Nightmare

For the first time in a long time, I had a nightmare about my dad where he was in control. I used to have dreams all the time where he was in control, but for the last several years, I have been in control in those dreams. He says, "I want to call you."
I shove him up against the wall by the throat and say, "You can't call me because you don't know how to respect boundaries." He becomes small and the dream ends.

A couple of nights ago, I dreamed I was walking with my older sister, and Dad was walking the other direction and passed us on the sidewalk. He was really tall - he seemed like he was seven feet tall. Ann turned and watched him walk away with sadness in her eyes. I said, "Just let him go. Don't let him know you care." But she called to him. As she called to him, he turned around and punched her in the face - right in the nose (he did this in real life many, many years ago).

I was so mad; I grabbed him and punched him back, but my punch had no effect on him. He grabbed me and punched me, and I woke up. I wondered why he had power again in my dreams.

This dream has made me think about where I am in my life. Granted, I do have a lot going on right now. I have a child who is having some health issues; I am switching to a new grade next year; we are doing some remodeling on our house, and life in general is busy, but I didn't feel like I was out of control (which means not in control in my life - not that I have gone around the bend or anything like that).

Although sometimes a dream is just a dream, sometimes they can show me where I need to put focus in my awake life. I know that meeting all the new doctors and workmen takes a toll on me - especially those who wear beards. I mean really - shave for Heaven's sake! I just try to avert my eyes in order to get business done, but I struggle, and I feel yucky inside. The men with beards must think there is something quite wrong with the woman who won't look them in the face, but looking at a beard makes me want to retch.

I will be glad when the projects are done, and I can stop meeting so many new people. To those of you who love to meet new people, I commend you and wish I had that ability. I get so stressed wondering if the new people will trigger me in some way. I always have a prayer that they will be clean shaven, but that doesn't always work.

I just hope the next dream about dad has me back in control and him leaving me the hell alone.

Words from My Father

I’ve said before that it would be easier to deal with the bad memories if I didn’t have any good memories of my dad. The good memories make me wish that Dad could be okay, or worse, they make me doubt that things were really as bad as I remember. I appreciate having sisters who can verify my memories – it makes me feel not so crazy.


Today, I thought I’d share some of the memories and words of my dad that weren’t horrible.

When I get in the car with my kids I hear (in my head) my dad say, “Here we go with a ball on our nose – look at it twirling around.” This phrase makes me smile because whenever he said this, he was in a good mood.

“You can’t put old heads on young shoulders.” It took me until I was older to understand that he wasn’t being literal with this phrase. I had seen his pictures of dissected women, so this one troubled me until I realized he meant it figuratively.

“Get one for each hand,” said whenever a grandchild wanted a cookie, candy, or other goodie. He was a much better grandparent than he was a parent – that is until the day he made sexual comments to my thirteen year old daughter.

“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference,” was his favorite saying when he was heavily involved in AA. I liked who he was during this time of his life. Another saying he had during his AA years (although crude) was, “If you have one foot in yesterday and one foot in tomorrow, you will piss all over today.”

During the time that I formed a functioning relationship with him, he said many kind things to me. He understood that I needed peace in my life. When things in my life would begin getting out of control, he would say, “Watch out; my Libra is going to balance the scale – anyone on the other side is going to get smacked with it as it comes into balance.” He often told me that I was a good mother and a good wife to my husband. He would quote scripture that backed up his opinion. Shortly before he hit bottom again and beat Grandma, he offered me the advice of staying close to my church because it would make me rich in all things. He didn’t believe in my church, but I think he could see it was good for me.

It is hard to have a parent who, although brilliant, makes choices that isolate him. I wish he could be what he is not. At times I feel sad for him and wonder if he is lonely. As Thanksgiving approaches, I think of him often. For many years during the time I had a relationship with him, he ate Thanksgiving with my family. He even taught me how to cook a turkey. He loved good food, and he always made me feel like I was the best cook in the world. There are still times that I mourn for the father I wish I had – the father that he sometimes presented himself as.

I am thankful for the good men in my life – my husband, my father-in-law, and my wonderful sons (including sons-in-law). Knowing them has been healing for me. They show me that there are men in the world who can function without being sexually inappropriate with their daughters and grandchildren. They are men who are stable in their moods and behaviors. They are dependable and kind. I need men like this in my life.

Confusion

I always knew that my dad was not a good person. I knew he drank, did drugs, had anger management problems, was a womanizer, and was sexually inappropriate with people, but until I was 35 years old, I didn’t remember much of the abuse I suffered at his hands. I know that so far on this blog I have painted my dad with only one color on the brush – the color bad, but that isn’t the entire picture.

