EMAIL TO DON

My internal world is clamoring for boundaries with three remaining siblings that did not touch me in a criminal way but were silent by-standers and co-conspirators. Once too anxiety ridden and fearful of rejection to express my truth and outlining boundaries, it is time. Especially after Don added me to an email list of an attacker’s relatives. Don was once a father-like figure but that was long ago. Grateful for his help then, he is not same person now.

_______________________________________

I am not an invisible, compliant, worthless doormat. What happened was real. It is not in the past; it is my every day. I must manage the damage done daily because I was permanently hurt in many ways. Sudden noises or movements cause a heightened scare. No trust for others, just fear. No happy sex life, just thoughts of rape.

The extensive damage is not only from the attackers but the rest who knew and did nothing to help or stop it. You and Seth knew. I told Seth, “Danny fucked me.”

A little girl with that coming out of my mouth which must mean Dan said it to me while he did it, but it had to have been so violent that even now my psyche will not allow it up. Aunt Ruth knew. These days, as a school nurse, she would be required to report it, but not then.

I still am expected to be compliant and silent. No. Co-conspirators cause as much damage.

The insensitively of giving my name and addresses like you did shows that the love you profess for me is conditional, based solely on whether I interfere with your plans or not, that of collecting a clan or ‘family.’

That was no family for me. It was a place of terror and trauma, ongoing, relentless, and severe. I was expected to be quiet about all of it making the damage permanent because unprocessed trauma stays in the body breaking many systems beyond repair.

Then you become buddies with Tom, his attack horrific, but more horrific was the way he treated me the rest of my life, causing so much more damage to my self-esteem than any attack by all 4; his sly put-downs, sneers, and nastiness spoken around everyone about me, done so slyly it was hardly noticed by anyone but me.

No one defended me or said anything to correct him. I was put in a bad light in everyone’s eyes without anyone really being aware that his treatment of me tainted their view of me-useless, less than.

What did you do to help or stop it after you ran in the bathroom when I was 8 or 9? I was screaming in the bathtub because it “‘hurt down there.” (my exact words) You left looking disgusted. That was right after Dan raped me when no came to comfort me, give me medical attention, nor stopped 3 more from attacking me.

Would you expect your daughter to cozy up to Chet’s relatives if he had committed years of attacks on her? The same with your closeness with Tom?

No. I am supposed to be quiet and compliant, and be muscled by your acceptance with compliance, or rejection if not. That is not love.  

I want to love you, and I do, but I do not trust you.

RAW FLESH HEALED

Years of openly discussing the traumas of my youth have healed me, though it wasn’t till mid-life after my mother died that it felt OK to do it. A safe place planted here where anonymity gave me freedom. Others also traumatized, but also muted by their families and society, encouraged me to keep going.

Though writing for myself, focusing on going deeply inside, others responded, and for the first time the truth of what happened was expressed; opening me, freeing me, and connecting me to others who were also silenced about childhood sexual attacks.

A caged wounded human, bleeding internally for decades, opened the wounds to air and with time healed. Lots of time, and lots of expressing, over and over again, as long as it took.

That is healing, exposing the hurts to air, receiving love and care in return, not silencing, coercion, and betrayal, but openness, love, and warmth.

I am at peace. I am whole, I am alive and glad to be, not hoping that it would all be over. The blood washed away, raw spiritual flesh healed. I may be a conglomeration of shattered parts grouted together, but the whole is stronger than it was or ever could have been.

SHAMING

And though my mother wasn’t a perpetrator, she,

like the rest of the family, are co-conspirators.

A rare few see me authentically beyond the permanent façade my mother carefully crafted with dedicated grooming. Yes, a mother grooms her child, not for sex though that happens, but to silence her because of what her sons (or partner, uncle, or family friend) did to her daughter.

In my case it was her sons. From early on the shaming she so persistently directed at me was so completely successful that I am still looking for me fearing she will never be fully found. Glimpses, moments, or a string of moments come when wholeness comes, but too much of the time unease strands me in the land of the lost.

But some see beyond the cultivated exterior. Friends, Sue and Marilyn, now both gone. Fellow bloggers who have become friends, though never meeting either in person.

My sons, Samuel, fellow bloggers and readers, and that is about it. It is enough, it will have to be because going out to become part of a group once again takes more energy than what is available.

As the sun warms and birds sing my soul awakens coming together in harmony with nature.

