part 68 - with a picture included!

We have had regular cable for a couple of months now and I have noticed a lot of the programming centers on death and near-death experiences.

I grew up with a lot of violence. I have not spoken or written about a lot of it outside of just trying to put into words what happened to me. I think maybe it is implied in what I have spoken and written about, but I can never be sure what impressions are drawn from how I present myself or my story to anyone else.

I feel like I have written a lot about my dad’s sexual abuse, some of the torture, and being raped and assaulted by other people. I don’t think I have written about my own inclusion in the sick things my dad did.

It is hard for me to imagine “inclusion” as being the right word to use. I mean, everything he did to me and coerced me to do and tricked me into doing and taught me how to do can be attributed to his evil. It is difficult, though, to think of the things I was directly exposed to and coerced to do as being something I can fully separate myself from, or extricate from the idea of having used my own free will.

I know he is responsible for it, but it is also just the way I was programmed to believe.

My dad was really, really fucked up. Sometimes it is hard for me to think about it directly – it is like looking into the sun.

Sadism was the foundation of who my dad was.

sa·dism

   [sey-diz-uhm, sad-iz-]  Show IPA

–noun

1.

Psychiatry . sexual gratification gained throughcausing pain or degradation to others.Compare masochism.

2.

any enjoyment in being cruel.

3.

extreme cruelty.

Origin: 
1885–90;  < French sadisme; see Sade, -ism

—Related forms

sa·dist, noun, adjective

sa·dis·tic  [suh-dis-tik, sey-, sa-]  Show IPA, adjective

sa·dis·ti·cal·ly, adverb

un·sa·dis·tic, adjective

un·sa·dis·ti·cal·ly, adverb

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House,Inc. 2011. 

Word Origin & History

sadism 

"love of cruelty," 1888, from Fr. sadisme , fromCount Donatien A.F. de Sade  (1740-1815). Not amarquis, though usually now called one, he wasnotorious for cruel sexual practices he described in his novels.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper 

Sidenote: I just copied and pasted those definitions, so however the formatting ends up in this post is how it was copied.

“Love of cruelty.” That was my dad.

I was raised to believe I am the daughter of cruelty, the offspring of cruelty, the spawn of cruelty, the birthright of cruelty – a daddy’s girl.

When I was in the hospital for PTSD a few years ago, I did an art project – I don’t even remember what it was called or how it was described or what it was a part of. I just remember that I used oil pastels and a piece of construction paper.

I didn’t think about what I was drawing before I drew it, and I didn’t think of what I had drawn until I was done, which is not something I do anymore – there is no telling what is going to come out of my brain when I am not paying attention.

I drew a big heart that is pretty and colorful with a smaller heart with a black crack in the middle moving away from the big heart. The small heart is still a part of the big heart, though.

The big heart represented who I know logically I am and who I can be. The smaller heart with the crack in the middle is who I was taught I was and would always be.

For so long, I was taught to believe that the very core of me was a black mass of evil. In my mind the black mass looks like the sticky black resin that is left over after smoking pot (I think that is what hash comes from). I don’t know if that is an analogy many people can relate to, but that’s what I have in my mind.

At the time that I drew that heart picture, I was feeling more and more like maybe I am not so evil – maybe I can be independent of the evil that was my dad – maybe the blood in my body that came from the blood in his body is not poison. It has been so, so difficult to separate myself from him – such a huge part of my relationship with him was rooted in how we were the same, and how only I could understand him, and how only he could understand me.

He even convinced me that I could not understand me – only he could.

I feel very strong about my good heart now. I don’t believe the core of me is evil anymore. I don’t believe my blood is poisoned because I am my father’s daughter. Even more, I don’t FEEL like I am evil or like my blood is poison. I don’t have to convince myself that the evil is my dad and not me – I KNOW that now.

There is still a big crack in my heart, though. It is not so much a crevasse anymore, but more of a healing scar. It’s a whole heart with some pretty bad scars on it.

Those scars from those wounds still hurt. When I see on television how death and near-death and murder and crime and evil is so fascinating to people, it makes me think of how much it all has been a part of my life and experiences. I used to really love those shows – I guess I could relate.

But now, being able to see that evil as separate from who I really am makes it so much harder for me to watch death and dying and murder on television, or to see violence in movies or on video games, or even to see animals being harmed or eaten (I haven’t eaten meat in a long time). Sometimes it hurts me if I see someone pick a leaf off a tree or a flower out of the ground.

It all reminds me of the pain and the evil that exists in our world – and that I know it exists from personal experience.

I like to think those shows about death and murder are fascinating to other people because they can’t fathom that kind of pain and evil. It would hurt me a lot more if I thought everyone has to experience that kind of pain as a part of life. I don’t know – maybe everyone does experience that pain in their own way.

I am really happy with having DVR now though so I can record and watch What Not to Wear and Say Yes to the Dress and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and things of that nature. I will admit that I do also enjoy It Only Hurts When I Laugh, which does involve people getting hurt, but hey – they aren’t dying so that’s a step up from the shows I used to love, right?