childhood, parents

those of you who know me probably know that i'm a survivor of an abusive father and mother. it often makes people blanch when they hear me talk about it, which i find odd. abuse is a weird little secret in our society; we all agree that it's a bad thing, but we don't often want to hear about it. there is a societal instinct to deify our parents, and speaking out against them really makes people uncomfortable.

but fuck that. not being comfortable talking about it creates a culture of shame around abuse, and asking the victims of abusive parents not to talk about it sends the message that the victim is somehow to blame, or in the least that the victim should deal with the problem on their own and can't expect support or assistance in extricating themselves or dealing with the issues once they have gotten out.

so, as a child, we were raised in a highly charismatic christian home, which is odd for catholics. my dad is this weird brand of freakish, speaking in-tongues, wanna-be-snake-handling catholics. he made me go to a few services with him, which i hated. scary shit. my mother, the consummate irish catholic, was the ultimate keeper of the peace in an abusive family. there was a lot of emphasis in our family catechism about turning the other cheek (a staple in a family trying socialize the children to hide abuse).

so, the cycle of abuse in our family went something like this: 1) dad would come home, ready for some bullying. the family would tense, waiting for the explosion. 2) the family would tiptoe around dad, trying to minimize any opportunity for him to find fault and let his fists fly. 3) dad would inevitably find some napkin out of place or some banana peel not neatly folded before it was placed in the trash, and he would let loose, sometimes on me, sometimes on my brother, occasionally on one of my sisters, and once on my mother. 4) the "offending" recipient of dad's beating would be banished to his or her room to consider what she or he had done. 5) after a safe cooling off period mom would come to the room to tell the child how they were to blame, and how he or she should remember not to make dad angry. 6) the banished child would return to the family, humiliated, and be expected to pretend that nothing had happened while dad reigned smugly over all of us.

lather, rinse, repeat. daily. for nearly fifteen years.

as i got older and became more socratic in my thinking, i began to question my culpability in this little ritual. i was no longer willing to be blamed for the fact that the transmission on the car was broken, as i didn't know what a transmission was, nor had i done anything to the car that could have conceivably damaged the transmission. i was unconvinced that it was my fault that there were dirty dishes in the sink, because in a family of seven there is likely *always* to be a dirty dish in the sink; preventing that state would be someone's full-time job. my mother's stump speech changed to accommodate. instead of telling me why it was my fault that dad had beat me, she began her "turn the other cheek" campaign. which worked, for a time.

i was twelve years-old when the loss of my childhood occurred. dad had beaten the not out of me for something inane, i don't remember what. mom came to my room and pitched the turn the other cheek speech. and she left. and i sat and thought about it. and something broke. i *couldn't* turn the other cheek. because if i did, he was just going to hit me on that cheek. the problem was not that i was an ungrateful, unforgiving son. the problem was that he was an abusive old man who had no intention of changing. and i couldn't conceive of a god who would want me to get kicked around by my father and not to protect myself, however a twelve year-old can protect himself from a grown man. and i knew that if i was going to survive this, and to protect my siblings, that i had to grow up and get hard. right then and there. so i did. at age twelve.

my father was a dodgy fuck, and he remains so. there was sexual abuse in the family, too, and i'm not comfortable sharing details about that. i live with the guilt of not reporting it every day of my life. my dad would probably still be in jail if i had. my mother remains his eager defender, asserting his infallibility (and her own, which is really more the point) at every juncture. and so we live, estranged. a boy who became a man too early, who is completely unable and unwilling to understand his parents because they can't apologize. and parents who are unable to understand or admit wrongdoing enough to apologize. loss of childhood. loss of parents.

daily dharma: Our minds are used to thinking, but when we want to become calm and peaceful that is exactly what we have to stop doing. It is easier said than done, because the mind will continue to do what it is used to doing. There is another reason why it finds it difficult to refrain from its habits: thinking is the only ego support we have while we are meditating, and particularly when we keep noble silence. "I think, therefore I am." Western philosophy accepts that as an absolute. Actually it is a relative truth, which all of us experience. When we are thinking, we know that we are here; when there is no chattering in the mind, we believe we lose control... Our first difficulty is that although we would like to become peaceful and calm and have no thoughts, our mind does not want to obey... So instead of trying over and over again to become calm we can use whatever arises to gain some insight. A little bit of insight brings a little bit of calm, and a little bit of calm brings a little bit of insight.