- Paul started working for a small family business. They had their office party at a hibachi grill this past week. It really was a nice time. Afterwards, Paul and I drove around to look at the Christmas lights.
- I finished reading a book on boundaries. I found out I have a lot of work to do. I find that I feel guilty setting boundaries with certain people (like my mom). Even blogging at times makes me feel guilty. Guilt is a feeling I need to work through to set boundaries and write about my life, but it doesn’t mean that I’ve done something wrong. I never realized that before.
- This is a big one. My mom apologized to me this week. Last Sunday she came by my house, even though we can’t have Christmas and she doesn’t ‘visit’ because of COVID, and asked me why I didn’t answer when she tried to call me. She has a tendency to call at the worst times like when I am in the middle of making supper. She said she was having a hard time and thank God her sister Jan was around to help her through it unlike me. If she left a message saying she needed to talk to someone, I would call her back. This time she came over and angrily asked me what I was doing that was so important I couldn’t take her call. Her visit left me angry and upset for several days until she apologized.
- Christmas lights! I love them so much I might leave some up year round.
- Baking Christmas cookies. Yesterday I made roll out Christmas cookies with icing. Today I made Amish sugar cookies. I found some of my grandma’s old recipes that I will also try out in the next couple days. We are getting together with Cindy’s family on Christmas Eve and I am planning on bringing a lot of the food.
- It’s only 5 days until Christmas and I am pretty much ready for it. Now we just need some snow!!
- Our investment from selling our business finally came through!!! The dividend check should get us through for awhile! I’m grateful to not have to worry so much about money. Arabella just got on the waiting list for residential mental health treatment. Unfortunately it looks like our insurance will not be covering it and it is very, very expensive. It will be worth it if she gets the help she needs and her quality of life improves. It helps to have options available for financing it if we need to. I was really stressing out about it.
- We went out to eat this week to celebrate the investment. We had a really nice family time with our two oldest kids. Of course my mom tried calling while we were out to eat and I didn’t answer. Can’t win them all I guess.
- I’m grateful that I now have over 900 followers. I never thought I would get to this point when I first started. I read a book a couple years back from a blog of a lady that was training to run her first marathon. I thought, wow, I want to try blogging and running a marathon. Now here I am writing about personal things I never thought I would be writing about. And here you are right with me!
- I never thought I would be saying this but I’ve reached the point in my life that yoga and meditation sounds better than pounding my body by doing marathons. While I still want to run, I have no desire to race anymore. What is one more medal anyway? I no longer want to be on stage. I’ve had my lead roles. I no longer want to sing in front of people. I no longer long for high stress hobbies. My body is tired and wants rest. My mind is ready to embrace a slower pace. It’s time to try something new. I’m grateful to be ready to accept the aging me.
Author: Outrunning my demons
Safe at shore after the storm
I had just clung to a lifejacket that was thrown in to help me out. Getting used to living with childhood trauma was not living for me. But I was being dragged underwater again. Were all my efforts up to that point for naught?
I was drowning but I didn’t know if I wanted to swim any longer. It took too much effort. The ocean was too wide, too deep. I lost the lifejacket in the waves that slammed down on me. I couldn’t see beyond the next wave that hit me taking away my breath leaving me gasping for air. I was frightened this time it would kill me but part of me didn’t care.
I was pulling you down trying to stay afloat with the weight I was carrying. Maybe it would be easier if I didn’t fight against the chains of the anchor that bound me. Why keep struggling with not even a rescue boat in sight, not to mention the safety and calm of a lighthouse ashore.
I didn’t care. I went back into the safe place of old inside of myself where there was no joy but most importantly no pain. I was so drenched and shivering that I didn’t notice your tears for me. I didn’t notice as you tried to set me free from the chains that shackled me. People marveled at how I was entrapped so. But their kind words and murmured whispers did nothing to set me free. They couldn’t help you help me.
If you couldn’t help me you might as well drown with me in the drink. Your cries never reached my ears in the eye of the raging storm. Yet somehow I remembered how to keep safe like I did so many years ago. Though trapped, the wall I built around myself was high enough to keep the storm surge out. Yet the water trickled in around me reminding me I couldn’t stay safe inside forever. I kept sheltered in its womb until I saw the clouds part. When I trusted I was safe enough, I pulled myself out of it.
