feel powerless and tainted and worthless.  My life is still affected in so many areas.  I struggle in my marriage because I am unable to accept and trust love and affection.  I am affected in my job because I struggle to find my voice.  I am affected in my relationship with my family because I am still so afraid of them and I still feel crazy around them – crazy and so small.

One strength I developed because of the abuse is empathy.  I truly have a heart for the suffering.  I have a strongly developed sixth sense about people and their intentions.  It has helped me survive.  I developed a tender and caring heart and a strong desire to fight for the weak.  I developed and artistic eye and a desire to make the world beautiful.  I developed a rich imagination and a poet’s heart.  I escaped into words, books and dreams.  I found a way to wring pleasure out of almost any small thing – whether it is a gift or just the sight of a butterfly.  I am a strong woman.  I had to be to survive my childhood.  I locked myself away inside the warehouse of my mind and kept myself save in there between the dusty shelves.  If I survived this I can do anything.  I WILL make it out of this.  I WILL get better.  I will heal.  I am worth fighting for.  I can do this.

 

Father, I thank you for the strength You gave me to overcome my past.  I invite you into my heart, into my healing, into my broken places and into my marriage.  Come, Jesus.   Make the broken whole again…

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Toxic Parents

Filed under: Healing — Leave a comment
October 8, 2011

I am reading this book by Susan Forward called Toxic Parents (Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life).  I am really enjoying it so far.  I can see a little of my family in each chapter.  I grew up alternately feeling invisible and feeling conspicuous. There was a part of me that longed to be seen, to be known and accepted… yet – there was another part of me that waned to hide, that wanted to blend into the background as to avoid pain.  It was a mass of confusion.   Having on the one hand parents who gave us gifts and spent time with us and took us on vacations… and on the other hand those same parents systematically broke us into pieces.  My father would call me beautiful, then accuse me of being vain in virtually the same breath.  My mother just stood by and did what-ever he wanted.  My father would get angry with us and whip us and my mother would have us go apologize to the man.   I never did understand what my crime was.  All these years later I still feel pulled apart by it all.  Will I ever be whole?

 

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Family

Filed under: Memories — 2 Comments
March 12, 2011

     Talking to my mom today sent me into a tail-spin. I hate that I am so afraid of being “found out” like I am doing something wrong and have something to hide…  I hate that just speaking to my family on the phone has the power to make me doubt my past and begin to see it through their eyes.  I came from a family of “brush it under the rug”.  They are great at pretending that everything is ok and we’re not really broken in the extreme.  Most of my life my dad yelled and screamed and belittled all of us and my mom just took it and let us take it. 

      I remember one night when I was a little girl, my parents had put me to bed.  I got up to get a teddy bear off my shelf to sleep with and had curled up in bed and was just drifting off to sleep when my dad burst into my room, angry.  He asked me if I had gotten out of bed and I told him I had gotten up to get a bear to sleep with.  He asked me if I had left the room and I hadn’t.  He then accused me of sneaking out of my room to watch through the cracked door as my brother changed clothes.  He was crazy angry and accused me of lieing when I denied this.  He beat me with a belt so badly I had whelps from the backs of my knees to the small of my back.  He was in a blind rage.  My mother came in afterword to ask me if I had done this and I told her the same thing I told my father.  She told me it would make things better if I apologized to my father and just said that I had done this thing he accused me of.  So I did and my dad pulled me into his lap and hugged me and told me he loved me.  I don’t even know why, to this day, he would think I would be watching my brother dress or undress or why it would have been a big deal as we were both very young… I was about 6  and my brother was about 9-10.

    When I was a teenager I confronted my parents about this and they both denied the whole thing and told me I must have imagined it.  My whole life they have managed to make me feel crazy…  Now I just want to live in truth and not brush anything else under the rug.   I am through pretending.   I long to walk in the sunshine and feel the warmth on my skin.  I long to live in truth.  I may not be perky and happy all the time, but I am real and alive, and that is so much better to me.

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Damaged Goods

Filed under: Memories — 3 Comments
February 25, 2011

 

You know, I never would have thought of myself as bad, damaged, or to blame if it had not been implied by my father.   After my family found out about that I was molseted by my uncle they treated me like a freak, like a stranger.  I don’t think they knew what to say to me or how to act around me.  It’s like we were all lost.  I will never forget what my father said, though… He had 3 things to say.

1.  Are you sure you’re not making this up.  Did you just want to fit in with the other girls, is that why you said this?

2. Why didn’t you tell us?  Did you like it so much you just didn’t want it to stop, is that why you never said anything?

3.  You are no better than a child molester your-self.  If you would have said something when it happened you could have saved your cousins.

I will carry these scars the rest of my life.  Before this conversation it never crossed my mind that I was to blame for any of this.  Before this conversation being molested was just a bad thing that happened to me.  Before this I had the illusion that my family would be there for me and support me if the worst happened.  This conversation changed my entire life.

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