Rewriting the Past … Do we really want to.

Posted on October 7, 2007. Filed under: abuse, childhood, friends, life, parenting | Tags: abuse, childhood, life, love, memories, pain, past |

This is long winded and I make no apologies. This blog is about the real me and I am looking at myself from a point of view I haven’t spent much time ever doing. This isn’t easy to write, to remember and it certainly wasn’t easy to live.

I was reading here about how drjennys friend Sue had rewritten their friendship to justify some really bad behaviour and it got me thinking.

I grew up in a very sad house. I won’t use the word dysfunctional because that just brings to mind the Simpsons and we were nothing like that. It was sad for so many different reasons….

I learnt from an early age that sometimes it wasn’t safe to be near my Mum and therefore my Dad because of their arguing. I learnt that if I went to Dad he would cop a mouthful and that would make me feel bad. So I stopped going to him, to protect him, us. I know my Dad loves us all and always will but he has always had a lot of trouble showing us and I think it had something to do with Mum’s jealousy. If he showed us affection it meant she was missing out maybe. I don’t know but it is sad. She would have these fictious pimples on her that needed to be squeezed or worse a piece of glass in her foot, hand, head that we needed to get out. The hours I spent with a needle in hand to relieve her of the fucking thing that wasn’t there. She still demands that of me now but as an adult I can say no. Oh, she will get the shits no doubt but I can’t go back to that place where she has yelled and screamed at me incoherently for hours and then demands I touch her.. heal her.. FUCK OFF.
I remember laying in bed at night and putting my favourite cuddle toy under the bed because they only fought when he was with me, so therefore it was Tommy the turtles fault. I was, I don’t know about 8 or 9 but they had been fighting for years and continued to do so for many more. Only verbal at that point but all night nearly every night in a small house. Some nights Tommy would be allowed back out because I rationally realised a stuffed turtle can’t cause this turmoil but in my young mind that’s all I could accept.

There were 4 of us kids and we were terrified. I was the eldest and very early I tried to protect my sisters and brothers. WE would huddle together and end up falling asleep together in the one bed.

The arguing continued and escalated until it became physical, my Dad was physically abused by her along with the rest of us. This was way before the term spousal abuse meant the male was the abused. Not to mention the emotional/mental abuse.

I remember being late home one day. Something which I knew was a no no but my lift made a detour, out of my control. I wish he hadn’t but he did and my girlfriend and I were about 40 minutes late home from school, this is way before the days of mobile phones and where we lived there weren’t many public phones either so I couldn’t communicate to Mum that I would be that relatively short time late. By the time I got home my Mum was in a rage, absolute rage. Within seconds I was cowering in the corner of the kitchen while she proceeded to throw all the crockery in the cupboard at me. Then I was to pick myself up so that we could make an outing to visit her friend. I had to be the perfect daughter, all smiles and politeness while I was screaming inside ..

I still wonder what this was supposed to teach me. What I did learn is not to trust her more and to a degree today I still don’t. I don’t trust her with me and therefore my kids. No, I don’t keep them away from her but they are never left in a position where they can cop it and if she starts she goes through me. I will fight to the death to protect mine and she knows I am in that place. She knows my allegiance is to me and mine and I know that sometimes that gets to her.

Now this is obviously written from my point of view. I would like to say I have embellished it for your benefit but I haven’t. It has obviously still affects me as this happened 23 years ago. Now my Mum who I love and always will warts and all shifted interstate with my siblings not long after this. I was accused of trying to get them all to stay which obviously didn’t work because they went with her, I don’t remember doing this but I accept that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, in my heart I hope I fought for them so they wouldn’t have to continue living in that pain. The pain I knew by not moving with her I was free of. I do know after I moved in with my Dad who had walked away eventually I felt extreme guilt. I wasn’t going to be able to protect them anymore and that scared me.

So I would travel to visit my family and at times the hurt and fear would bubble up. I was still in fight or flight mode… always aware of the escape route even if it was internal.. to shut down I still am and do today. There have been times as an adult I have had to use the escape plan.

One day we started talking about my childhood and she had rewritten it. Doesn’t accept that she hurt us. Her version is so idealised and while she acknowledges things were rough at times she really takes no responsibility for what she did. I was so shocked and angry. I was asked to leave her house that day and I don’t think I would have ever gone back but 18 months later I fell pregnant with my eldest and she forgave me… what the fuck….. she forgave me …

So which version of my life do I believe? The fairy tale I wrote in my head? The reality which in all fairness is quite dim since I have such limited memories – I know I have shut out the painful memories and sadly that hasn’t left a lot to grasp onto? Or my Mums idealised version.. the rewritten version where we all lived happily except when things were a little rough… ?

I’m proud of who I am and I accept that she had a lot to do with that. But deep down I can still feel that terrified little girl and her fear and she still pops her head out to see if today is safe and thank God most days are.

I live everyday to make my kids happy and sure sometimes I fail but I know they won’t have huge gaps in their memories because they have to forget things to survive. If they forget something it will be because each adventure they have is so full that their brain is overloaded with fun.. not pain.

We learn very early that we have to do things to survive. I have a friend who was left with running away and living on the streets. I sometimes wonder what stopped me from taking that route myself. I don’t think it was the fear of what is out there because I was already a survivor. I think it was the fear of what would happen to my brothers and sister if I walked, what would she do with them because of me.

Five years ago I was talking about life with a friend. She had had a terribly hard childhood and as I listened to her stories I was angry for her as a child, I believe she was terribly abused. We both cried for the little girl who she had left behind and how she had pulled herself out of some pretty deep pits. Months later we remembered the chat and she asked about my childhood and it wasn’t until afterwards when she went home which was just around the corner thanks goodness that I felt bereft. I sat there for a couple of hours realising the difference between her story and mine was minimal. She came back and found me still sitting in the same place. She had realised the same thing after she had gone home and needed to come back and check on me. To this day I am so glad she did. I was an abused child but had never thought of myself in that light. Now I allow myself to be angry for the child in me. The pain she endured and the skills she learnt to survive.

That child isn’t doing so bad now.

She learnt that to survive you have to do more than duck the blows, the attacks and she has learnt to live, laugh and love every single day and she does … I do.