Mommy Dearest

The first time I remember being snatched and viciously slapped, I was perhaps four years old. I am sure that it had happened countless times before, but this was my first conscious memory of it. I had just spent five minutes with my father who I had not seen in what must have been a long time to a little girl. As I reached up to hug him, I remember how rough the stubble on his cheek was against my face. He smelled of cigarettes and beer, but I didn't care. We lived in one of the old row homes in Philadelphia that was large and drafty. It was after all, the inner city in the sixties. I did not know where my father had been, only that he was in New York most of the time. Seeing him was rare but I knew he was my daddy. I had been told how much I looked like him; the same forehead and eyes. Our similarities did not stop there. According to my mother, we also shared the same degenerate tendencies as though the blood of mongrel dogs coursed through our veins.

I saw that he was getting ready to leave and I remember asking him to get a splinter out of my foot. I happily sat on his lap as he gently pulled the splinter out. It was only later as I made my way around a corner of the room that a violent hand reached out and grabbed me. It was my mother and even now I can still see the henious look on her face. It was twisted with fury as she crunched the bones in my little body. My sin: she was convinced that the splinter in my foot was only a ploy to get my father to look up my dress. How cunning and seductive I must have been at four years old!

This same scenario was to be played out countless times over the next twenty years and beyond. Her obsession with me as a insatiable sexual creature whose appetite knew no bounds. The sadistic beatings, the humiliation, the name-calling, the threats, and the shredding of mind, body and spirit. Throw in the abject poverty, the loss of the sense of self, of who and what you are and why, and I will tell you that sometimes I wonder how I walk upright.

I will say that there was a strength within me that I didn't know I had that kept me going, one foot in front of the other, day after day, year after year, until there came that glorious day that I was old enough to flee. And even though it took years to put myself back together, I often fall apart. I know that it wasn't all me; angels surely guided me in times of extreme chaos and kept me safe from serious danger. However, they could not save me from the horror that was my mother.

I am thankful to have done more than just survive; in some ways I have actually flourished.

Still here.

The Importance of Being Earnest

There was a time when I did not believe in anything. I did not believe in the the promises made by a boy who said he would call the next day. I did not believe in the possibility of miracles so fervently prayed for. I did not believe that tomorrow would make much of a difference in the conditions under which I lived. And I did not believe that "fairness" was a word that I could ever apply to the circumstances of my life. My goal now is to try and be positive in thought, word, and deed. I would also like to say that one of my other goals is to forgive those who took it upon themselves to attempt to execute my spirit. It took years but the instinct to keep my head above the raging waves won out, and I am here to bring to light the evil done in the dark. We never know what we have truly escaped until in hindsight, we look to see the destruction left behind.

I have spent many years coming to terms with the past. It does not go away or become less terrible over time. In my case it has made me mad as hell, and this is part of my way of not taking it anymore or keeping the secrets that held us as prisoners. The past is there to remind us that it can and will happen again in the future, perhaps not to us, but to another innocent whose life is up for grabs. I continue to wonder what I could have possibly done to recieve such treatment at the hands of my own mother. She did not think about the future. That I would remember and count every single moment until I was free of her, and that when I was, I would never never forget. Never.

My mother will tell you she did nothing of the sort. I will tell you she did. And I believe that you will find that my words echo those of others whose mothers or fathers said and did the same. Today I am going to believe that my tomorrow will be better. I will believe that some good will come out of the badness. And I believe that we must learn to never let the light go out. I will keep my goal of forgiveness on the back burner, and tend to it when ready. But not today.

Pillow Talk

This is my most favorite time of the evening: the time when my husband and I lie in bed and talk before he drops off into a dead sleep. Tonight he has me laughing, because on Animal Planet they are capturing an 11 foot alligator in Florida. We are due to leave in five days for vacation in the Sunshine State and based on the program, he believes we are due to find ourselves an appetizer one late night for this prehistoric creature. My husband is many things but brave is not among them. My heart opens and I laugh uproariously because when God made my husband, he broke the mold, which is why I love him so. He is truly one of a kind and we were blessed to find each other when we did. I was walking through Lincoln Center Library and he was watching me through the stacks. The short story is that 21 months later we were married at a church in Brooklyn. The long story is that I never dreamed that I had that kind of luck.

