part 38

***TRIGGER WARNING***

I started my last post intending to write about my acceptance of what has happened to me, and of my acceptance of how what happened still manifests in my daily life.  I got a little bit diverted. So anyway: acceptance.

I guess what has been the most significant thing about accepting the past and accepting the permanent damage of my mind and body is that I can kind of stand to the side of all the chaos it has wreaked and just look at what happened to me.

When I look at what happened to me, the first thing I see is a very happy baby, a little girl who trusts her father implicitly. And then I see the father do things to the little girl that are so sick, and so injurious, and so heartbreaking that I can feel the weight of it in my chest like a rock.

Then I start to see what happened from my own point of view at that time. I remember what I felt and thought and was wearing and how things smelled. I remember the fear in my brain and the panic in my eyes. I didn’t know what was happening, but I did. I couldn’t think about what was happening. I couldn’t believe what was happening.

I remember being hurt – physically hurt. And my dad was there, and he was hurting me, but the pain was so overwhelming that I could not connect it to my dad. I could only see him as the person there who would save me from what was happening. He was my dad – he had to be the person who would save me from that pain and confusion. I could not comprehend any alternative than that of my dad saving me.

But at the same time, I was so angry at him – so HURT. It was easier for me to feel angry at him after he gave me to someone else to do stuff to me. What would that be called anyway? What is it called when a parent makes available complete physical control of a child to another adult for the sexual gratification of that other adult?

Anyway, maybe being molested and raped by someone who was not my dad, and while experiencing that in the complete absence of my dad, allowed me to see things more objectively. I remember thinking of those instances as betrayals of an entirely different nature than when he abused me himself. Those were times I could not be convinced that what he was allowing someone else to do to me was in any way okay.

He spent a lot of energy explaining why he did the things he did to me. There were reasons he abused me – he told me why it had to be that way with him, and how important it was that I allow all of it to happen and to not endanger anyone by telling. He told me these things over and over again.

But I would simply not believe that there could be any valid explanation at all for him letting other people do things to me. He did not pimp me out often – it may have only been two or three times. I wonder now if it was because I was so adamant about not accepting his reasons behind it. I don’t think he ever said, “Okay, you’re right – you don’t have to do that anymore.”

But I do remember feeling a distinct bit of power in my indignation. It was the same feeling of power I felt after I got pregnant as a result of him raping me when I was 15.

My dad integrated his reasons for abusing me into every aspect of my self-concept. It was destiny, it was loyalty, it was empathy, it was sacrifice, it was pure, it was necessary, it was the burden of my fate. I accepted these explanations – they were, after all, much easier to accept than the concept of my dad raping and torturing me just for his own jollies.

I believed it was all part of something bigger, that he and I were part of something bigger, something glorious and amazing.

When I did not accept my dad’s explanations for the things he would do to me, he would get really mad. Not screaming and yelling mad, but mad in the way that I would not be shocked to find his hand suddenly around my throat, reminding me of how weak I was. Questioning him was, in and of itself, blasphemy.

I knew he could and would kill me, and he knew I knew it. Simple as that.

But those two instances – the pimping me out instance and the getting me pregnant instance – were somehow different. They were years apart. I was probably around six or seven for the pimping out instance, and I was 15 when I had to have the abortion. But both times, I felt that sliver of power over him, like he went too far and we both knew it.

For whatever reason, I could swallow anything else he shoved down my throat – but not those two things.

When I first began therapy (this last round, about two years ago), I was asked to picture my child-self as separate and to tell her she was safe now. I couldn’t do it. I could imagine what I looked like as a child, and even pretend to pretend that I could be separate from my inner child, but I just did not understand the concept that who I am today could be a different person from who I was then. Logically, it made sense, but I could not see it, and I really did try to see it.

Last week at therapy I realized that my newfound acceptance and objectivity of what happened to me as a child means that I can separate the kid-me from the person I am now. I can stand to the side, or rise above, or see through, or whatever, and see my dad’s sickness and evil as clear as day. I can distance myself from the intricate and extensive brain tumor of his brainwashing far enough to see what is real.

In those moments when I was six or seven, and again when I was 15 – that’s what it felt like. It felt like I could see clearly how wrong it was, and I could see clearly that he knew it was wrong, too. I truly believe that he had himself brainwashed as much – if not more – than me. I don’t doubt that he could believe what he was doing to me was okay. Most of the time.

But sometimes the light just broke into those shadows and showed what was really there – what we both knew was really there.

It occurred to me a couple of days ago that my dad might have convinced himself that he could be vulnerable to me in some way. It would be a self-serving victimization type of vulnerability, but I think maybe in some way he might realize that he is not bigger or stronger than me. Maybe he thinks I betrayed him and did all kinds of horrible things to him once I got bigger and stronger. It would be a reasonable cop-out to many of his actions in the last few years we were in contact.

I don’t know. Regardless, it has also occurred to me that I am definitely bigger and stronger than he is, and that he has much more to fear – about me or anyone or anything else – than I have to fear about him.

I think this must be true, because when I look back at that little-girl me, who is not the strong and safe person I am today, and I see what he did to her, my heart breaks. But I also see perfectly what a miserable piece of shit he is. I feel how cowardly and ingenious and weak he is, and I don’t feel any need at all to remember that he is also my dad, a person I love.

I don’t feel guilty for seeing him for who he actually is. I feel just fine seeing him for who he actually is.