Today’s Delights

C-PTSD: A LIFE-SENTANCE

After scrutinizing this fear in my belly haunting me these past months, my conclusion includes the illnesses, one after the other. Adding to that, or because of that, I feel victim to whatever the day brings.

Something, like two days ago when arranging a colonoscopy, my body went into fight or flight with shaking hands and fast, loud heartbeat. It wasn’t until bedtime that I realized my body was still in survival mode because it took a whopping dose of medication to sleep.

C-PTSD rockets are hard wired internally at the ready for launching when threats are detected, and even in my quiet life they abound. The re-wiring of systems to be always on edge is due to repeated traumas occurring in childhood when no help came to process them at the time. The family’s reputation was more important than my well-being or survival.

When that happens, a victim is left with a lifetime of repeating frights and terrors all because the originating trauma was left to bounce around internally causing damage to as many systems as possible.

Perhaps you become an addict to escape the pain and fright, whether alcohol, drugs, food, or shopping. Perhaps the pain and terror was so overwhelming you couldn’t survive, or picked abusive partners, or a myriad of other painful life scenarios.

Perhaps you live it cold and soberly, taking each day- and like me, ricochet from peace to terror in a heartbeat. But the problem compounds because when rocketing off into the terror zone, my body stays in the stratosphere until medication brings it back to status quo, to equilibrium, to much needed sleep.

It is not easy being a trauma survivor that received no help, no one to come and calm my terrors, to hold me, rock me, love me, and work me through the repeated sexual attacks by once loved brothers until I felt safe and powerful. Until I knew that if it were to happen again, I’d have help and protection- to possess the power to keep them off.

I didn’t, and was not. I was a little girl. They are all dead, yet I am still afraid. My body reacts with terror on its own volition to things that wouldn’t trouble another at all. My life sways in the way it responds, threatened, anxious, and often scared.

In a family when a little girl is sexual abused by her loved ones, you MUST face it, and HELP her. You must have the courage to face the world and say we as a family failed, and we must save this child. But no one does.

SHATTERED- CHAPTER 4: CHET

A memoir by Patricia Grace- available on Amazon

n my house growing up there were six bedrooms: three downstairs, three up. Mine was sandwiched in between the two upstairs and decorated to my liking, just for a little girl. The sunny yellow walls complemented the matching bedspread with intricate threading woven through the soft cloth, little squares of yellow outlined in white. Mom’s bedroom, next to mine, faced the front yard and, after Dad died, Stevie slept there too in a separate twin bed by the window.

No one else besides Chet and me were home and the usually active, loud, busy household seemed oddly quiet. Mom had found work as a secretary and we were left on our own much of the time. Chet, fifteen, and the designated watcher of Stevie and me, was known for his happy-go-lucky good nature and charm. I loved and adored him, as I loved all my brothers, though a crack had begun to form deep below. Quite the lady’s man, he dated frequently and the girls couldn’t get enough of him. I couldn’t either. He made me laugh and feel good and always had a smile. You could not help grinning or feeling happy around him.

I sat cross-legged on my bed with an array of punch-out Barbie doll clothes I had received for my tenth birthday, the kind where you dress a paper doll Barbie with paper clothes that have little tabs to fold over the doll to hold them in place. I hummed while playing, the bright sunshine splashing onto the sunny yellow bedspread. Stevie had taken off with his bike down the road to play with his cousin. Warm summer air fluttered the frilly white curtains.

Chet came upstairs, looking into my room, dangling a pack of Wrigley’s gum in his hand, not the stick kind but the box with little pillows of gum crusted with sugar glaze.

His eyes were smiling, playing a game. He said excitedly, “You get it before I do and you can have it. I’ll give you a head start!”

I jumped off the bed into the hallway. He threw it towards Mom’s room where it landed on the floor by her bed.

“Go!” he said.

Loving games with prizes, especially those involving gum or candy, I raced after it, reaching it before he did, claiming the prize. I’d won! I held it up staring at the cellophane, straining to see at least one square of the sugary gum, but it was empty. I looked at it bewildered, but had little time to complain. His body slammed into mine, the rock solid force knocking the air out of me. He dragged me onto Mom’s bed, falling on top quickly, as if all in one motion, smothering me with his weight, his chest crushing air from my lungs, his shoulders, head, and face so close the minute heated air space between his head and my face lacked oxygen. My body roared in defense, bucking, twisting, and trying to pull away or get up but I couldn’t move. Fighting made it harder to breath and so much worse, like I might die if I kept it up. So I lay still. His fifteen years of male growth, massive and violent, overpowered my child-sized frame with deadening, brutal, iron heaviness. No breath came until I quit fighting. The brick wall stifling me had just one moment ago been my smiling brother.