I think the mind of a child paints people as either good or bad – they can’t be both. As adults we realize that people have both good and bad inside of them. We base friendships on the balance of those qualities. When I started having flashbacks after Dad beat Grandma, I felt really confused. He had often told me that I was his favorite, so it made sense to me that I remembered the abuse he heaped on my sisters but not the abuse he heaped on me. When I did start remembering, I felt like my entire foundation was broken. I felt that I had loved him even when he didn’t deserve my love. I felt betrayed.

My mind could not reconcile the good I remembered in him with the horror that I was remembering now. I couldn’t understand that the man who could sit down with a six year old child and patiently teach her how to play chess could be the same man who exchanged her for money. It couldn’t be right – I must be crazy. I wanted to be crazy. The alternative was just too awful.

I remembered Dad playing in the community pool with me. He could be so much fun. He did everything large: laughed large, talked large, loved large, and had large anger. He loved to take us to the mountains. He taught us how to build a campfire by gathering pine needles and small branches to use as kindling and then putting larger pieces of wood on the fire. He always brought a watermelon and placed in the creek so that it would be cold, crisp, and ready to eat after we finished roasting hotdogs and marshmallows. On the days he came home singing, he was a bucket of fun. Granted – many of his songs were completely inappropriate for little girls’ ears, but none the less, he was fun. I loved those days of being safely on his lap with him calling me his little Bambino. One day I even faked being asleep in the car just so he would carry me inside and tenderly tuck me into bed.

I wasn’t sure what to do with the flashbacks of abuse that terrorized my life. Usually, I thought about them for a week or so before calling my older sister and saying, “You are going to think I’m crazy, but do you remember Dad ever French kissing us (or which ever other memory had surfaced)?”

“Oh, I hated it when he did that,” she replied.

"Damn, I was hoping I was just crazy. I didn’t want that to be true.”

When pregnant with my third child, I suffered complications and was on bed rest for six weeks. During that time Dad was clean and sober. He came to my house. He brought crab legs and watermelon for me to eat because one: he remembered that watermelon was my favorite food when I was little, and two: he felt like crab legs would be really good for a baby in jeopardy. I couldn’t reconcile this man with the father who didn’t care that we were starving as children, or with the man who did all the other things I have posted about on this blog.

As humans we try to classify things. We sort – we make patterns. My dad doesn’t fit a category. He is both good and bad. He is charming and anti-social. He is mean and kind. He is compassionate and narcissistic. He is generous and selfish. He defies all that I know about people. When I studied British Literature, I found characters and authors who embodied him. In my dad I see Shakespeare’s Iago—a man who orchestrates those around him to cause hurt, and then sits back, smiling with a deep dimple in his cheek, chuckling at his own cleverness. I see Mary Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein—a man who gives life but then abuses and abandons the very lives he helped create. I see Lord Byron’s Byronic hero—a soul that is selflessly selfish. When good, he would give his last dollar, but when bad, his cutting words flay his victim’s heart, and then his hatred burns anything good that is left.

Every child (at least this one) longs for a father. My father was the man who did all those good, kind things, and I am thankful for those memories. My father was also the man who did all those horrible things, and I feel sorrow for what he did. Because of the horrible things, the good things are tainted and make me feel confused. Yes, I understand that people are not perfect. We all fall at times, but the extremes in his behavior confuse my mind and thoughts. I am both thankful and ungrateful for the good things because it would be easier if I could say, “He is a horrible person; there is no good in him.” But there is good in him. At least there was good in him at one time. I don’t feel there is enough good left in him for anyone to be subjected to the man he is now.

I hope that when my life is done, the good I leave behind will far outshine anything I have done that has hurt others. I know that we are asked to not judge, but I am a proponent for healthy boundaries, and there is not any possible way to have a relationship with a rabid human. I know that God does not expect me to subject myself to more abuse.

In future posts I want to talk about forgiveness because forgiveness is possible – even in cases like mine.

Dad - Part One

I know this reads like I am detached from this story. Right now that is how I must write about my dad. I need to view him as a fictional character while I write, which I admit makes the writing weaker. I struggle to write about him. Maybe a part of me worries that to do so will be like calling up Lord Voldemort, and my nemesis will once again haunt my mind and my dreams. So I apologize in advance that there is emotional distance in this writing. Perhaps as the story unfolds, I will become less guarded when I write about him.