You were waiting for me in your boat. The water was littered with lifejackets surrounding me. I knew how hard you were trying to reach me but I could not see it then. The sun shone on the distant lighthouse as we slowly made our way to shore.
Panic Sunday
That is how I ended up almost having a panic attack singing on the worship team in front of church on a joyous December morning.
I received a phone call from my daughter minutes before the service began. Grandma knows…the police didn’t arrest grandpa…guns in the house…a felon with nothing left to lose…depressed before…we need to get grandma and Matt out of the house…homicide?…suicide?
I received the two minute warning that I needed to go up and sing. I quickly said my good-bye as I threw my phone in my coat pocket and ran onstage. Maybe I should’ve taken some time off. When life goes to crap I tend to carry on with my plans. Maybe that was a mistake.
It was almost impossible to sing praises to God as I imagined my dad with a gun to my mom’s head. Singing may have calmed me in the past, but with each word my panic built to the point I almost ran off the stage mid song. I had a hard time keeping it together as the what ifs clanged in discord through my mind. It was agony to feel this way yet having to pretend that everything was fine. The service was being recorded and was live online. The whole world could watch me freak out.
I called my mom as soon as I could afterwards. She had tickets to see a show with Matt. She was going to pack her bags and come over after she took Matt back to his group home. With four teenagers in the house, I didn’t have an extra bedroom for my mom but she was welcome to stay here as long as she needed to.
I was still afraid of what my dad might do when she left. Should I go over there and try to talk with him? Was he angry with me because my daughter turned him in to the police? I called my brother Luke. He said if there was any chance that I could be in danger I shouldn’t go. It wasn’t like I had a car to drive anyway. The girls were in a matinee performance at the theater and needed to use my car since Paul’s truck broke down the day before.
Luke said he was going to give our dad a call and talk to him about Jesus just in case it was their last conversation. He said he could never forgive himself if he didn’t reach out. He also said it was time to tell our brother Mark and he would make that call as well. I decided it was time to tell my adult son Alex. Alex was very upset about the news and said he never wanted to see his grandpa again.
I decided we needed to keep the doors locked day and night just in case grandpa tried to come over and retaliate. I didn’t feel safe. We were on high alert. Later that evening my mom came over. I was relieved that she was safe. There was a lot of crying and whispered conversations behind closed doors. It was obvious that something was wrong. I told the children and people somewhat close that my parents were thinking about getting a divorce. It wasn’t an outright lie because it was possible, but it was far from the truth of what was really going on…
The day after the police came
The day after the police came was the large extended family Christmas party. We showed up a little late since we were having vehicle trouble. In fact, Paul dropped us off at the party while he tried to figure out what was wrong with his truck.
When I walked in I saw my mom hugging a relative and crying. I was looking for signs that she knew something was up with my dad. Crying at a family Christmas party was not outside of the norm. It happened so often as a kid that relatives prompted me to be a good girl and take care of my mother.
My dad didn’t show up to the Christmas party. That wasn’t out of the norm either. He didn’t show up for Thanksgiving at my house. He didn’t really take an interest in family gatherings. Sometimes he stayed home with Matt so he would have a good excuse not to go. He couldn’t use Matt as an excuse anymore because Matt was there and no longer violent thanks to anti-psychotic medication.
I wasn’t feeling very festive last year and really didn’t want to go. But it was important to keep up the appearance as if everything was normal. This was not unusual for me either. Trying to muster up some fake smiles while my life was falling apart. Yeah, just found out my dad is a pedophile which triggered traumatic memories but hey life is great because it is the Christmas season. I’m good, how are you?
On a quest to find vehicle answers, Paul’s truck broke down and we had to have the vehicle towed to a garage. Perhaps this could be my excuse for the forced smiles. Yeah, I’m worried about something else.
Something seemed a little off with my mom. She said she needed to talk to me about something important. Did she know?
We ended up getting a ride home from some relatives that lived near us. I tried calling my mom later but she didn’t answer. She called me back when she got home but didn’t talk about anything important. What was going on?
Gratitude week 50
- My husband got his braces off this week. Now too bad he has to wear a mask…
- I’m grateful for a warm fire on a cold day.
- I’m grateful for pajama days.
- I’m grateful for my new followers (and the ones who have stuck with me for awhile).
