Abused & Rising Above: Bang! 🔫

 Writing has really been helping me clear trauma and old feelings this last week. I have much in a better mood overall, feeling more productive, and generally just less pissed at the injustice in the world that I can't directly change all at once.  Lol So today I'm going to talk about something that occurred with my parents.

I grew up around addicts. My parents, the people they partied with, the odd characters they allowed to live with us, lots and lots of people with dysfunction and addiction to many different things. Needless to say there was almost zero stability in my life, and we were always dirt poor. I basically grew up eating whatever we got from the food shelf box that week, which largely consisted of evaporated milk, cream corn, and tuna helper. If my younger brother and I were not the direct target of some conflict that was happening then we basically didn't exist, which I happen to like better because at least then we weren't in the crossfire of whatever screaming was taking place. 

I know that some kids with addict parents have really horrible stories to tell about unimaginable physical abuse. I'm luck in the respect that my parents were less physical,most of the time, and much more mental and emotional abusers. At least I feel like this is a lucky thing that I have been able to carry these scars inside so when they are gone there won't be a physical reminder to look at. Anyway, to some I'm sure the things that happen to me won't seem "so bad", but I promise you they had an effect. Here is one event I remember like it was yesterday. 

My dad has this thing about dinner time. He always wanted us all to eat at the same time so we could pretend we were a family. What this really meant was that when dinner was done, my mom would let him know, because he was usually in the basement doing drugs with his friends, then my mom, my little brother and I would sit down at the table and wait for him. On the good days it would be like 10 - 30 minutes we would sit there and wait to start eating, on the bad days sometimes it would be well over an hour or almost two. It just depended on how much fun he was having at the time. Do you have any idea how disgusting cold cream corn and tuna helper is when it has been congealing on your plate for an hour while you stare at it? 

So one day we were doing our normal routine of waiting and it must have been about an hour because everything was ice cold by the time he came upstairs. My mom usually waited to serve his plate last so it would still be warm/hot by the time he came to the table. She must have thought he would be up quickly this day because she had dished up his plate right away. You could tell she was worried about it because she called down the basement stairs at least twice to remind him dinner was on the table. This was a dangerous move because sometimes that reminder was like lighting the fuse to a bomb. My dad did not like being rushed. This particular day he finally came up and sat down at his head of the table spot. We were all excited to eat the gelatinous crap on our plate at this point because me and my brother were super hungry. So we started eating and after basically a bite my dad realized his plate of food was cold and freaked out. Now this was such a common occurrence I can't remember if this was the time that he smashed his plate into the wall, or slammed his fork down so hard that it shattered the plate. That may have been the time he found a bug on his broccoli… either way there was cold gross food and broken glass and within minutes my mom ran into the sun room to cry while me and my brother sat at the table with our heads down, also crying our eyes out, while my dad ranted and raved through the living and dining room. 

It was the usual rant of, how he works so hard for this family (not true) and how dare he be treated in such a way that he is served cold food (after we waited an hour +) and how horrible and ungrateful we all are (what we had to be grateful for I could never figure out), and how he should just leave us to die because we would never make it without him. The blow up rants usually went on for about an hour as well. Sometimes he would just leave to go get another fix, but most the time he would eventually calm down, and then go around and apologize to all of us saying how sorry he was that he got upset and that it would never happen again.

Today it was the latter of the two. He calmed down, my mom came back in the room to clean up the mess as he did his walk around the table to do his insincere mea culpa is each one of us. He started with my mom, then my brother, and by the time he got to me it was like a light bulb went off in my brain. I was probably only 8 or maybe 9 at the time but I thought to myself, "He is a liar and it will always be this way." With my face down still buried in my arms to hide my tears, he came over to pat me on the back and say his sorries, but this time I looked up at him with all the built up disgust from years of being lied to and manipulated as a child and I said, "You are a liar! You always say it will NEVER happen again, and it always does." 

If I hadn't been so emotional at the time I probably would have thought that through before I spoke. He looked like I had just slapped him in the face with a pillowcase of bricks. After a moment of shock his face twisted into a type of anger that I had rarely seen until now. I will never forget his response, he leaned down really close to my face (because intimidation was his favorite form of control) and said, "Oh you think so huh? You think you know everything don't you little girl? Well welcome to the adult world Ms. Know-it-all!" At least that he told the truth about. He never looked at me the same and never treated me like a child ever again. 

The screaming and yelling that insured after that was beyond imagination. My mother tried to calm him down by saying stuff like, "She didn't mean it. She doesn't know what she is talking about. Why would you care what a kid thinks?" Etc. 

Nothing was working though he was still lividly upset. I vaguely remember my mom being bounced off a few walls as he thundered around the house. I remember my mom yelling at me for opening my mouth. Then the next thing I remember was my dad going into their bedroom, which was right off the living room by the stairs. I thought for sure this crazy evening was coming to an end but I was wrong. 

Next thing I know my dad has locked himself in the bedroom, with his loaded pistol, and is threatening to blow his brains out because he hates his rotten, ungrateful family so much. I didn't realize at the time but he was just trying to adjust his form of manipulation since I had slipped out of the grasp of the other. My mother was pounding on the door trying to get it open, my little brother was sitting on the stairs near the door crying and rocking back and forth. I remember going over to comfort my brother, like I usually did, to try and protect him from the horrible things happening. I told my brother not to worry because I knew he wasn't going to do anything. 

Every time my dad would yell something about how awful we were and how he was just going to end it all I could think to myself was, "Good. Hurry up and get it over with so we can live in peace and eat some dinner." No child should ever have to wish their parent dead just to have a little piece in their life. I probably should feel bad for thinking or feeling that, but I just don't. Nothing that happened beyond that point in my life do I think would have been any worse off if my father would have been dead. As a matter of fact a million things would have been easier. Eventually, after who knows how much more time passed, my father came out of the bedroom and insisted we all go sit down and have dinner. So we did, all sat down and ate dinner at like 10PM at night (when it started around 6PM) and acted like nothing had just happened. That is how it always was. Pretend it never happened. That must be how I got so good at repressing stuff. I didn’t cry while writing this. I feel bad for the child I was having to experiencing that situation, but now that I can easily identify what was really happening that night I no longer feel guilty about what I said or felt. I told the truth and was punished for it, and for years the lesson I took away is exactly what my dad wanted, don't speak the truth to people. He hated being called out on his bad behavior, still does. I'm glad I was able to clear this trauma and unlearn the fact that the truth is "bad". 

Thanks for reading. Please feel free to comment, share an experience, or anything you like.

*Obviously none of these family pics are from that time in my life. Since I don't have contact with my parents anymore, except occasional hate mail, I don't have any pictures from when I was very young. Although the picture of us at the dining room table was the same dining room and table position before the remodel.