Perhaps the best way for me to describe Dad is to tell about him like a photograph. Photographs are the best way to show something that is beautiful and dad was beautiful. Picture if you will (sounds like the twilight zone) a beautiful couple. The man has thick dark hair, one green eye and one brown eye, and is incredibly handsome. The beautiful woman has dark hair and dark brown eyes. They were married for several years before they welcomed the birth of their first child – a baby boy as beautiful as they were. He had deep dimples – one in each cheek, dark brown eyes, thick curly dark hair, and a round little face. He was a good natured baby and slept more than he stayed awake. When the woman (my grandmother) took him out in his buggy, people stopped her to comment on her beautiful baby.

We will call the baby Jack, the mother Ada, and the father Roy (not their real names). By the time Jack was four years old he climbed the fire escape to the roof of his apartment building and had to be rescued by the fire department. He lit a fire in the lot next door to their apartment building and was reprimanded by that same fire department. He was a joyous handful—beautiful and well loved. He was very bright. He loved to take everything apart and soon learned out to put everything back together.

When Jack was seven, Ada and Roy had a baby daughter who was just a beautiful as her brother. Jack adored his sister, and he quickly learned that he could tease her to tears. She became the victim of many pranks. He didn’t know when to stop. His pranks were nearly always taken too far. Ada didn’t get mad at Jack when he teased. She had a soft spot for Jack that knew no bounds. Perhaps she, as his mother, knew something was not quite right with him. In Jack’s day mental illness was seldom treated and when it was the family was ostracized. Many people underwent shock therapy and/or lobotomies during these years.

Jack grew into an adolescent. He hated the gap in between his front teeth. In those days, braces were uncommon. He didn’t realize the gap made him look like a more handsome version of Omar Sharif. He loved to swim, and he did back flips off the diving board. One day he hit his head on the board and split it open. He said the pool was red with blood. Even though there was a polio epidemic, he wouldn’t stay out of the neighborhood swimming pool. One summer when Ada went to visit her parents, she got a phone call from Roy. He told her that Jack had polio. She cut her trip short and hurried home on the train with her young daughter. Jack made a complete recovery although at times he did suffer joint pain.

Jack had a hound dog named Prince. He said it was the best dog he ever had. Jack loved to hear Prince bay. Prince loved porcupines. He loved to flip them over and devour their soft bellies. Jack would dutifully remove the quills from his beloved pet. Years later, after Prince had died, he said that sometimes when he was resting on his bed, he could still feel Prince come up under his hand as it dangled over the side of the bed. Jack was a natural with animals and most animals loved him.

Roy owned a car lot and Jack couldn’t stay away from the cars. On night he was arrested for reckless driving. Roy wanted to leave him in jail for the night, but Ada wouldn’t let that happen. She went and bailed him out. He was her darling, a much loved son who she couldn’t bare to see suffer. Jack would get really tan in the summer and wear brightly colored satin shirts which made him look quite Mexican even though he was Irish. He grew in stature and good looks and resembled both George Clooney who wasn’t anyone in Jack’s time and Omar Sharif who was. Jack’s laugh was rich, deep, and easy. He was smart enough and charming enough to sell Obama’s health care plan to even the most devout republican. He was the definition of charisma.

Disclaimer: Although I like George Clooney as an actor, sometimes it is hard for me to watch him because his looks remind me of my dad.





Jack was a genius, he should have gone to college, but he struggled with authority. He felt he was smarter than everyone around him – and he was probably right. Instead he built model airplanes and played with cars and anything else with parts. His hands were sure and steady. He could have been a surgeon, but instead he didn’t do anything. When he was still charming and golden he met my mother (we will call her Carolyn). He said of that day, “She was the most beautiful woman, I ever saw.” He added, “You are pretty, but not as pretty as your mother. “She was all silver “(even though she was wearing a black dress). He loved dating her. She was so tiny in comparison to him. He was average height and slender, but she made him look huge. He would call and ask her what color she was wearing, and then go get a car to match from Roy’s car lot. He absolutely adored her.

Three months later they were married in his parents’ living room. Carolyn loved Ada. She missed her own mother so much, and Ada was more than willing to take Carolyn under her wing. It was a whirlwind romance into what they thought was their happily every after. Carolyn said that Jack wanted to have a house full of little girls who all looked like their mother. They were both happier than they had ever been.

Shadows are out Today

The following may be triggering for some.

I’ve struggled with my relationship with my mother. I struggle to write about it because we are all still trying to figure it out. The whole situation just feels like one big muddle in my mind, so I’ve asked Laura – the perfect one – if she would help us write about it.