SHATTERED- CHAPTER 3: CHRISTMAS AT GRANDMA’S

A memoir by Patricia Grace- available at AMAZON

The long old oak table gleamed like golden honey, someone’s effort to wax and shine evident in its warm glow. All six extensions were in place, stretching the usually small oval form from one end of the ancient farmhouse’s dining room to the other. Grandma and Aunt Sally hosted Christmas each year, one week before the big day, so we celebrated not one but two Christmases. Happy chatter filled the rooms bursting with all eight of us Wilkinson kids, Mom, Aunt Rita, Uncle Fred and their three kids, our cousins, Scott, Annie, and Larry.

Even the youngest, including me, were allowed to help properly situate the crisp white tablecloths over the seemingly endless length of smooth wood. A slight hint of pine arose as Scott and Don shook them before settling askew, as we helped pull the edges so it hung just right, one cloth slightly overlapping another. After storage in cedar lined trunks, they’d been ironed and starched, the soft thick cloth slightly stiff. The kid’s cloth-covered card table tucked to the side would be my seat, along with Stevie and my cousin Larry.

Next we set out plates, then silverware, cloth napkins, glasses, coffee cups with saucers, salt and pepper shakers, ladles, serving forks, and the sugar and creamers. Doing my best to fold the napkins with precision took time, and then the silverware had to be placed in exact order. Annie, older by seven years, held court, directing us younger helpers, then added the finishing touches by lighting all the candles. The room warmed with a soft glow, the flickering light beckoned for all to gather.

Uncle Fred stayed reclusive even among us. He’d force a smile, and then remove himself from the lively gathering as quickly as possible with excuses of a hot football game back at his house across the road. I couldn’t understand why he’d leave the gay party. His structured smile always softened when he said “hello‟ to me. But Aunt Rita rocked with holiday fervor, pounding out carols, while I sat on the piano bench next to her, following along, loving the songs of Christmas, and loving even more that she knew how to play them, turning the pages when she nodded her head. Mom and Aunt Rita exchanged a look that cooled the atmosphere briefly, and it wouldn’t be until years later that I’d learn what caused that soured rift, Mom used instant potatoes in her dish to pass instead of making them from scratch.

Sitting down for the big meal was just something to get done with, barely tolerated, especially by the three of us at the little table. It seemed to take forever to eat. Warmth and activity filled the kitchen along with smells of roasting turkey, bubbling gravy and other mysterious tempting aromas wafting from the oven. We moved through the bustling kitchen quickly with gentle scoldings. “You kids stay out of here,” could be heard from one smiling chef or another.

We jumped into the living room, exploding with excitement to examine the tree again, which filled the bay window alcove. The floor-length windows shimmered with brilliant colors reflected back, mirroring the festive scene, intensifying it. Underneath, prettily wrapped presents in assorted shapes awaited happy hands, the old- fashioned, fat, colored bulbs enhancing their mystery and attraction brightly. Silver tinsel, thickly adorned, streamed downward, glittering with movement in the air current. My favorite ornament sent bubbles into its colored liquid when plugged in, the water inside the tiny tube heating up. The tree’s branches hid several white envelopes slipped in-between branches, but those didn’t captivate us. Our eyes quickly skimmed past them to the gifts below.

Moving constantly with high-test kid energy, the tree securely the same as only moments before, I flounced to the other end of the living room, braking at the treat table to study the candy dish. Its contents overflowed with beautiful striped colored candies of various shades—yellow, green, orange, red, and some swirled with two colors together. That would be for later, the sugary thin brittle ribbon, fun to break into bite-sized chunks, crunching the sweetness, trying to detect each individual flavor: mint, cherry, orange, lime or lemon? The opened box of chocolates next to the fancy ribbon twirls didn’t stand a chance.

Not old enough to be trusted to fill the punch pitcher, I followed Don out to the frigid breezeway where the tall kettle held gallons of fizzy red holiday punch. He used a long-handled porcelain covered dipper to refill it, and I rubbed my arms up and down jumping in a circle to stay warm. The breezeway kept the punch at a perfect temperature without freezing it. Reentering the bright kitchen felt like suddenly being wrapped in hot blankets.

Feasting time approached. Potatoes were scraped into serving bowls, gravy and the rest of the fixings all transferred from cooking pots to Grandma’s multi-colored Fiesta ware. The rolls were handed to me, and I set them on the table before joining Stevie and Larry at our own table. The others began to gather ‘round and settle in for Grace.

