A little something about Erika
Last night, I helped my Aunt make her very own blog. She had a journal at AOL, it was private. Like us, she was upset with the ads. She is like a little silent stowaway on our journey to blogspot. I would really appreciate it if you went over to her blog and welcomed her. http://journeyintotomorrow.blogspot.com/ Getting comments is like receiving suprise gifts. I would just like her to get a few suprises today that lift her spirits.
I think composing today's entry is going to test the limit of characters allowed in one entry. I've been composing it in my head for awhile now, so I know it's going to be pretty darn long. My apologies.
I'm always suprised by the comments I receive. Some have called me intelligent, some have said pretty, others have said funny. Usually when I get comments like those, I'm right in the middle of doing something that is none of those things. Like when I sneeze, only to discover that my hand is clean. So then it's a search to find out where the snot went. It's not on my hand, but it had to go somewhere. Then I read a comment about me, tilt my head in surprise and discover I have snot on my chin. Yay, that's always fun.
I guess the truth is that you've only seen what I've allowed you to see. There are far more intelligent people on these blogs, beauty is relative and my humor is my scapegoat. Every part of me wants to delete that last sentence. I have a huge ego, ya know? But by not allowing you to see past all that, I am holding back, guarding myself. It's cowardly, I should be more brave. The real me isn't so pretty. In fact, sometimes I can be rather ugly.
I've hurt a lot of people in my lifetime.
I could sit here and justify the reasons why I did such things and some of you would agree that I was justified in doing it. But it doesn't matter if I was in the right or not. I've left a lot of people in my wake, but if you were to ask how many enemies I had, I could only truly say one. There is a thought that you should forgive your enemies. I remember watching a talk show where a mother whose son had been shot, told everyone that she forgave her son's killer. I always thought that was so wonderful and wise and giving. I am none of things. I don't have that kind of forgiveness in me. There is one person out there that I will never forgive. He was supposed to care for me, make sure I was safe and happy, but it just didn't work out that way. He was my stepfather.
As a parent, you are supposed to go out of your way to make sure your children are healthy, happy and safe. My stepfather was ... This is tough. I can't even say that he was bad all the time, because he wasn't. Sometimes he could be so very wonderful. He could make you feel special. Other times, he was a monster. That in itself was so confusing and detrimental. Let me put it this way, if we had visitors or were out in public, he treated us like royalty. At home, it was different. Life was like walking on eggshells. We had to be careful, because one false move and he would erupt and take his rage out on us.
Let me make one thing clear. He never hit us, ever. He never laid a hand on us. I can remember a few times when he hit my mother. But the thing with my mother is that she hits back, so he learned very quickly to move away from that sort of thing. Sometimes I wish he had hit us, because then I would have had evidence that he was not the super sweet guy everyone thought he was. He read psychology books to find new and more useful ways of tearing us down. I hated those damn books. It was only later in life that I realized those books might have been a useful tool for revenge.
Whenever he erupted, he was maniacal. I don't even know if I can truly explain. Sometimes I wonder if he is truly insane. Ugh, no, I know he's not, which just makes explaining it a lot harder. He would rage and scream, that in itself was the scariest thing I've ever witnessed, but he also screamed some of the most vile things at us. Why didn't my mother leave? Because when you are told on a constant basis that no one will ever love you, you start to believe it. He got to her too. I don't resent her or blame her. Things could have been different for us if she had left, but she had no way of knowing how bad it would be. He tore her down just as much as us kids.
We all had different ways of handling it. My brother would bottle it all inside. There is nothing scarier than watching a grown adult scream the worst things at a child, only for that child to sit there and take it all inside himself. Most of the time, my brother didn't fight it. He just sat there and let my stepfather scream. That's about the time when my mother or I would start fighting for him and get the attention away from my brother. My cousin would sit there and weep, then later block it out of her memory. To this day, I don't know if she remembers half of what he said to her. I envy her in that regard.