First, let me introduce Laura. Laura was created when I was about five years old. She is the other half of Cat (another alter who I will introduce later). Laura is between seven and nine years old. She has thick dark hair that hangs straight down to her waist, pretty blue eyes, and a straight nose. She is slender and perfectly proportioned. Her teeth are white, and unlike most children her age, she is not missing any. She prefers to wear blue and white over any other colors. She is very smart; she writes, cooks, and gardens, but she does not speak. She is smart enough to communicate without using spoken words. She never gets dirty or gets into trouble – ever. She walks with a quiet step. She has a calm soothing spirit and often comforts those around her – both on the inside and the outside. The only emotions she is able to feel are peace, compassion, and fear. She doesn’t get angry, and when she feels fear, she hides away until things are safe because she doesn’t like being afraid. She knows how to be quietly invisible when necessary. I wish I had an alter who was an artist, so I could draw her portrait.

My mother was the good parent of the two I was blessed with. My father was a monster and is the reason I became a multiple. Because my dad was so awful, Mom, in comparison, seemed so good. She is kind, she always tries to be nice, she tells people the words she thinks they want to hear, but she isn’t honest – not with herself or her children. The part of her that we are struggling with the most is the fact that she refuses to ever take a stand. She is a fence sitter who always tries to please everyone around her. The problem with this is that she ends up pleasing only the people who have not seen through this exercise. I have no idea what she holds dear or believes in.

The other issue I have with Mom is that she failed to protect us. I understand that a mother can not protect her children from everything in life. I understand that she was unaware of the severity of the abuse that went on in our home. I blame only my father for his actions – yet she was emotionally detached as a mother. She worked too many hours and failed to provide for our basic needs. As children we went hungry (mostly because of dad), we went without adequate supervision (her fault), we looked like ragamuffins with tangled hair and dirty worn out clothing, and we often went without needed underclothes and stockings. Our home was a mess and even when we had enough food, our diets were unbalanced as she went on food jags of one type or another. Although she read to us most nights, loved us, and helped us see that we were smart enough to accomplish anything we set our minds to, she failed to provide for our other basic needs. Still she was the good parent of the two.

These two issues create the conflict that causes us to feel detached from her. These many things built up until the last straw came yesterday (of course there is always another straw waiting to fall). A few days ago a friend of mine called and said, “Your dad’s number came up on my caller ID. When I answered the phone, it was your nephew (he lives with my dad), calling to see if he could do a sales presentation.” My friend had found it strange to see my father’s name and number on his phone. I was thankful that my nephew didn’t have my phone number, because I never wanted to see my dad’s information on my caller ID. I haven’t seen or spoken to my father in over eleven years - the last time being in a courtroom when I testified against him for beating up my grandmother.

Fast forward to yesterday when my phone rang and clearly presented my father’s name and phone number. Although I knew it was probably my nephew, there was no way in hell that I was going to answer the phone and chance that it could be my dad. Later that day, my nephew called my two adult children. I asked my daughter where he had gotten our numbers and she said, “Grandma gave them to him.”

So I ask (in my head), “Mom in what universe did you think I would be okay with seeing my rapist’s name and phone number on my caller ID? When he asked for my phone number, couldn’t you have said (especially since you know he lives with my dad), ‘Why don’t you wait and call her from my phone.’” She gave me no heads-up; perhaps she could have said to me, “Hey, nephew is selling a new product. I gave him your phone number, so don’t freak out when you see your dad’s information on your phone.” Instead she did nothing but expect her daughter to deal with the aftermath of her insensitivity. She doesn’t consider the consequences of her actions.

I talked to one of my 3D (real life) sisters and asked if I should say anything to mom. My husband thinks I should let it go because Mom is old. My sister said that she has confronted Mom about things. I asked her if it did any good or changed Mom’s behavior in any way. She said, “No, it didn’t change a thing.” So perhaps I will vent here, and if I say anything to mom, it will be, “I’m sure glad my friend called and told me about nephew calling him so that I didn’t completely freak out (verses the partial freak out you are all witnessing) when I saw Dad’s information on my phone.”

Perhaps it is enough that she gave me the ability to seek higher and gave me the belief that I am a capable human being. Do children really need clothing with intact crotches and stockings? Is adequate supervision and food really necessary? Perhaps it was unfair of me to put her on an unreachable pedestal – it only makes her more broken to me when she falls trying to stay perched there. The littles in me are still saddened when she fails to protect us, but the adults in me realize that we can protect ourselves. Perhaps I will never figure out how to have a relationship with this woman who I do not understand.

Without the sun there would be no shadows, which means that even when I have a shadow day, the sun must still be there waiting patiently to once again brighten and warm my face.