Prepubescent boys don’t have hymens, but we too bled the same red; the flow may be a trickle, but emotional damage is the same.
Sickness begets sickness when insanity rules. Fathers who touch daughters begat sons who rape brothers. Generations of sickness passed along. Cowed grandmothers who see no evil, begat daughters who marry sick men who beat them and their children
Tiny children don’t learn the meaning of terror by a chance encounter in a dictionary. But the meaning, if not the word, can be learned by being picked up by the hair, shaken with such violence that the scalp rips and leaves scabs and scars. Not reaching the ground, limbs fly, but not under their accord. Only the fatigue of arms tired of swinging children by their hair would still the blinding fury and quiet the burning rage possessing the man. Anger sated, one last fling discards the child against the nearest hard object – a desk or the wall.
Was it strength or weakness that allowed a fourteen-year-old to calmly continue washing dishes while listening to the blood-curdling screams of first the mother, then each sister as the father beat them in turn. All the while, internally debating the chances of success of using the kitchen knives he is rinsing to intervene.
What does a junior high girl think as she lies in a bunk bed and listens to her sister being molested? Does she prey for it to end or prey that her father will not move on to her that night? Fathers are to protect, not to perpetrate, and that a girl’s introduction to sex comes at home leaves lasting damage which heals not when the father closes the door.
The son learns of sex first at the hands of his older brother’s penetration, and then in words as the father calmly describes what he had done to his daughters and why they were in the wrong. It’s possible for a 12-year-old to listen to each word from the father’s mouth, have the words burn themselves into his soul so that even 33 years later, each word is clearly recalled, and yet not blink an eye.
It is better that no one was actually killed? Is it not enough that the realness of that possibility worried the mother or terrorized the children? What pressure of society, of church and of family is necessary to overcome the instinct to protect one’s own? What keeps a mother from fleeing to save her offspring from a possible death? What brings her to lie to her family when she must miss important events because her husband’s handprint is so clearly visible on her son’s face?
Is it that the church forced women to vow to God that they would submit themselves to their husbands or be banished from the eternal light? Or that her family forced her back when she tried to escape?
Physical pain is the first to go. Bruises heal, sprains mend and scars fade. Even memories of the rapes lessen in time. But the damage from the psychological abuse is the last to go. Like the Japanese soldier stragglers in distant Pacific islands who failed to notice that decades have past since others have left, the fears and anxieties buried deeply in the psychic know no time. The terror gouged into an innocent soul remains as if carved into stone.
The child, perhaps three or four, is given a hug and a pat on his back. The boy, as small children are wont to do, mimics his father. One pat, perhaps two and the fury arises within the father’s black heart. Fathers may pat sons, but sons may never pat fathers, an act so morally wrong that its extermination is paramount. Never again will the son pat the father, but never again will the son be hugged without also being embraced by fear.
This second son, now in junior high, is excited to bring home a report card, save the lower mark given in gym to this uncoordinated child, is filled with A’s. Fresh in memories of the anger of the father at the poor performance of the first born son, the second hopes for a glint of recognition from a parent who lashes but not loves.
No, failure is met with only momentary anger, soon to be forgotten. Success, though is different, and is not to be permitted in this household by anyone other than the father. The demon returns again. In the name of eliminating pride, a storm of rage conquers the calm as a frontal assault on the very core of son’s essence is directed to break the spirit and cripple the soul. For two long years the son struggles to withstand an adult’s attack, but the end is inevitable. Defeated, his GPA drops from a 3.9 to a 2.9 and all is well. Never will another word be said about school, even when classes are failed. Success has been defeated and the parent can, once again, sleep peacefully at night.
The son, now a young adult, stands at the counter. “Which flavor?” he is asked. In tears, he turns away, for the fear which has permutated his soul, branded there by a lifetime of violent repercussions from the most trivial of choices, knows not how to decide which ice cream is safe and which is wrong.