His one lament is that we did not meet each other sooner, so that we could populate our home with six or seven kids. We are blessed to have one. I am in a way the brains of the operation, and I tell him that it was the plan of the guy upstairs that we meet when we were ready for each other. Three or four years earlier and it would not have worked because we were not ready for each other.

I am pleased to get what I got when I got it. My only regret is that we did not have more children. A basketball team would have been more to my liking, but I am immensely happy with the one I have. We were given a once in a lifetime chance, and it all fell into place.

My daughter is well beyond that stage where she waits to be tucked in, and her stuffed animals to sing good-night to her. Right now, even though it is late, she is probably IM ing her friends before she calls it a night. I am still on duty, as mommies always
are, and it is my duty to make sure the teeth are brushed, the doors locked before I can lay my head on the pillow and call it a night. I am always on the case. I like that.

Thank You

I want to thank those of you out there who have recently discovered my blog. Thank you for the reading, the sharing, comments and support. I want you to know that I write because I have to, and I write for those who won't or can't face the hell that engulfed them at a time in their lives. The physical, mental, and emotional trauma that is associated with an abusive childhood never goes away and affects your actions for the rest of your life. You may be an abuser yourself, or care so little about your own existence that you sell your body for a puff on the crack pipe. It was foretold by my mother and one of my brothers that my destiny lay somewhere between the crack-whore and your average run-of-the mill money for sex whore. I became neither. The abuse led me to years of depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and physical and emotional ailments that plague me to this day. I never thought much of myself, and like many, looked for love in all the wrong places. However, I was fortunate enough to find therapy, prayer, and myself at the bottom of the ashes. In two days my husband and I will celebrate 15 years of wedded bliss.

It has not been easy and many times we surely drove each other to the brink of insanity. Our blessing was that we loved each other enough not to take the easy way out, and more importantly, we had God on our side.

My daughter will be twelve in a few months, and I will tell you my greatest accomplishment has been loving and nurturing her. The day I brought her home from the hospital, I wondered how I had lived my life all those years without her. Her birth was like winning a special prize. Now I was complete. I would have a childhood after all with her. My pleasure came from being the best mother I could be. I am grateful that in spite of everything, I chose to live in the light.

For those of you out there who have been down this road, I want you to know that you are not alone. I shudder to think how many of us there are out there. I am not a doctor nor do I profess to know what steps to take to acknowledge what happened to you. The best I can offer is this blog, to begin at the beginning, and do what is best for you to heal your soul and life.

I have been there. And I am still.....here.

Tell It Like It Is

I have been trying to make my way around the blogging world, trying to find and read others' blogs who have been unfortunate enough to have endured experiences like my own. I have not come across too many; perhaps I don't know where to look, or perhaps they are still working through the intensity of emotion that comes with surviving the unthinkable. One blog I came across is Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist. I have read several posts on her blog. She is open, honest and very brave. In addition to several other topics, she has no problem telling the world of the host of monstrous experiences she weathered at the hands of her parents. Many of the comments to one post in particular, "How to decide how much to reveal about yourself", imply that possibly she is an attention seeker, crying out to be noticed. I mean, here she is for all the world to see, giving out the raw and uncensored details!


Some of the comments I found offensive, suggesting that hiding the truth is better than saying it out loud. I will say this. There are those of you out there who walk around with unscorched souls, your decency intact, never knowing the savage sting of fist on delicate flesh, or the unbridled fear of absolute abandonment, the apprehensiveness that hunger brings on. You may have your say, but there are some things you should know. As an abused child, your voice is taken from you, and therefore you are unable to cry out for help, or tell on those who stole your innocence. Those of us who have survived have long awaited the moment when we can point the finger and say what it was and where it happened. We are only removing the hand that has been clasped over our mouth. To be able to speak and know that you will not be hurt is awesomely liberating. We speak for those who are still unable to do so for themselves.