- I’m grateful that I was able to do a lot of writing this week. It’s been a rough week emotionally though. I’m not sure if it is because I’ve been thinking and writing about things a lot…or that this time of year is triggering…or a massive amount of stress…or that we are not getting together with family for the holidays this year. But here I am with the hope that things will get better…
- I’m grateful for my husband’s work Christmas party tomorrow so I have a reason to get dressed up and polish my nails. It’s hard to want to look nice when so many plans have been cancelled. It’s like, why bother? Pajama day every day…well not quite but you know what I mean.
- I’m grateful for Christmas lights.
- I’m grateful for my grandparents. Today it’s been 20 years since my grandpa passed away. 20 YEARS! I lit some candles for him and told my kids a few stories about him.
- I’m thankful that my son installed some sort of music app on my computer. I’ve always wanted to learn how to make my own music. I’m thankful that my kids can help show me how to use it because it seems very challenging.
- I grateful for a really good appointment this past week with my counselor.
Clipped wings
I was my mom’s best friend. There was nothing that happened in our house that I didn’t know about. In fact, I was an active part of the decision making. When my dad wasn’t terrorizing the house, he neglected us. He was angry if he had to take any responsibility at all for us and would often take it out on us. Most of the time when he wasn’t roaring or raging you could find him in front of the TV.
As next in line, my mom asked me. My mom couldn’t decide what to do with our dog when her intestine twisted. The vet took x-rays and said we would be taking our dog home to die a painful death. My mom couldn’t decide what to do. I wanted to take the dog home. As the night progressed, the dog’s suffering increased. She asked me if we should have the neighbor come over and shoot our dog. I told her I didn’t want that because the neighbor shot his puppy for chasing the chickens. I didn’t want him anywhere near my dog. Maybe our dog would live. I made the wrong call because I was too immature to make adult decisions as a child. Meanwhile, my dad laughed and talked with his friends in the other room.
At 6 years old, I was responsible for watching my 3 younger brothers swim in the lake. My parents wanted some time to themselves in the cabin. My brother almost drowned. I froze as he flailed and choked. I wanted to scream but I couldn’t move. I was not mature enough to handle the responsibility I was given. Yet somehow I felt like I was responsible and had to control the outcome of something I was incapable of doing.
I was responsible to comfort my mother after my dad was mean to her. I was responsible to help her feel better if she had a rough day with Matt. I listened to her and held her as she cried. I told her everything would be okay. Yet I was never comforted.
I was responsible for the outdoor cats. I fed them and cared for them. When one cat was a bad mom and let her kittens freeze to death, it was my responsibility to bury the kittens. I dug a hole, but after touching the first cold kitten I screamed and threw the box of dead kittens into the tall grass. It was horrifying.
My brothers and I had to do a lot of chores like hauling wood. One time I almost hurt myself carrying the biggest log. After that, I was no longer allowed to do men’s work. From that day on I was in charge of laundry, cleaning the kitchen, and when needed meal prep. I was allowed to play in my room when my brothers worked outside. All the while my dad called them lazy and yelled at them when they didn’t work hard enough. It always made me feel guilty watching them suffer.
I was responsible to care for my autistic brother. He was mean to me but I was responsible to make sure no one was mean to him at school. I helped shower him and make his meals. I was his second mother. It was my responsibility to take care of him forever. My mom didn’t want me to go far away for college. She was jealous when I had other friends because she was my best friend. She pretty much clipped my wings before I figured out I could fly.
When my brother Matt was at his most violent, my mom pulled us all out of school. I was home schooled from 8th to 10th grade. I rarely left the house. COVID was not the first time I lived in isolation. It was hard because my friends went on with life without me. I should’ve been allowed to be a child. In some ways I thought I was cool. Who doesn’t want to be an adult when they are a child? As an adult I wondered what it would be like to be a child. But it was too late to go back. I missed out on the magic and wonder. My biggest regret was that I was never allowed to live. I didn’t even realize it until it was too late.
I decided from a young age that my own children would only be allowed to be children. I didn’t want them to have any responsibilities or many chores. I was going to protect them by not telling them anything that was going on in the house. I was going to try to hide all problems from them and deceive them into believing the world was a good place. I took on that responsibility because it was already my burden to bear. I couldn’t break free from feeling like I was responsible for things I had no control over. I didn’t want my children to feel like I did.
