Kentucky Dogwood
Natalie Sewell
Last week, I talked with Mama Bear about one of the memories that has ranked highest on my “impossible to tell” list. Actually, when it first came back again about a year ago (from my journals, I see that it first, first came out years ago, but I had forgotten it), I was so shocked, horrified, mortified, and repulsed that it was one of the two or three things that I had to call her about immediately after the memory came out and struggle through telling her what the type of abuse was, just because I felt so crazy with what I was remembering. At that time she gently helped me to say what I needed to, reassured me that the type of abuse that I was talking about wasn’t unheard of and that it wasn’t my fault, and did her best to help me find as much comfort and grounding as possible. Within a day or two, I wrote an e-mail to her with a few of the details, asking her to “hold” them for me, and then hadn’t mentioned it since then. I certainly never said anything about it to her person.
There are three types of memories with my grandfather that I consider the worst. The first I talked about with her earlier this summer and I see that one as being the most intensely overwhelming type of abuse for me. The abuse that I am talking about now left me feeling subhuman and was the most demeaning and disgusting. The last type was the most terrifying. Around the time that I talked about the first type of abuse, I almost talked about this abuse as well, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do so.
One of the perils of hiding things that I have discovered is that all of those things that I don’t deal with can pile up against each other and suddenly I may find myself in a place where I need to deal with Z, but I have been hiding from W, X, and Y, which need to be dealt with before I can hope to deal with Z. That happened last week. I realized that I have Z issue that is affecting my relationship with my husband, but that is related to Y way of experiencing myself and touch, which is linked into X memories with my father. That particular abuse by my father was especially toxic because it became linked to W abuse by my grandfather. To even be able to start to address this in therapy, I was going to have to go all the way back and start to deal with these memories with my grandfather and then work my way through everything else that I have been hiding from Mama Bear.
It was a fight to even start to get anything out about it because I was so overpowered by my feelings of shame, revulsion, and the deep expectation that she would withdraw in horror. I asked her to move a chair to sit next to me and hold my hand, so I could feel that tangible physical support and connection, while I flailed around inside, struggling against everything that was trying to keep me silent.
“This is so hard to talk about. I am so ashamed and disgusted by it.”
“You do know that it isn’t really yours to be ashamed about, don’t you? He is the one who is responsible for what happened.”
“Yes, I understand that. I really do. But inside I just don’t feel that way. I just know that it seems like what happened makes me believe that I have to be as horrible and disgusting as I felt while it was happening.”
There was another long pause as I struggled some more and then she said, “You really want to tell me about this, don’t you?”
“Yes, I am so damn tired of being alone with it. I don’t want to be alone with it anymore. I have been for too long already!” I paused and then pushed out, “Do you remember when I told you about W?”
Mama bear took a slow breath and gently said, “Yes, I do.”
I then just doubled over with my face on our hands and sobbed while shaking. I let myself feel held by her calm and caring presence as the young part of me who has carried this burden all of these years could finally let go of clenching it close to her in hiding. It was safe for me to let out all of the feelings of disgust, confusion, terror, and the certainty that if anyone knew what had happened, they would never be willing to touch me again. Shaking the whole time, I went back and forth between crying and talking.
“It just felt so disgusting while it was happening. It still makes me feel disgusting and dirty!” I don’t remember what she said in response, but I do know that those feelings have eased a bit now.
“It was just too much! How could anyone do something that cruel to a child?” I looked at her, feeling bewildered.
“We don’t know what happened to him to make him that way, but it seems that he might have been a sadist.”
I stared at her, “You think?!?”
“Remember, you haven’t told me as much about what happened as you think that you have! But from what you have said, yes, I do think that it is safe to say that he was a sadist.”
I cried again, because it was such a relief to hear it said out loud. I have long been convinced that he enjoyed being “inventive” with all of the ways that he could hurt, humiliate, and terrify me, but I wasn’t sure that anyone would ever believe me that he got pleasure out of hurting me. There is something that is damaging in a particular way when you experience someone else getting a kick out of finding different ways to reach inside and harm you. For me it was particularly dehumanizing, because it made me feel like some perverse toy that was only there for his pleasure.
But now, while I still wasn’t able to talk about all of the details of the experiences and how I felt, I was able to talk about some of them and I was able to experience my feelings while someone compassionately listened to me and held me both literally and figuratively. It was safe to be human. It was safe to feel. It was safe to share the real me and what I have experienced.
I looked at Mama Bear, “Deep inside, I absolutely expected for you to withdraw in disgust and horror.”
“Do you feel me withdrawing?”
“No.”
“What do you see on my face?”
“Concern. Caring.”
“No disgust?”
“No.”
“Good, I feel no disgust what-so-ever for you, C. And I feel no need to withdraw from you.”
Often, after such an intense session, I experience some sort of repercussions, but I didn’t that day. Instead, my experience was that the child part that had shared still felt safe and my protector parts hadn’t been aroused. That would come, but for that day, I just felt relief at finally being able to talk about what happened and cry while holding the hands of someone whom I know loves me. I needed to be held while I told my mother what happened over 40 years ago, but I was convinced that she would withdraw in disgust. I can’t change what happened then, but at least now I can finally tell.
Note: I struggled over whether or not to state in general what the abuse was related to, because while it was unusual, it is not unheard of. It also isn’t talked about, though. And not being able to talk about it only helps to give the abuse power but it keeps all of us who have lived through it in isolation, thinking that no one else experienced the same depravity. I am not at the point where I can name it, though. Simply talking about it at all is the best that I can do for now. Maybe someday. Maybe even before very long I will be able to write and say what it was, because it really isn’t my shame. It was my body that was involved, but my grandfather was in control. And while I don’t want to trigger people, I also think that it needs to be OK to say, “There are some really sick people out there who do these things to children. It sounds too awful to be true, but it really does happen.”
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