Judgment for Patty

Patty was one of my dad's regular visitors.  One day coming home from school, on my way into my room, I glanced into my father’s open bedroom door.  She was there, standing in the mirror, naked.  I paused and stared at her breasts.  I remember thinking they were beautiful.  And almost immediately I felt a fear that I might be discovered, averted my eyes and continued walking.  She was there from time to time.  He must have met her in town that day.  At least he would be occupied. I remember wondering:  "Does God disprove of me for lusting after her.  I know my dad would.  I can never admit this.  What if he saw me?  What if he questions me?"

Before doing my homework, I spent the next few minutes practicing my surprised face which I would use later in the face of any accusation.  He would often question me about my potential attraction to the women he fucked.  I see now he was insecure.  Then, I only feared his anger and planned my words and facial expressions to keep him calm.  Homework.

Later that night, the yelling began, followed shortly thereafter by the cries of pain and fear.  I could here the impact of his blows. I used to judge the women for not working harder to keep him happy.  Could they not see how I handled him?  Did they not care if they were beaten? Or was I wrong? Was the situation actually much more helpless and hopeless than I realized?  Could I face such sober reflection?  No.  That’s why I turned my thoughts to their mistakes. Whatever was happening was not my fault.  I went to bed and tried to sleep.

In my adult life, I have carried his fears into my romantic relationships.  I suppose I fill the same “beating-time” role, sitting in my room, feeling frantic, trying not to look at those feelings.  Look how we all do that: blame and judge, skipping introspection, denying personal experience with the same kinds of failures. Relationship problems are mostly discussed in terms of whether we have found the "right person" as opposed to being seen as prompts for self-reflection and personal growth. I'm not blaming anybody. Self-reflection and growth are hard.

Should I have done something differently? I prayed. Jesus didn't help Patty escape. Jesus helped me escape, but in a different way than I ever would have imagined.  I always wanted Him to show up and magically change my whole life.  I wanted anyone to show up and change my whole life. Now that I'm telling my story publicly, I realize why I was right to keep silent as a child.  People don't want to get involved any more than Jesus does. People just want to ask why I didn't see how to handle my dad.  Of course, they mean well, and their ideas about what might have worked for me probably sound reasonable to them, in their own imaginations.  The bottom line is this: I didn't do anything to help Patty escape. I feel guilty about that.  Likewise, no person did anything to help me. I wonder if people feel guilty about that. Is that why they tell me what I should have done differently.

I think it's more useful to focus on what we can do now. I'm going to try my hardest to face the difficult memories and suppressed emotions of my childhood. Whether you support me in my healing or insist that we rewrite history with what "should have happened," the choice is up to you. How does my story make you feel? What would you like to see changed in this world?

© 2013 Ernest Samuel Christie III

...the Son will reveal Him

"All things are delivered to me of my father: and no man knoweth the son, but the father; neither knoweth any man the father, save the son, and he to whomsoever the son will reveal him." -Matthew 11:27

Adult life is not like I imagined it would be.  Honestly, I can’t say that I had much imagination for adult life when I was a child, not realistically.  I was a pirate ship captain or a movie star, nothing close to the stressful mediocrity I experience now.  Accomplishing great things and resting in my success has given way to day after day of bills, feeling stuck in undesirable jobs and social engagements, and countless hours wondering what to do with my life.  Of course a child cannot prophetically imagine the details of his future life as an adult, but one failed dream haunts me most, the dream of peace.  Going through hell as a child, I always longed for the day when I would be at peace in my world.  The shattering of this illusion has been the worst.  I can handle not being a hero in some grand play.  I guess, even,  then, I knew I wouldn’t really live out my grandest fantasies.  Still, all that day-dreaming had a common thread.  I would grow up and my childhood would be over.  It didn’t turn out that way.

“All things are delivered to me of my father..” rings true today.  My daily life is plagued by insecurities and painful emotions, triggered by everything routine.  This afternoon, the rug beneath my feet is one I’ve never touched.  I don’t know when it was made, and I’ve lived 41 years without ever seeing it.  Yet, the sight of it, the design, the level of soiling, and a couple of specks of food lying precariously in plain view all conspire to take me back to some vague re-experiencing of sitting or standing, frozen in fear while my father yelled at me and beat me.  I have trouble recalling the things that made him angry and the things he said.  All of that was so long ago, but in this way, my father never left me.  Escape never entered my mind.  I have escaped, but he hasn’t left. For many years, I was helpless, waiting for him to stop.  I’m still feeling that way.

“All things are delivered to me of my father..”  The man that I am, in many respects, is a product of my childhood.  My attitudes, fears, expectations, interpretations, and delusions all had their beginning in the forge of that time when I was his son and he was my father.  Often, more so when I’m excited and animated, those who knew us both will halt me to point out that I remind them of my father.  People will argue about nature and nurture and which should be blamed or credited for current situations of all kinds, but there is no doubt for me that my father shaped the man I am today.  However I am, that experience was pivotal in making me this way. Odd as it may sound, Dad would be very proud of me if he could see the man I've become.

“All things are delivered to me of my father..”   On every level of discussion, things come from the place they came from and resemble those places.  All children are different, as any parent with more than one child will quickly tell you, but no child is unaffected by their “family of origin.”  The journey of life leaves it’s mark upon the traveler.  No matter where we go, there we are.  No matter where we go, where we’ve been has left an indelible mark. We experience life in an endless string of present moments, and we carry those experiences with us.  We are shaped by our lives. In Childhood, when emotions are raw and understanding undeveloped, when the words and thoughts of our caregivers are everything we have to work with, the marks left upon our souls stay with us throughout our lives.  