I do not dislike anyone for the wholesomeness of their life. Yours was the one I would have preferred to have. I ask you to open your minds as to the reason why someone would be so willing to spill the beans. The cover is taken off for the countless others out there who will read and say. "I am not the only one who endured".

I used to have a friend who would regale me with stories of sneaking out of the house by going through the maid's quarters. Occasionally, he would slip the doorman a few bucks not to be seen. He lived in a penthouse on Park Avenue and being denied to him meant being out of town in the Hampton's and not being able to attend the next debutante ball held at The Plaza. His Holden Garfield existence was what it was. I did not look down on him for it as he did not (as far I remember) look down on me for coming from nothing. We did not judge. We did not choose the hands dealt to us. We just played them the best we knew how.

Family Ties

It would be wonderful to be a part of a real family. I have brothers older and younger than myself, spread out over several states, and hardly is there any effort on any of our parts to get together or see one another. Even though we are well into adulthood, when we do speak, it is as if we were small children again. Even as adults, we remain in the hierarchy that we were placed in as kids. My mother's love for her youngest son knew no bounds. Whatever was his pleasure, it was my duty to provide. Today, he has a flourishing profession, yet he communicates with no one. He did with me for awhile until last year when he kept telling me he had sent my daughter a birthday gift two months late. When I told him I still had not received it, he deduced that is was irrevocably lost in the mail and that he would have to go out and buy another gift card, since it was impossible to trace. I told him not to bother. That was the last I heard from him.

His success he keeps to himself. His greatest fear is that we may ask something of him that he has made abundantly clear that he is unwilling to give. To that, he remains anonymous, hidden from everyone except his wide circle of friends. I do not blame him for his distaste of us.

That is his choice, to be sure. Our mother, who loved (as much as she was capable of) some and despised others, certainly is not counted among one of his chosen. Boys were for the most part, good. Girls, (I was the only one) were whores just waiting for an opportunity to shame the good name (ha!) of the family and to entice all males within whistling distance into lurid sexual encounters. It is interesting to note that when I was about sixteen that I learned that my mother had indeed, had her first child out of wedlock. Worst still, my father was not his father. My father himself told me that he had married my mother when he returned from the war in Europe. The man who had impregnated her was long gone. As awful as we were told my father was, she still managed to have five more children by him.

I never knew any uncles or aunts on my father's side. We were not allowed to know them. My mother told us that my father was deeply involved in a sexual relationship with his sisters and therefore any direct contact with them was forbidden. To say that my mother's preoccupation with the sex act in all it's unnatural forms was revolting is an understatement. It makes me wonder even more deeply about her upbringing, what she may have done or witnessed or worst, been forced to be a part of. I do know however that her mental illness must have been at it's peak by the time I reached puberty. A girl blooming into a woman sent her into neurotic fits of fury. She would make me pay for being young and innocent. Neither state lasted long.

My daughter is currently with her cousin and friend at her cousin's house. It is an opportunity for me to try and get some things done that I normally don't get to. In a few days we will pick her up and I will return to being the taxi available at a moment's notice, the ATM for the mall, the hostess of weekend slumber parties. Then we will all be off to Florida to stay with yet another cousin. We will spend time together, eat, play and most importantly have fun. That's what families do.

Loving Me For Me

I try to remain calm, but over the past few days my anxiety has reached fever pitch. I do not sleep but toss and turn almost the entire night. Last night I downed several glasses of red wine. That along with the exhaustion that my body felt, I fell into a deep sleep. Although it did not last the entire night, it was enough for me to function productively throughout the day. I am used to it now. I have to learn to calm my body for sleep; once school starts, I will be on a very short leash.