The day the police came
The day the police came was a day like today, a Friday afternoon in early December. It was the opening night for the local community theater show that my daughter Arabella and our foreign exchange student Clara were performing in. The following day was the extended family Christmas party.
The original plan was that my brother Luke was going to be coming home to visit my parents with his family. They were going to see the show and go to the Christmas party. But thankfully my brother cancelled those plans after he was diagnosed with kidney disease a couple weeks before. The doctor told him he needed to try to take it easy and cut back on some of the stress in his life. He decided to stay home instead. Otherwise he might have showed up as the police arrived.
The police knocked on the door asking for my dad. My mom said he couldn’t come to the door because he had a hard time getting around. Several officers came in to talk to my dad, several more to talk to my mom, and another to search my parents house.
I thought my dad was going to be arrested when the police came. Instead they took all the computers in the house. They also went through my mom’s ipad and phone which were as expected clean.
My brother Matt was home for the weekend too. He wondered why the police were at their house. My mom told him that they were checking to make sure the computers were safe. Surprisingly, the answer seemed to placate Matt. He didn’t seem to notice that our mom was crying. He wasn’t shocked or angry. He somehow believed that several squad cars can show up at someone’s house just to make sure everything was safe. Life went on as normal for him.
That night my mom attended the show. My best friend Cindy and her family took my brother Luke’s tickets. My mom carried on as usual. I acted like everything was fine as well. We rivaled the community theater performance.
I didn’t know that the police arrived at their house until a couple days later.
Too toxic
My mother; the martyr, the saint. She put up with a lot of crap. But she was never at peace, never carefree. Her jaw clenched. She never smiled. Yet she was always beautiful in a sad way.
I don’t think my mother is sane.
We used to have Christmas in our house. But that ended when Matt became allergic to the tree. We couldn’t have a tree in our house. We couldn’t have Christmas at our house. The only thing that remained was a strand of broken colored lights on the garage roof. Then my mom told my grandma she couldn’t have a tree in her house that year either.
My mom told my aunt she couldn’t mop her floor with chemicals if we were coming over. That was simply too toxic for Matt. My mom was the one who had us bathe in apple cider vinegar as children. It was to get the toxins out from the Agent Orange because my dad was in Vietnam. That was why we were all sick, especially Matt.
That was why we didn’t drink Kool-Aid. Too many toxic artificial flavors and colors. That is why the air purifier ran both night and day. Too many toxins. That was why they ripped out the wood stove. That was why our house was always cold. The new curtains were tore down and replaced with old holey blankets.
That is why we couldn’t have cars parked in the garage. We had to be careful of the breezes. If the wind was blowing a certain way, the windows had to be shut because of the auto fumes. If the farmers sprayed their fields, we had to evacuate within the hour while Matt wore his charcoal mask.
We brushed our teeth with baking soda and peroxide. We couldn’t wear anything with a scent, certainly not perfume. Newspapers weren’t allowed in the house. The print was too toxic. No markers, no nail polish…no, no, no, NO! No fun. No living.
I thought this was how everyone lived, in fear of toxins.
My mom called the farmers and yelled at them for spraying their fields. She called the county and yelled at them for spraying the ditches. She called the school and yelled at them if they gave Matt ‘toxic’ foods. His diet was so complex only she could figure it out.
My mom confronted my dad when he came in the house wearing his snowsuit after snow blowing the driveway because of the exhaust fumes. But she never confronted him for hurting their children or regarding his addiction.
Today I no longer live in fear of toxins. It’s the toxic people who scare me.
What? A crime
After a sleepless night, I decided to call my therapist’s office first thing Monday morning. What could it hurt? Surprisingly, she answered the phone. She was able to fit me into her schedule later on that day.
I was a mess. I was worried that all the healing work I had done would be undone with one swift traumatic blow. I had been in therapy alone for a couple months. I just started seeing a wellness nurse for my health issues. Would I fall back into a sick game of trauma Tetris?
My daughter was going to report my dad’s crime that night. I felt anxious all day. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t settle down. I couldn’t believe what had happened and was trying to process everything.
I did feel a little better after seeing the therapist. It’s totally crazy, but the only people I feel that can understand me are the people highly trained in dealing with trauma or have been there themselves. Those people are hard to find and are so terribly broken.
