The Years I Was Not Safe

I guess I'll start at the beginning. My younger years (until about 10 years old) were terrifying. I pretty much just tried to survive. My father (Larry) and my mother (Edele) got divorced when I was in the 4th grade. I remember very little of my childhood in regards to specific instances. I mean, I do have quite a few stories - some I'm sure I will share here with you here, but for the most part, I just remember how I felt. Do you remember way back when computers first came out? When one caught a virus or ‘died’ the screen would turn blue. Back then, they called it the blue screen of death. The computer was still alive but couldn’t actually function. It was just “there” – that’s how I like to describe the way I moved through my younger years of childhood. I call it “Blue Screen Mode” I was there. I was alive but I wasn’t functioning. My father and mother fought all the time. That is kind of an understatement. They screamed, shrieked, threw things, broke things, slammed things, abused each other and created a really hostile environment… it was always so loud, so scary. I remember being little and having so much anxiety and fear (especially at night when I was in bed) hearing everything and just knowing that something bad was about to happen. I would tip toe outside their bedroom and listen. Not sure why I did that. Maybe to have control? If I heard everything, I wouldn’t be so jumpy and scared in bed? The physical act of standing up, giving me the ability to have the fight/flight response? Who the fuck knows. For now, I’m just putting it all down. I’ll figure it out later. Lol.

My father, Larry basically terrorized my sister and I throughout our childhoods. I was terrified of him until around the age of 20. Slamming/breaking things, getting in my face, intense outbursts, smacking/hitting me, screaming for absolutely no reason. When he screamed, things shook. He was so loud. I never knew what behaviors would elicit those responses in him so I was in a constant state of agitation and fear whenever he was around. I was always scared. He was just so fucking angry. He terrorized us. That is the only way I can accurately describe it. He also went through a bout of depression when I was little. I remember for a period of time, he was always in bed. I had to regularly go into their room and wake him up for ‘dinner’ and he would scream when he woke up. That scared me, too. I was terrified of him. So was my sister. We lived in hell until they divorced when I was in the 4th grade.

They divorced at that time and both my sister, Shayna and I moved in with Edele. This small apartment in the middle of the hood in NJ. I feel that that is when the ‘directed’ abuse started. By that I mean that we were both abused as bystanders when they were married, but when they divorced, Edele’s illness was solely directed towards my sister and I. Shayna suffered the majority of the physical abuse, while I was subject to most of the emotional abuse. I have thought quite a few times in my adulthood about the reality of what we went through, the choices Edele made and just how sick those choices were. It’s truly unfathomable to me that a person, let alone a mother, would have the capacity to treat another human being that way. She was/is a very sick woman and while I am aware of that, I find it hard to separate my empathy for her from my sadness and pain. Anger as well, but I know that all that anger is truly presented as masked sadness, and so I feel that the anger is implied. Rage though. I wonder about rage. How deep the ‘sadness rabbit hole’ must go in order for someone to feel my level of rage towards another person. While I would like to think that I forgive her, I don’t know if that forgiveness is true or real. Forgiveness and empathy are two different things and I believe that part of ‘forgiveness’ is the ability to let go. I have not done that. I know and do feel sad for her, though. There is simply no way that she was able to do the things she did to us… to have the capacity to abuse us as she did and not have experienced terrible injustices, pain and brutal realities herself. She must have suffered a great deal, at some point. She has always been very secretive about herself and her past. Shayna and I to this day have no idea who she is. My father didn’t either. Additionally, her genetics must be taken into consideration. She had different characters that would sometimes present themselves. She had a ‘Lucille Ball’ one, a ‘Tigger’ one (from Whinnie the Pooh) and several others that were unnamed. I, as you know, am not a doctor by any means, but over the years, having described her to therapists, I have learned that she undoubtedly was a narcissist, had symptoms of ASPD, an eating disorder of some kind, something in the ‘schizoid’ family (lol) and others have been noted that I don’t really remember. She has always been absolutely stunning. Gorgeous. She looks different now. At least her facebook pictures do. I went to see her in 2017 to try to figure out and make sense of it all. I wanted to ask her why she did the things she did and how she was even capable of doing them. Behaving that way. I wanted to know if she has been introspective in any way. Maybe even explain away some of her behaviors. Talk to her and determine whether or not she is even capable of remorse. During my visit, she was completely incapable of interaction. Manic is an understatement. She was dissociated. Wasn’t able to address me and when I spoke to her it was almost as if someone else had asked her a completely different question or brought up a different topic. She wasn’t “here”. It was really disturbing. During my stay, we went out to eat and she had a conversation with herself in two different voices. Turning her head to face the other “person” each time she switched. While she held it together and was functioning, all in all she was simply unable to hide herself any longer. Her behaviors were extremely triggering. I left a day early and took a week from work to sleep. Suffice it to say, I haven’t seen or interacted with her since (with a couple of exceptions) 