I search for answers to my issues: my inability to sleep at night, my feelings of not being good enough, the scorching pain in my heart that even the powerful love of my husband has not been able to heal and now I believe that I have stumbled upon one of the answers I seek.

I have to learn to love myself. Not in an extreme selfish way, but in a way that allows me to take the time I need to nurture myself. Taking the time to rest my body and mind, taking the time to give myself what I need to eventually become a complete person, and taking the time to learn what that is. I am always on the run; many tell me that they don't know how I keep the pace I do, but I do.

As a child, it was understood that I must always give up anything that I had for the benefit of the family. But one summer when I was about sixteen, a friend of mine and I hopped into the car and spent the day in New York. We saw a Broadway show and later the show at Radio City Music Hall. We were enthralled with the bright lights of the big city, and I knew that one day I would make it my home. On my return, my mother ranted and raved that if anyone (who might that be) had anything, any money they were keeping to themselves, they had better, "get up off it." I was to regret taking some of my hard earned money and spending it on myself, rather than having it taken away as was usually the case. I felt guilty for the joy I felt that day. Guilty that I was selfish enough to think of myself. After that, it became easy to put others in front. And I have been doing it for the past thirty years.

Now I know it is crucial to my healing. Taking care of me for me. It is only the beginning in the process. Learning to love me.

You Must Remember This........

It is odd how we each remember experiences from our youth. That is a strange word for me to use because I never felt as if I had one. "Youth" is a word associated with purity of home and spirit, and I am certain that those articles never existed in the houses where I grew up.

My memories of my "youth" center on a succession of houses, and apartments, (not homes) steeped in ceaseless turmoil. There was never enough of anything except turmoil and one could only expect more of the same. Hope was something that there was no room for because we were taught that it did not exist. It was fair to say that one could only anticipate doom for it was a sure thing. That being said, someone had to be made responsible for the serious lack that dominated our lives, and that culprit, as I was to hear repeated for my entire "youth", was my father.

In addition to the serious lack, there was a mighty foe that my mother felt that she had to battle against day and night and that was what she believed to be my nymphomaniac tendencies. Even though I was only four the first time I remember her calling me a slut, she was quite diligent in her attempts to beat it out of me. And beat she did. She did it so well and often that she actually elevated it to an art form. By the time I was ten, I knew what to expect so that when I did get my period, I didn't tell her for fear of being beaten. When she did discover it, I was told that I was to get it every month and if I didn't, it meant that I was pregnant, and then she would kill me.

I did have one bright spot in my life, and that was when my mother had safely boarded the bus to New York to gamble at the OTB. I knew that for at least one, two or possibly three weeks, she would be gone. There would be hell to pay when she returned, but the important thing was that she was not there. In her absence, my grandmother, (her mother) took charge. It was her job to hold down the fort until she returned. My grandmother was considered a saint, mainly because the monthly checks she had went to feed us and nothing was ever kept back for her. I didn't know it then, but she was abused by my mother in much the same way I was. Her life was spent doing a chore that I am sure she detested in return for a flimsy roof over her head. When she died, she was very old, and she barely got a hole in the ground.

My mother remembers life differently. She remember putting my brothers and I in the best schools. She remembers working tirelessly to teach us how to be good upright citizens. She remembers sacrificing for us, and even consulting with priests and professors to help get my brother in the right university. She remembers tolerating my father's drunken antics and keeping a home clean and full of plenty. She doesn't remember battering me almost every day of my life until I left her house for good. She does not speak of the years she spent traveling on the bus back and forth to New York, the years she spent gambling; the babysitting money, the paper route money, the Girl Scout cookie money that went missing.

But I remember. My soul remembers the fear, my body the searing pain. And it is because of her absolute denial that I will always remember and never forgive. In honor of my survival, I remember. In honor of my survival, I write. In honor of my survival, I try each day to love my daughter a little bit more. I must remember this.