Finally sixteen people seated themselves and our eldest cousin, Scott, led the prayer. We bent our heads, clasped our hands, then the meal began, the quiet suddenly erupting with tinkling silverware, clinking dishes and, “Will you pass the gravy? Do you have the pepper?”

No one bothered to tell us what food we had to eat, a plus for the separate table, but once we were done, we had to sit there till everyone else finished. The wait felt like an eternity. Then the clearing began which we helped with, glad for some activity. After the dishes were delivered to the sink area, we flounced impatiently on the couches near the tree, while the clatter of washing dishes continued in the kitchen. Next? Dessert.

I suddenly perked up. I guess I could wait a little longer, but the question begged, which one? Grandma traditionally offered a two-layer chocolate cake topped with fudge frosting, so massive you needed a sharp knife to cut through the deep wad of fudge that dropped off the edges of the almost black confection. Aunt Sally ensured someone had made a run to the city creamery for the perfect, special, peppermint stick ice-cream, pink, and sweeter around the real pieces of slightly crunchy red and green candy mixed inside. And the required pumpkin and apple pies filled the counter, served plain or à la mode, along with dark, rich, freshly perked coffee from Grandma’s plug-in percolator.

So the shuffling for chairs began again as everyone sat to ingest the sweets, complaining of how full they were. We picked at our desserts and chattered as the ice cream melted in our dessert cups, excited that soon we’d be ready for the tree. This time clean-up went quickly. Paper plates with Santa faces were dropped into large trash bags, held by Scott or Don. Some took their coffee with them as they left the table. And then the time came, we blasted into the living room. Finally, the tree!

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, as close to the tree as possible, my fingers clasped and unclasped impatiently as we eagerly awaited the dispersal of gifts. The main event had begun. Everything we’d been waiting for over the last several months culminated into this, wishes to be answered, dreams to come true.

When the Sears Wish Book had arrived before the snow flew, Stevie and I pored over every page. That catalog represented the bible of toy heaven. It held beautiful color images of toys we had never imagined. Our wish lists grew long. Then the studied list had to be organized from most wanted on down. This serious business took time and diligence, more fevered energy devoted to it than to any dedicated to homework. When the list felt just right, perfectly displaying our hearts’ delights, only then did we deliver it to Grandma.

And wishes do come true. The previous year my list topper had been a doll that pooped and peed, vacillating between her and an Easy Bake Oven. The dolly that pooped won out. Over time, the wish list matured, and included a glorious long-haired, blond Barbie doll, complete with extra fancy clothing: a long silk gown, heels, a purse, and of course a tiny hairbrush and comb, accompanied by a closet-like case to keep her and the numerous accessories in. Little hangers were even included, like a real closet, with small drawers below for shoes, hats, or jewelry.

As preadolescence approached, gifts that plugged in would become desirable; the most favored, a record player able to handle 45s and 33s, with a little attachment to hold a tall stack of the smaller one-song 45s. One after another, the latest hits dropped down. After all of the records played, they were flipped over for the songs on the other side to reverberate. “Pretty Woman” echoed through the bedroom walls repeatedly, as my friends and I danced and gyrated. But this year all the rage was Chatty Cathy—pull the string in her back and she talked!

I barely sat still. Scott seemed to take quiet pleasure in drawing out the process. Grandma opened a black leather handbag that looked just like the one she already had. Aunt Sally’s gifts were given out one by one, always a book of interest, and especially chosen to meet the tastes and needs of each recipient. I loved reading due to her tireless efforts, reading all the golden books out loud to me, as we lay together on the couch at night. I cherished books, and my gift anxiety for my long awaited dolly was momentarily relieved while opening a hardcover storybook that now belonged only to me. My ability to read hadn’t evolved to thicker chapter books, but with years to come I’d receive many grand titles including the Nancy Drew series of which I read every one, My Friend Flicka, The Yearling, and so many more treasures that took me to far-off places.

The time had arrived. A big, gaily wrapped box was laid on my lap. Noise, light, and laughter stopped, tuned out; all that existed was the pretty paper, ripped off immediately. There she lay, gloriously beautiful Chatty Cathy. Opening the box, my arms enveloped her close to my heart; my smile surely must have matched the joy I felt inside. The little white envelopes handed out next weren’t even noticed, as I got acquainted with my new friend who talked. I swooned with rapture. She had gold ringlets and a frilly blue pinafore dress. She never left my side, going to bed with me that night and all the nights after. Christmas was complete and everything I had ever wanted, I had received.