A few years ago, she sent me my and Shayna’s baby teeth in an envelope. No idea why. On the envelope with Shayna’s teeth, she wrote her name. She spelled it wrong. Her own daughter’s name was spelled incorrectly. The handwriting itself was also ‘shaky’ I mentioned it to my therapist at the time and she told me that Edele’s brain was deteriorating. That her mental illness was starting to break her down. Pulling from my experience with her back in 2017, I can’t imagine how bad it has gotten since. Sometimes I feel bad for Edele. What a miserable existence. At the same time though, I don’t think she has a clue. Incapable of experiencing awareness, true emotion. Maybe she is lonely and scared deep down, but I have never seen her exhibit behaviors indicating that she holds any authentic or sincere characteristics. How can someone feel lonely or sad if they can’t feel anything at all? 

Edele always had so much energy. She never stopped. She never sat, relaxed, showed any sign of depression. She was often referred to as ‘the energizer bunny’. I don’t know how she did it. How she was able to keep that up with no reprieve. I have yet to meet another soul that has that ability. She was also a very sexual woman. Always surrounded by men in some way. (Remind me to tell you the story of the time she took us to California to meet a man.) It is also important to note that in public she was incredible. Magnetic almost. Incredibly charming, witty, loveable, funny, dynamic, sweet, powerful, classy, very well put together etc. Everyone wanted to be around her. She played the ‘mother role’ impeccably. Protective, caring, affectionate, attentive, and so on. Peers were jealous that I had her as a mother. She was masterful. I often wonder if my own behaviors and persona are masking the evil that she held behind closed doors. Almost like I don’t know who I really am or rather that there is a part of me that I have no awareness of. Much like Edele. I’m afraid that I am truly ‘her’ on the inside. That’s part of why my cat is so important to me. Please forgive me for jumping around so much, but I’m kind of doing that free writing thing and so it seems appropriate to move to ‘Matzoh’ temporarily. I adopted him about a year ago and was terrified that I was going to kill him. That when doors closed and he upset me, I would abuse and hurt him. I’m not being dramatic when I say that I was afraid that I would literally kill him. I didn’t seek him out. He kind of fell in my lap and that’s how he came to be mine. I have yet to hurt him or abuse him. I love him fiercely and pour as much love as I have to give into him. That in and of itself is healing. Knowing that I don’t possess those traits…the ability to harm another creature behind closed doors and present as a loving mother/caretaker to the outside world. I was also a teacher for quite a bit and had the same realizations in relation to my students. I loved them so much. I am still afraid though. I don’t know what I have, how deep it runs. Both genetically and as a result of my childhood. Fucking nature/nurture isn’t working in my favor in that regard. I don’t want to be her. I fear that I am. I have similar qualities. Without sounding boastful or self-absorbed, I possess the traits that she presented in public. I can be witty/charming, very loving, funny, powerful. Is all of that bullshit? A ruse? I have no idea. 

There was rarely a day throughout my first 16 years of life where I wasn’t, in some way, in contact with or experience Edele and her abuse. While I lack memory of most of the occurrences, I have a few examples that are crystal clear. I’ll get to those in a bit but throughout it all, as long as I can remember, I was called ‘lazy’ and ‘stupid’ (those are some bigtime trigger words for me) I was also constantly called a liar and sneaky (those are big ones, as well) Sneaky, Liar, Lazy, and Stupid. Those were all her favorites. Those labels weren’t abusive events but rather a reality that I faced throughout my childhood. It was reiterated to me constantly. I would imagine that plays a role in my type A, perfectionist personality along with my hypervigilance to overshare information. I’ll briefly mention that my sister was abusive to me as well. She bullied me a lot and in the next breath was a ‘battle buddy’ – we protected one another from Edele. It’s complicated. Overall, Shayna has always been very cold and mean. Absolutely brilliant but not open or loving. She took on a parental/controlling role, which in hindsight was more of keeping us both alive than anything else, and as a result I was and remain to be seen as an incompetent, lazy, stupid, sneaky, lying child who was unable to survive on my own. That mentality coupled with her personality and the fact that I trigger memories of our childhood are the reasons why I don’t have a relationship with her. At least that’s what my speculation is. I can elaborate later if you’d like. She’s very different from me. I would be interested to talk more about her and try to understand her behaviors towards me as an adult. 