More than a score of years pass since that father dies. The son, who feels a stranger in his own country, had fled to a strange land where the pain can’t be read. Slowly, he works at learning to live and to connect to others. Slowly he learns to love but too late to save one marriage.
Alone in a closet-sized apartment, the pain too intense to bear, a razor seems the quickest way to free his soul. Is it strength or weakness that lays the razor is laid back on the table that night and others? Neither a hero nor a coward, he will, nevertheless, live.
A small fortune is chipped away and parceled out to the various counselors along the way. Finally, a compatible one and a new life is found. Perhaps it’s not a new life, perhaps it was the old life which had to hide for so many years.
An extraordinarily gorgeous woman, met by chance, is not given a chance to escape. From there, you know the story.
Why now? The beginning of this story is decades old. The pain a distant memory, or maybe not, as recently my father has come back from the dead to haunt my dreams. He died when I was in my early twenties, and he didn’t make peace with any of his kids.
I’m working with my counselor on some anger issues, and it seems some stem from the emotions bottled from this era. My counselor is encouraging me to express the anger. With that fair warning, the faint of heart may want to step back.
I feel like someone giving an acceptance speech, but instead of thanking everyone, giving them a Pitting.
First, and foremost, I must bring up my father. What a fucking miserable excuse for a human being. What father molests his own children? What father almost kills them?
Who hits babies for crying?
Obviously, he had more than his own fucking share of problems, but for god’s sake somewhere in there he had to have known how fucked up he was. If you hated children, why the fuck would you have five of them?
And the mind games – the relative calm followed by a hurricane of fury over actions which had been OK the previous day and would be OK the next. The one strike rule: any tiny violation of his sense of right and wrong, and would never be forgiven.
What a fucking hypocrite, preaching the Bible while pissing on his family, prays in public and molests in private. A pretender who takes his family to church only to torment them after.
An asshole whose sense of victimhood entitled him to never care for the feelings of others, even infants and children. Though never diagnosed, a narcissistic personality disorder would have been the least of his problems.
Thank you motherfucker for screwing up so much of my life. I won’t let you ruin it, though and I’m going to clear up the remaining issues.
To my older brother. Actually, the good thing is that I had a chance to confront him a couple of years ago.
You are a piece of shit. You not only raped me and our younger brother, but also several other boys from what you said. You were the mini-Dad and took out your frustrations on us younger ones. When I confronted you, you didn’t apologize, but instead told me how hard it had been for you over these years living with the knowledge of what you had done. Yeah, try being on the receiving side of it, asshole.
His psycho wife decided that our family was “bad” once and cut all contact. She wouldn’t allow my mother to see or talk to her grandchildren. The bitch even cut up Valentines Day cards from my mom to the kids and sent them back. Just a sick, sick bitch. She did the same thing with her mother, so it wasn’t us at fault.
So, to my older brother, for putting up with that and going along with it. Fuck off. I know you’re going back and secretly visiting Mom so that you lovely wife doesn’t find out, but I also know you’ve never asked anyone for forgiveness. As you say, you’re philosophical about it.
Well, I’m going to be philosophical about this. Never show your fucking face to me, ever again.
To the Mormon church, which aided and abetted the abuse. If your god is all knowing then why didn’t he put caution notes in the secret temple ceremony in required women to obey their husbands, so that sick rules from insane fathers didn’t need to be followed? And to all the bishops who counseled my mother patience, fuck you too.
Finally, to my long-suffering mother, who went from an abusive home life to marrying an abusive husband to raising (other) abusive sons. I love you and will always protect you, but fuck you for being so weak.
And fuck you for equating the disappointment you felt at your oldest son for his sexual predatory acts with the disappointment you felt at me for leaving your church. Even if your sick church were right, the only harm I did was to myself, not to young children. You’re lucking I still talk to you.
It’s not a great rant, but I’m tired and can’t put better words into this. I’ve devoted my life to overcoming my handicaps and to ensure that the abuse stops at my: that I never mistreat my wife and will never do anything to the kids we hope for.