Stormy Weather

As I sit in my bedroom and try to find a few hours of quiet time, my daughter darts in and out, requesting fervent kisses on the cheek and hugs that relieve me of breath. She is in a good mood as friends are coming over to once again rule the night.

I, tucked away in my room, am left to grapple with ways on how to heal my body, mind, and spirit. Today has been particularly troubling. My anxiety is on full speed ahead and my emotions spring from one extreme to the other. My heart flutters and my hands shake. I'm not quite sure what to make of things. My brain is constantly ablaze with thoughts of what might be, what has happened in the past, and what is going on now; how can I fix/change/pay it. Even though I may sit, and perhaps watch a program on the television, it is hard for me to be in the moment. What is that pain, and did I ever feel it before? What does it mean and will I sleep tonight?

It is at times like this that I have learned to ride out my neurosis like a violent wave; calm will eventually come and then I cruise back to shore, rattled but still on board. My being is just another casualty in the eternal war that is me. I have no doubt that I will get through this dismal series of emotions. I have time and time and time again. As darkness falls I sigh. as I know night will be a long time coming. But come it does and perhaps tomorrow I'll be a bit better than I was today. And so will you.

Andrew

As much as I deal mentally and emotionally with the tragedy that is my mother, I now and then find myself thinking about the man who was driven from his home and never got to know his children: my father. It is no secret that he drank, or even the fact that he had a girlfriend who I got to know in later years and was very kind to me. She was a simple woman and what attracted me to her was that she was soft-spoken and sweet. She never made me feel moronic, never called me names or made me feel ill at ease. I was actually glad for my father to have a companion who treated him well, washed his clothes and cooked his food. My mother never did those things for him.

My mother never had a pleasant word for my father. As far as she was concerned, he was the singular cause of all her troubles. We were taught to hate this man and so we did, to please her as children are wont to do. It was his fault, she would lament to us and my grandmother, that she had just missed winning the Exacta at the OTB because he was too cheap to give her enough money to bet with. That's where she would be camped out for weeks at a time, finally coming home with nothing to show for her time away except filthy shopping bags filled with marked up racing forms. Frustrated, she would take out her anger on me for the alleged sexual trysts she and my grandmother perceived that I had committed in her absence. It took so little.

In spite of all the animosity and all the times she drove him from the house, my father never said a unfavorable word about her. The sad fact is he truly loved this exceedingly crude woman; no matter what he did to please her, it was never enough.


In the years before he became ill, he would often stop by my apartment in the early morning hours and ring my doorbell. I would rouse myself from sleep and run down the five flights of stairs. We would sit in his cab and talk for hours. Sometimes he brought me food; chickens wrapped in rough brown paper, packages of Vienna Fingers cookies. If he could not nourish me as a child, he would do it now. He told me things that I knew my mother would vehemently deny.

One of the stories he told me made me realize all over again how fortunate I was to have survived life with her.

During what might have been called a brief period of prosperity, my father was able to take out a few loans to buy a washer and dryer ( the cord of which she used to beat me with) and a few other household items. I remember a time where there were new sheets and pillows and cases, and at least on the outside, there appeared a degree of normalcy. But it was short lived and my mother insisted that he return to the loan company and take out yet another loan. My father told her it would be too much of a burden to repay yet another loan so it was something he could not do. All she knew was that she needed the extra money for gambling so she gave him a choice. Find a way to get some money or she would disfigure me (her words) and make me swear in a court of law that he had beat and raped me. I could see how much it hurt him to know that my mother was capable of such an ungodly act. My father found the extra cash.

Three years after I was married and he knew he was dying of cancer, he wanted to leave New York and return to the mountains he always loved even though he rarely got to be there. My mother would not allow it. He paid a friend to move him to my brother's house in South Carolina and there he died. I got the news and cried for him and for the daughter that would not know him.

Although he was my father, I never called him "Daddy". That was too personal for my mother He was Andrew. And that is how I will always remember him.