Back to Edele. She was so fucking mean. Nasty even. She made no bones about the fact that she hated me. Regularly made it clear that she did. On her own timeline, though. She switched at the drop of a hat. While there was the appearance of love, she never actually held love for me. I never had a place inside of her, I was never a piece of her. She never “held” me. Even the performative love was completely transparent. Regardless of that fallacy, I was relieved whenever it was expressed because it took the place of the painful abuse. I never knew when she would switch. I never knew her next move. I never knew what I was walking in to. Who she would be, what she would be. The level of cruelty wasn’t a spectrum. It was more like ‘levels’ When I think of a spectrum, I think of a smooth scale. Something that you can gradually move through. She ‘jumped’ from a 10 to a 1 without notice or explanation. Regardless of her ‘number’ whether it be loving or inhumane, I never felt safe. That sentence holds a lot of weight. If I were to encapsulate this entire narrative into one sentence, that would be it. Her loving performance was very easily and suddenly replaced with pure cruelty. Again, I was never safe. Always in danger. With both my father and mother. As far back as I can remember. That is the main reason why I am here with you. I have two goals in life. Emotional safety and stability. That’s it. That’s all I want. I finally have those things to a degree and as a result, realize that it is time to address, understand, and release all ‘things’ that have made me feel otherwise. Pretty much my entire childhood through adulthood. Edele hated me. I was this worthless, ugly, lazy, lying and stupid “bitch” that she was subjected to. Shayna on the other hand, was BRILLIANT. She still is. While my room was a mess, I received failing grades, I peed the bed (until I was 16), I took terrible care of myself hygiene wise etc, Shayna was the complete opposite. She was ‘perfect’ for all intents and purposes. Straight A’s, was in an internationally known honors program, her room and personal space was impeccable, she had a full circle of friends and so on. Granted, she was not exempt from Edele’s cruelty. Edele, as stated previously, was much more physically abusive with her than she was with me. She once put Shayna’s hand in a doorframe and slammed the door on it over and over again. I clearly remember the image of her hand, the deep and open slit with dark blood dripping from it. I wish I could say that was a monumental event. It wasn’t. Edele was merciless. She would ignore me for weeks on end. Not just ignore me, but quite literally act as if I didn’t exist at all. She would walk from point A to point B and continue walking as if I wasn’t in front of her. She would just slam straight into me and continue. Like I was a ghost of some kind. I remember on quite a few occasions I would stand in front of her crying and begging her to just acknowledge me. To say anything at all to me. I wrote so many notes over the years. That was a big thing of mine. To write notes of apology and slide them under her door late at night. I still have a couple of them. The apology notes. Admitting how terrible I was. How I see how terrible I was. Apologize for it and beg her to come back. Remembering all of this, bringing it all back to the surface and naming it. I read those letters now and am just broken for that little girl. Ignored, terrorized, abused, hated, scared, always on alert, unsafe. I never knew what was coming. As a result, that is one of my greatest fears. The constant state of ‘waiting for the other shoe to drop’

Then, of course, randomly there would be the switch and I was the greatest thing. Hugs, kisses etc. I never knew what I was getting, what would walk through the door. I have anxiety even now if I am alone and hear a doorknob turn because someone is coming in. Sad. We were in a store once and she told me she didn’t want me to walk near her because I smelled bad and she didn’t want people to know that I was her daughter. Those occurrences were just as frequent as those of the opposite nature. We had songs we would sing together ‘Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off’ was one of them. She would sing a part and I would sing the other. We would dance in the kitchen, she would make these monumental and dramatic declarations of love. The song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” was another one of our songs. Oh, the irony! Ha! 

When I was about 15, my father moved from NY to Florida. I decided to visit him over spring break that year. I opened the trunk of my mother’s car (which my sister also used sometimes) to put my suitcase in, and saw a massive black garbage bag (the “heavy duty” ones). Inside the garbage bag were two backpacks. Inside the backpacks were little bags of drugs. I threw the entire garbage bag in the dumpster. I remember very little that happened after that. Suffice it to say though, despite my lack of memory regarding specific events, things got worse. It wasn’t long after that that Edele agreed to let me move in with my father. He was the lesser of two evils. I moved to Florida when I was 16 and my life completely changed. We used to say that he ‘deprogrammed’ me. My grades were impeccable, I had a huge circle of friends, I lost weight, smiled, breathed, moved around the house freely. While Larry was still abusive, he saved my life. I don’t know who I would be if I had continued living with Edele. Shayna and I had a pact that we would never leave the other alone with Edele. The year I moved to Florida, she went away to college. 

While I could continue writing for hours about my timeline from then on, I feel like this has covered the majority of my childhood experiences so I will stop here. 

R