NIGHTMARES

PHOTO BY PATRICIA

Body and mind split, the tatters impossible to replace. Though my body improves daily, the C-PTSD symptoms keeping me from sleep at night haven’t calmed down and I’m wide awake well past midnight.

After not using medication for sleep three nights in row, if sleep were to come last night it had to be with help, so finally it was taken allowing for some relief by 2AM.

My life is so out of order and it appears to stay that way, the damage in childhood complete. When having to hold so much horror in to appease the family, the internal chaos did damage to many of my body systems permanently.

My coping was more greatly challenged by illness, especially this one because after a day or two one expects to get better. Not so with Covid, day after day moving into a month before improvement slowly comes.

It will take some time for my body to adjust back to the already existing challenges, hard enough. For the first time a nightmare came, a brother jumping out from my blanket attacking me. Never had a nightmare about any of them happened before. (4 out of 7 attacked me sexually all before the age of 11)

So much damage done in childhood. It is hard to accept and not run from it, but most separation is unconscious because my body learned a long time ago how to split from my mind. It reacts daily as if threatened even 60 years later.

With illness the threat really exists. Yet my mind goes on like my mother taught me… as if nothing ever happened- until nightfall when even little concerns loom like monsters devouring me. I can feel the split occur and know that sleep will not come without assistance.

They come in the dark of night, worries, threats, nightmares… brothers. As respect and love grow within, so too the memories of just how horrifying my early life was. Their crimes caused life-long damage which worsens with age. Yet my will to live a joyful life continues. I will, I will, I will.

C-PTSD

Two weeks of reprieve, sleep coming every night even after waking to use the bathroom, then bam, needing medication two nights in a row.

Is it something within my ability to change?

Worry about being an insensitive friend because Nancy had mentioned in her long email that her kidney needed another operation. Walking too much hurt, but I’d read the email only soaking in the major parts and missed it. That happens a lot with my brain hip-hopping around like it does. Thinking a happy email might be helpful, it included my love of walking in the meadow.

But a few days later my mind began swirling in the night thinking about it, going back to re-read it the voice of mother boomed, “YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF!”

That was one of her ways of grooming me into silence so I would not speak of what her sons had done. Abusers aren’t the only groomers, families are excellent groomers too. No sleep for two nights, I’d made an unforgiveable error.

But after apologizing via email about my insensitivity, she writes back happily sharing her travels with family at a B & B. Her medical issues and emotional state did not keep her from fun things with not a thought about anything I said.  

But it agonized me. Going through what she is dealing with would terrorize me. Terror even of Samuel’s hip replacement, causing me to stay close to home not wanting to be with anybody, needing time to collect enough courage to face the entire next day in a hospital.

This thing I do, worrying about not being good enough, doing bad. How does one change that? Can it be healed?

It has to be managed, lived with. It became part of my personality at age 8, all alone, raped, and having to deal it on tiny shoulders, with more traumas to survive for the next several years.

It is a silent ravaging disease, anxiety, C-PTSD, low self-esteem, and so much more. Not many understand, comprehend, or want to, surely not enough to keep them up at night.

My soul shatters, comes together, then shatters again,

and oh so quietly nobody hears, sees, or knows.

Love of Life

Photo by Cory (my younger son)

Each day there is a job to do, work on self-esteem. Though possible to improve on that front, the core of my being already formed is staying that way.

You cannot cut into the layers of a tree and remove its inner ring without killing the tree.

I am who I am, who was formed during childhood, with beliefs about myself that became embedded into my personality.

So, each day takes focus, work, and effort to counteract the life-threatening critical voice which thrives so dramatically inside me. To tell it, I do deserve life, equality, pleasure, and happiness, even amid all the other struggles and pain that life brings to each of us.  

Knowing

Happiness is not ready-made; it comes from your own actions.

But what are the actions needed? My body and me, we departed from each other at age 8. Reconnection slowly occurs in snippets, yet mostly remains a mystery.

The rift is too widely cracked. Is it activity or rest? A life of adrenaline filled days has worn out my body no matter how hard that fact is denied. Easily overwhelmed systems need a great amount of rest, stillness, and inactivity.

The urge to push, push, push backfires making me physically sick.  Feelings of being different, weird, or unusual can be transcended with acceptance of all that I am, was or will be. Patience with self fans the spark of self-love into flame.