The following evening my husband and I met with our pastor and his wife. Our pastor said my ultimate goal was forgiveness. But I was not even at step one, acknowledging the fact that my dad is a pedophile. Anger burned inside my heart for my pastor. I felt jealous because he had the type of parents I wanted. I wanted more than anything to belong to a healthy loving family. He had no clue what it was like to deal with trauma. It wasn’t his fault, but I resented him for it. Although, in his defense, he had no idea what he was getting himself into and wasn’t trained for this.
No one really knows what to say. I don’t either. When your good godly father dies, I don’t know what to say to you. It seems insensitive to say that I wish I had a father like yours. It doesn’t matter if he is dead. Many times I wished my dad was dead. Then, perhaps, this hell will end. But will it if it is stuck inside of me? Maybe I will always carry this baggage long after the train has left. I suppose I will have the answer someday, but it doesn’t make me feel like a good person right now.
Later that evening I received a phone call from the police. By then my nerves were shot. The officer asked me a lot of questions. What are the birth dates of your parents? Do your parents own guns? Did anyone else live in the house and have access to the computer besides your mom and dad? I told the officer that my disabled brother lives at home on the weekends. But I also told him that he cannot read or write which crossed him off the suspect list. I nervously answered all the questions asked of me.
The officer asked me to not have any contact with my parents until they talked to them. I thought I would be getting a call from my mom after my dad got arrested. But that is not what happened.
Survival; the lies I told myself
I’ve been depressed since I can remember time beginning. Maybe you would be too if you lived in my shoes. I told myself a lot of things that weren’t true. Survival, I thought childhood would never end. I said things to myself like at least I wasn’t sexually abused. If I was I wouldn’t have the will to live. Yet fuzzy memories tickled my mind. But if I couldn’t remember, it didn’t exist. Right?
It was bad enough that my psychotic brother terrorized our house. He was small and by any means did not look threatening. But when the voices in his head called to him he would fly into a psychotic rage. He clawed up my arms, punched, head butted, gave black eyes and bloodied lips, grabbed onto hair, twisted arms, kicked with an adrenaline rushed rage. I was not comforted, he was. I was told how lucky I was to be normal. I was punished if I wanted to retaliate or defend myself. Matt couldn’t help what he did, but I could.
When I was attacked at times I almost went into a meditative state. I repeated the mantra over and over in my head that this abuse was making me stronger like exercise. I told myself that all of the pain inflicted upon my body was good for me. If he punched and bruised my arms I thought in my head that my pain came from lifting weights. I was developing strong muscles and not being beaten and bruised. I think that is why part of my early healing involved marathon running and brutal body breaking workouts. My mind was already trained.
I never learned that touch could be comforting. Not only did my brother physically abuse me and those I loved, my father did as well. He would often squeeze my mother too tightly until she cried out in pain. My little brothers and I would try to get him off of her while he swung at us. I remember him hitting and spanking some of my brothers. He would tickle us until we wet ourselves all in the name of fun. Sometimes he would play ball with my brother for fun too. He would chuck the ball so hard he would hit my brother with it. The game usually ended when my brother came in the house crying while my dad called him a baby. But my dad never flew into a psychotic rage like Matt.
The most difficult thing to endure with my dad was the emotional abuse. He often told us how stupid we were. He had the innate ability to find the things we were most afraid of to terrorize us with. He would taunt us and encourage our siblings to laugh at us as well while we whimpered in fear. We were so frightened by our dad that we didn’t want to be left with him without mom because then he was merciless. If we tried to stand up for our siblings, we were targeted next.
My dad was evil. Does that make me evil too? The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I tried to be good like my mom. She would take us to church. My dad would laugh about this as well. God was a big joke to him. But it was a place I could go he couldn’t reach.
I never learned to be comforted by touch or encouraging words. In fact, quite the opposite. Touch and nice words made me feel uncomfortable. It was foreign to me. No one ever said they were proud of me. No one ever said it was okay to feel angry when my brother hurt me. I could never say ‘no’ to make it stop. I wasn’t protected. Nothing was entirely safe, not my body and not my mind.
I couldn’t control the things that happened to me. But I could control myself. I could convince myself of the lies I needed to tell myself in order to survive. It wasn’t that bad. A good beating made me stronger. I should’ve noticed the signs. I was the one that didn’t protect myself. It was my fault.
But hey, at least I wasn’t molested. What I can’t remember doesn’t hurt me. Right?
Outrunning my demons 