Hesitating to put pen to paper is normal. Once it is there, out in the open, I have to look at what I wrote and then evaluate it in the light of who I am today - is it my pride that is driving me? Fear? Anger? Resentment? All of it?
Yet I have found it is necessary to write what is in my head in order to discover what is truly in my heart. Oftentimes I am not ashamed of what I eventually find because, despite all the messages I have received about me over the years, I have discovered I am, essentially, a good woman. I make mistakes. I fall down. However, I am not evil and I am not a controlling bitch trying to run everyone's life. I am simply a person trying my best to be a good sober Catholic, one day at a time.
I have always felt horrible about my inability to protect my little brother from our father's abuse. Dad was not a good father and I have chronicled the damage I had to overcome and the forgiveness I learned to extend. I forgave in order to have a relationship with him. I forgave in order to free me from anger, resentment, justification of my own bad behavior. I forgave in order to stay sober.
All that is true - BUT!
What his behavior did to me was inexcusable. What he did to my brother is, I think, worse.
The parent children most identify with is the same-sex parent. This is not a swipe at single mothers or households where the same-sex parent is not available. This is just science. It is one of the reasons my mother did her best to make sure my brother was around good men. She knew, instinctively, that he would need examples in his young life of men who were strong but kind, sober, dedicated to their families and lived moral lives. Mom did that, and sacrificed a lot to keep him involved with organizations that could help shape him into a good man.
It was a bit of a losing battle. Our father was larger than life - figuratively and literally - and his behavior (both the good and the bad) loomed over us like an active volcano. The mountain could be covered in beauty one minute and then erupt into devastation the next.
Dad also had a way of viewing the world that I realize now is a result of untreated mental illness. Dad was a Narcissist. The color of the sky in his world was different from ours. His mental illness caused him to view his behavior as okay. Why? Because, ultimately, he saw himself as a victim of everyone else. He would declare that he was being held to a standard of behavior different from other men. Keep his temper? Not scream at children? Speak in measured tones? Don't intimidate anyone? Take responsibility for his actions? Come on - NO ONE DOES THAT, RIGHT? Besides - if he acted the fool it was because WE drove him to that - my mother, me, my brother, the other guy on the freeway he would chase down to beat up on the side of the road....if only we would behave, he would not have had to do (fill in the blanks).
Woe to anyone who made a mistake. He would pounce on their failing like a duck on a junebug. He would hold their behavior up and crow with delight. SEE! SEE! THEY MAKE MISTAKES! I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE! LOOK! LOOK! LOOK!
His anger was the worst we had to endure. I am still haunted by the sounds of my baby brother's hysterical crying as our Dad screamed at his six year old son about some minor problem, a little mistake, a childish error. I would try desperately to comfort my brother, putting myself between him and Dad. Dad would turn his anger on me and God forgive me I couldn't handle it either - and I would start sobbing too. Two hysterical children would make it worse. We would be in for hours of abuse - usually by telephone after he would leave us both sobbing. Our Mom would come home from work, unaware of what had happened, to find two children in a heap of tears and fear and then the phone calls would start and she would try and comfort us and shut him down.
To my utter shame, I was not heroic enough to stand up to that man.
Yes, yes I know...technically it was not my responsibility. It was our mother's job to protect us. I know that and I accept her failings and I get it that she was cowed too and tired and I also know that much of what happened did not happen in front of her. She really could not even fathom a parent doing stuff like that to children because it had not been in her experience. I have forgiven her.
And to be honest, I have forgiven my father. He was so broken. His childhood had been horrific. That he survived it at all is an amazing testimony to the human spirit but what he brought to us was an abused child and a man who suffered from PTSD because of combat in WW2.
Nope, I have forgiven everyone - except myself.
I should have done more. I should have been willing to sacrifice myself to protect that little boy that I loved so much. I should have stood there and made it clear - you want to scream at him, you scream at both of us and I will not falter, I will stand here and take it and look at you clear eyed and brave like the young Martyrs who went into the colosseum to endure the wild beasts for the love of Jesus.
I failed. I could only sit there and sob with him, and hold him afterwards and want to kill my Dad.
See that's the big secret....I wanted my father dead.
Today I reap what was sown in our household over 50 years ago.
My plan - because I live in the solution today - is to dive back into the work demanded by the 12 Step program I use to stay sober. I also will be looking for someone to give me the outside help I need to sort through all this ugliness.
I am grateful today - for the men and women in my life who tell me I am worth the fight for mental clarity and soul health. I am grateful for the Sacramental/Liturgical life of Holy Mother Church that gives me the grace I need to go forward. I will start with the healing Sacrament of Confession. Then?
The real work will begin.
St. Margaret of Costello - pray with me.
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