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.

Stupid

So much of my memory is in pieces.  I can remember the tiniest detail of some while other are hazy bits that are stronger to my senses than anything else. 

I can read a page and have a perfect picture of it in my mind.  But ask me what my favorite food is and I will have no way to answer that. 

I'm not really a stupid person but most of the time that is exactly how I feel.  That and embarrassed.

I wake up to find crayon colored pictures scattered all over the floor of my closet. 

I have clothes that I hate and have no idea where they came from. 

I come into conversations midstream desperately trying to figure out what I'm supposed to say.  My husband calls it my "no one's home look" where I stare off into nothing only to come back having no idea what's going on.

My husband calls me when I'm home alone and asks me what I'm doing... I have no idea because I haven't been around at all so I make up something dumb.  Like giving the dogs a bath for the third time in a week.

I have curly hair but I prefer it straightened.  Still others love to wear it curly and will do so whenever they have the chance.

I have to concentrate really hard to keep from referring to myself as we, us, our, etc... .

Each day I feel like I wake up watching a movie started in the middle that I've never seen before.  If I pay close enough attention I can figure out most of it but I always have this nagging feeling that I'm missing something.  Probably because I am.

As a kid I can see how this worked well.  I could wake up, brush my teeth and go to school and function having no memory of the hellish night before.

But now it just leaves me stupid.  Like when others decide that they don't want to take our medication.  They spit it out, hide it or now, they throw the bottles away. 

My choices to fix it: call my shrink and verify that I'm absolutely nuts; get new prescriptions filled that will cost me dearly because of how my insurance is set up; or go through the bitch of withdrawals until I can get them filled again at a normal cost.

I rarely cry but this one reduces me to tears.  It shouldn't be this hard to take care of myself.  I shouldn't have to be baby-sat, watched and followed up with.  I'm tired of being embarrassed and I'm tired of being stupid.  It shouldn't be this hard.

Madness

I find it easier to talk about my father than my mother.  His was such an overt evil that even when I lose myself to denial, I find my way back quickly with the jolt of a single memory.  Because they are all bad.

So much is made of the father/daughter and the mother/son relationship and how that connection shapes a person.  But what about the mother/daughter relationship?

My mother.  I believe that I was the beginning of the end for her.  During the holiday with my father's family I learned that I spent time in a mental hospital via my mother.  She was pregnant and they found her trying to abort me.  I'll spare the details but off to the loony bin she and I went.

How does something like that shape a daughter?  I have always known that she did not want me.  Even that she wished that I had never been born.  Once I was in this world; I forever connected her to him and she was trapped. 

That makes me sad for her.

His eyes were always black with rage, lust or something in between.  Her eyes danced with madness.

I have always bristled at the assertion that she was crazy.  It feels like an excuse for her.  But what it really is; it's terrifying.

I remember being in kindergarten waiting for her to pick me up.  I was almost always last because she was always late.  Fridays were the best though because I got my Weekly Reader hand out.  I would sit at the end of the hall and tear tiny pieces away and eat them.  A good day was when I only had the time to eat half of the back page.

It started as a good day when she picked me up.  The teacher called my name and I crammed my paper into my bag.  I always rushed down the hall but each time the doors opened I would slow as I approached her car.  I suppose I was trying to gauge her mood but really I just irritated her by being slow.

This day she leaned across the front seat to fling the passenger door open.  As the door creaked to let me in I saw her.  A gauzy pink robe.  Her naked belly bulging with my sister due in early June.  Curly hairs that I had to tear my eyes away from.

hurry up.  get in the car.  it's hotter than hell sitting around waiting on you.

None of this was spoken in her mean voice.  This was that scary sing song voice and when she picked me up like this it was the worst.  Mean; I knew what to expect.  Crazy; I couldn't anticipate a thing.

I scooted across the hot vinyl seat as I heard her say something about ice cream.  I wanted to tell her that I wasn't hungry but I did not want to be the one to pull her down in a crashing heap.

She wasn't dressed.  Not even close.  But as I stole a look I saw perfect make up and perfect hair.  These were the hardest days to figure out.  Depressed body.  Happy hair and face.

Steel blue eyeshadow surrounded her pale blue eyes.  Her pupil was the calm eye of the dancing hurricane whirling in her mind.  Music blaring.  Hot wind blowing my pigtails in my face.  She's singing as she lights a cigarette.  Between her legs is a pretty bottle hiding in brown paper.  Her robe is moving with the air and I can see the cuts and scars on her thighs.  Madness.

Baskin Robbins... 31 flavors... what kind of ice cream do you want?

we can't go in.  you don't have clothes.

Don't be silly... I can tie my robe... what do you want?

a clown cone.

I can remember thinking... clowns are scary but not as scary as you are.  Madness.

I sink down in the seat while she goes in.  Looking for something to do, I open the glove box and see her silver bottle.  I pull it out and screw the top off as I hear the sound of liquid.  I tip it back and my head follows.  It burns but I keep on drinking.

I finish it and put it back as quickly as I found it.  This isn't my first try.  I don't know what it is but I know that it makes me feel weird but better.  Calmer.  And warm.

I hear her yelling as she storms out of the shop.  The tie of her robe is trailing behind her.  There she is but not ashamed.  In one hand is my clown cone.  In the other is a cup of chocolate ice cream; her favorite.

I hate chocolate ice cream.

She gets in the car and practically throws my cone at me.  The white wrapper falls to the floor but I save the clown.  She is incensed.  As I lean down to pick up the paper I peek again at her naked belly and I see the baby moving.

Tried to do something nice for you... this is the thanks I get...

I whisper a thank you and she slaps me across my face.  I feel bad about eating the clown.  I'm scared to hurt his face.  It starts to melt and make a mess.  She grabs it and throws it out the window as the car weaves between the cars and lines around us. 

Pick your feet up... we are on a magic carpet... feel the hot desert wind... close your eyes to keep the sand out...

There is no sand but I feel really funny so I close my eyes.  I lay down on the vinyl seat; as close to her without touching her.  Hot ashes sprinkle on my cheek.  They sting but I am too tired to care.   But then hot fire touches and my scalp begins to burn.  I smell the burning flesh and hair and know that another circle will be hidden by my thick brown hair.

A single tear slips out as the madness of the speeding car rocks me to sleep.

I wake up in the dark with the stickiness of the ice cream still on my hands.  I'm still in the car.  My mom is gone.  I don't know where we are.  The windows are cracked but I can't get the door open.

I'm not worried about where she is.  I'm just scared of what will happen next.  I count my fingers to twenty over and over.  It's really dark now.

I open up the glove box but remember that I already drank the silver bottle.  I shut it.  I'm hungry.

I open my bag and find my Weekly Reader.  Half of the back page gone; that was a good day.  I start to tear pieces off and one by one I feel the tiny papers melt on my tongue.  I tear until there's nothing left to tear. 

It's a really bad day when I have the time to eat all my Weekly Reader.  Madness.