"All things are delivered to me of my father: and no man knoweth the son, but the father; neither knoweth any man the father, save the son, and he to whomsoever the son will reveal him."

I got what I got growing up, and it's my story to tell.

© 2013 Ernest Samuel Christie III

What? Me love my enemies?

"If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?" -Jesus

"I only hit women and 12-year-old boys!" my father declared with a proud grin, passively acknowledging one of his flaws.  He had many, as do we all.  I guess we don't all kill people. Well, we all go about our selfish, daily lives while people are killed everyday.  What do we actually do to save anyone?  What effort do we actually make to change things?  Seriously, how many of us can even face who we are long enough to admit that our lives are completely about us?  Some people hurt others with fists and weapons, some people hurt others with a snap judgment and casual disregard.

So, like Dad and all of you, I also have flaws.  I've spent a lifetime beating myself up for mine, everything from watching helplessly while he killed his girlfriend to not making everyone I meet happy with just the right word or smile.  I was beaten, and I learned to pick up where Dad left off, emotionally, physically, sexually, you name it.  Maybe this self-abusive pattern is the biggest flaw I have.  What's underneath it?  I always like to ask that question.  I've learned, writing and talking about the traumas of my youth, that everything is not always as it seems.  I've learned that there is often more to every story, just under the surface, waiting to be discovered. At this point, I don't know if that's true or just another flaw.  Maybe I haven't learned as much as I think.  Another flaw!!  Ha ha!  Back then, I didn't know the difference in my father's words and absolute truth.  Likewise, outside of the home, I interpreted all interpersonal difficulties as a sign of my own failure as a human being.  So, for most of my adult life, I've wasted my mental energy worrying about how other people felt about how I was doing, living in this culture, appearing to assimilate, while my own merciless stone wheels of shame and pain slowly ground my soul to powder.

In the last few days, I've gotten some criticism for my blog and even my use of my legal name.  In sitting down to write, tonight, my first inclination was to answer those who judge without knowledge.  My emotions are charged over a couple of probably "well-intended" folks who really don't understand who I am or what I'm trying to do, but, still, the urge to respond to them is overwhelming. Something about having my character attacked triggers my PTSD from years of character assassination, alone with my dad.  No matter how he approached me, I had to answer.  As an adult, I don't have to answer anyone.  Sometimes, in the heat of traumatic regression, I forget that.

However, sometimes, I like to react, even if it does come from a place of triggered traumatic memory.  Maybe it feels good to let some anger out.  Maybe that's why my dad did it.  Maybe that's why some people choose to criticize my choice to share the "evil" of my childhood.  Maybe that's why I'm answering the peanut gallery now.  Here goes:

Should I just move on with my life? What life?  I don't know what it's like to be alive without childhood terror playing in the background of every activity, infecting every relationship. Until my dad died, six years ago, I didn't even know I had been traumatized.  I got on with "living my life" when I moved out of his house, thinking the past was behind me.  Today, I realize that putting the past behind me is a long-term process which requires understanding which parts of it are still with me.  One can't let a thing go without first accepting that it is still there.  Denying what I cling to with my own hands is the most childish of denials.  So, to those who think I am drudging up the past unnecessarily, I say thank you for your comments.  What else can I say?  Mental toddlers lying about the object they hold behind their backs rarely listen to reason anyway.

I don't hit anyone with my fists, but I'll go for the throat conversationally. Sure, I might be demonstrating my own casual disregard and acting out my traumatic training, but I never draw first blood.  My dad, my critics, and me could all have made the world a better place by listening to Jesus.

©Ernest Samuel Christie III

He never let himself vomit.

"God: out of mind? Out of sight!!"

So read the poster in my mom's dorm room at Catholic boarding school.  She was a 16-year-old atheist and my dad a 23-year-old, narcissistic Jesus freak when they met. For drugs? For sex? For the cruel destinies of broken hearts, drawn to deadly tragedy for the promise of healing and the dream of love?  I can still hear his well-practiced versions of these stories, stories of how I came into the world.  I won't bother to quote him here.  The story of how they met was always his prelude to her godlessness and the brave work of angry violence he had to embrace in order to lead her to true salvation in Jesus, always told in a drunken stupor, during that short window of tender albeit panicked concern for my soul sandwiched between threatening to rape me and passing out.

I watched his purple, trembling lips struggling to form words punctuated with his tears and heartfelt pleas for honesty.  Honesty is hard, especially when an unsatisfactory disclosure on my part usually lead to a beating, if he hadn't passed out yet.  I remained silent, unless he pressed me.  I understood his premise, and it made sense. Apparently people lie and work to divide family members.  I had not discovered this yet for myself.  Still, if anyone was going to try to cause trouble, I wanted to be as open as possible.  Mainly, I wanted to limit, as much as possible, the amount of physical punishment I would have to face.  Problem was, I didn't really have much to confess, not the kind of stuff he was looking for.

 I had cheated on a test. He smirked.  There crouched in the field behind our mobile home, stuff happened, words were exchanged. I only remember the beautiful trees and the swirling, pre-vomit discomfort of my sinking, drowning soul. Reader, thank you for holding my hair while I fill your tupperware with this shocking filth.  Thank you for helping me flush my inherited shame down the toilet in our shared mental experience. Thank you for holding my pain in your awareness, allowing me to get out from under carrying it alone.  My dad fed me lies and self-loathing.  I've held it all down too long....

Someday, I'll say, "Dad: out of mind? OUT OF SIGHT!!!!!"

© Copyright Ernest Samuel Christie III 2013