Normal

My husband asked yesterday if I ever thought I would be normal in regards to certain things.  I told him that I didn't know what normal looks like but that my goal is to be healthy.  He looked at me weird but he does that a lot when I actually get out of my head and talk.

Those certain things that he's referring to are my incredible sexual hang ups.  I came home from therapy the other night with a list of things that he cannot do and the reasons why.  He was told all of those things by my counselor before we got married so that we were hopefully on the same page.

Problem was, when he did any one of those things that bothered me, I never said anything to him. 

My counselor originally wrote the list as I talked about what things bothered me.  But I decided to I hand write it again so that he knew that it was coming from me.  I gave it to him and initially he looked surprised and confused.  Then he said that he needed some time and I was positive that he was really mad at me. 

Turns out that he was mad at himself for hurting me.  He thought those rules were my therapist's rules and not my own.  I confirmed that thinking when I never said anything when he did something that hurt me.

I won't get into the details of the list because it was awful to talk about and write.  But I think that what upset me the most was the fact that I had no good answers for why I let him do things that hurt, bother or upset me.  All I knew was that I was the same person with him that I have been in the past with all the other men and I felt so ashamed for that.

My EX-husband, among other things, had a rape fantasy.  So guess what he did every few months?  I still have a hard time walking into my own dark house even though it's not the same one he and I lived in together.  And forget about hiding around a corner to scare me.  That's a cardinal sin in our home and everyone knows it.

My father... my best bet was to look like I enjoyed it.  If I showed pain it only made it worse.  Same for his friends.  But then there were the times where I couldn't muster anything close to a look of pleasure because kids aren't made to do those kinds of things.  Those were the worst times.

My husband isn't anything close to being like the other men.  If I told them not to do something because it hurt me, they did that thing even more.  My husband isn't like that and I don't understand why I would think that of of him.  But I do. 

I also think that says more about my own condition than his state or that of our marriage.

Now I'm not going to lie.  I'm scared to death now that he knows the things that can hurt me and bother me the most.  I trust him but then I don't because really, I don't fully trust anyone.  I feel extremely vulnerable.  I don't know the things that could bring him to a mental stand-still or break him down yet he knows some of my deepest and exacting issues.

It's hard enough growing up the way I did.  But then I grow up and once again find myself in a disadvantaged position in my own marriage with the man that I love.  I hate that.

I guess the good thing is that he hasn't gone anywhere in 6 years.  And he's still here even after me bringing home a list of do's and don'ts.   So even though I don't know what normal is; I guess this might be our own normal.  He still doesn't understand my differentiation between normal and healthy and that's probably because healthy is normal to him.  I guess that makes sense for someone who isn't as fucked up as I am.

I feel childish in this thinking but it's what I want.  I don't care about normal but I want to be healthy.  Normal can mean so many different things but healthy seems like a much more concise goal.  I just read my last few sentences and I realized that I just said something that I want.  I don't ever do that so I'm hoping that is a step in the right direction of healthy.

Pills

Shut up.  Drink your milk.  Don't you gag.  Swallow all of it.  Open your mouth and let me see.

His fingers dig through my mouth.  Along one row of teeth and as he moves his finger across I do it.  I bite down on his two fingers as hard as I can.

Let go you little bitch.  Fuck.  Now.  Before I make you pay.

He has already made me pay.   I taste blood metallic on my tongue.  I'm hurting him and as long as I hang on with my teeth he can't hurt me all that bad. 

A rock in the form of a fist flies into my stomach.  All at once food, milk, blood, pills and fingers explode from my mouth.  Everything but his fingers land on him.

I pull back and shield my face.  I wait but nothing hits.  And then my hair is yanked up as a foot sweeps my own right off the floor.   My hair being held breaks my fall as I land face down in my own vomit.  With disgust he tells me to clean up the mess I've made. 

I know exactly what he means.

Put the pills to the side.

I do exactly what I'm told.  one pill... two pills... three and four.  In a row and I go back to cleaning.

The putrid smell is too much.  I gag again.  I feel a shoe squarely in the back of my head.  I scramble to the corner as I watch her clean.  My mess.

With a shoe promising a blow she finishes the milk and the dinner.  She reaches for the pills as he grabs her hair. 

The eyes waters as I fly to my feet.  Pick up the pills and give them to me. 
i drop them in his hand. he shovs them in my mowth and i cant breeth. the tast burns my tong.
chew them up
i hate him. i dont want his stoopid pills or the funee milk in my body. i see watt he puts in my cup and i no that my milk dosnt taste like that at scool. my hed dosnt feel bad at scool to.
i shak my hed to tell him no  an he cals me names. i beddr do watt he tells me to doo
i clos my teef an the pills tast grosss. the pills are difrent colurs an i wondur what they look lik all togthr an watt colur they mak. he tells me to not stop chewin and i do wat he sas. shhe wus stoopid not me
he sas they r posin an wil mak me die. she made me die cus she didnt swalow them lik a good girl. they tast so so grossss an yuk. im nevr takin a pilll agin. nevr evr evr
i am goin to find james to tel him we r gunna die. the pills r gunna kill us. by by lucy no mor pills for evr
i find james an he says its ok go to sleeep lucy so i go to sleeep

Lucy falls asleep but she does not die. I continue where she left off. The stomach hurts and we cannot get sick. He pulls me away and to their room. He puts me on the bed and I'm laying on the stomach that still hurts. No more pants. No more clothes. I hear his belt and I brace for the worst. It lands on the bed and I hear his zipper. Go put the kids to bed I tell Elliot. No one needs to know this happens to me.

James

Contrast

I had "the talk" with my daughter yesterday.  She's eight and has been asking a ton of questions over the past few months and I had a lot of catching up to do.

I have very much fallen down on the job... I have never called body parts anything.  At all.  I've never talked about normal functions of our bodies; especially what happens as we grow up.

I'm very uncomfortable with all of it.  However, it wasn't the discomfort that I dreaded the most.  I was so afraid that I would bring it up and it would reveal that something had happened to her.  That was my worst fear.

If someone had sat me down at eight, I probably could have told them more than they knew as an adult.  It would have been very clear that things were happening to me.  Not surprising though, nothing was ever explained to me.  It was demonstrated instead.

So when we started talking I was so relieved to hear that she knew virtually nothing other than a few details that she has picked up on from other kids and TV.  I used a book to explain everything; books are my cure-all for anything I don't know how to do.  Most of this topic, terms, body parts, etc are upsetting and can flood me with bad memories.  Thankfully the book kept me on track.

Everything was fine until she started asking me how old I was when I found out about all of this.  I didn't know how to answer her.  It had been such good conversations until then and I didn't want to taint her own memory with my garbage bags.  The best answer I knew to give was that I didn't remember.  We finished the conversation and went about our day.

I put on a smile for everyone but on the inside there was a deep and burning grief in the pit of my stomach that has yet to leave.  In trying to do the right things as a parent I often get blindsided by the very simple, very wrong actions of my parents.  And it hurts.

I would be lying if I said that I don't get jealous of my daughter at times.  I know that's a terrible thing to think let alone say but it makes me wonder what was so bad about me.  I want to do the best that I can by her yet my parents couldn't muster much more than not killing me. 

It's an intolerable contrast that I can't seem to wrap my mind around.

My daughter is a good kid with a kind heart.  She can also be very challenging.  But even at her worst I can't imagine doing what they did.  And that makes me wonder just how horrible I must have been.

My parents were bad people and I loved them.  I still do.  So how can my daughter be such a good person coming from such a bad person for a mother?

Another intolerable contrast except this one is one that I can't wrap my heart around.