And then there was me. I am very much like my mother. My mother fought back like a hellcat. Then difference between us is that I only fought back when I was backed into a corner. There were so many times he emotionally backed me into a corner, that I had nothing else to do but to fight my way out of it. I remember one time, he was being especially cruel. My grandmother had just died and he was raging about what a horrible woman she was. I only took so much of that before I launched an attack. I remember thinking that I had to say something that would shock and surprise him. I had to catch him off guard. I found his weak point and I exploited it. I said something to him that was really very horrible. I am not going to repeat it now. Once he heard it, he was instantly quiet. He even staggered backward a couple of steps and put his hand to his chest. Then he left the room. And I discovered that I had beaten him. There was no sense of victory at all. The only thing I felt was relief.
My discovery made it so that I had some sort of power over him. All I had to do was find an emotionally vulnerable spot of his and go for it like a lion biting into a jugular. And it worked. So I learned this art of saying the worst possible thing as a defense mechanism. As I grew up, if ever a person tried to hurt me, I would expose their weakness and go for it. I had no way of knowing this as a child, but beating him at his own game was to become like him. I hate that I caught on so quickly. I hate that I learned how to beat him, but in retrospect, I can't imagine living my childhood without fighting back.
And so it became a game between the two of us. Arrogance in all its glory. We would match wits, verbally spar until one of us was so hurt, that they had to walk away. The difference was he was an adult and I was a child. You might think that he was weak for trying to verbally spar with a child, but there were times when I beat him so badly, he avoided me for days.
As an adult, I've learned that when I feel this impulse, I must remove myself from the situation, lest I lose control of myself. I have learned that not everyone is my stepfather, and beating them is no victory, only a loss for myself. That is not to say that I have always followed this advice. I can be quite a bitch, when you get right down to it. But each time, I lose a little bit of myself that I will have to work hard to get back. I don't want to be like him. So each time I interact with people, it's always a struggle to maintain control. I think this is why I am socially awkward and avoid people.
My husband always asks me why I don't go out more. I think to myself, "It's for the best. Can you imagine the destruction?"
Okay, I couldn't resist one little funny line in there. Even as I sit here composing this, there is a small trickle of fear that runs down my spine. I would hate for him to read this, because I know he would call me and try to apologize his way back into my life. I refuse to allow it. I won't forgive him. I won't let him be a part of my life now and more importantly, there is no way in hell I will let my son anywhere near him.
And he still does it, ya know? I have let our old arguments from the past go. I don't care anymore. He still believes he's right and will go to any length to prove it. He still finds ways of trying to tear me down. He's still replaying our epic battles in his head. I have moved on. He means nothing to me.
Somewhere inside me, there's still that little girl getting backed into a corner. So yeah... I'm not all sugar and spice. Somewhere, there's a little venom inside me. I might not have put it there, but I most assuredly can try my best to keep it from taking over. And really, that's all I can do.
I think composing today's entry is going to test the limit of characters allowed in one entry. I've been composing it in my head for awhile now, so I know it's going to be pretty darn long. My apologies.
I'm always suprised by the comments I receive. Some have called me intelligent, some have said pretty, others have said funny. Usually when I get comments like those, I'm right in the middle of doing something that is none of those things. Like when I sneeze, only to discover that my hand is clean. So then it's a search to find out where the snot went. It's not on my hand, but it had to go somewhere. Then I read a comment about me, tilt my head in surprise and discover I have snot on my chin. Yay, that's always fun.
I guess the truth is that you've only seen what I've allowed you to see. There are far more intelligent people on these blogs, beauty is relative and my humor is my scapegoat. Every part of me wants to delete that last sentence. I have a huge ego, ya know? But by not allowing you to see past all that, I am holding back, guarding myself. It's cowardly, I should be more brave. The real me isn't so pretty. In fact, sometimes I can be rather ugly.
I've hurt a lot of people in my lifetime.
I could sit here and justify the reasons why I did such things and some of you would agree that I was justified in doing it. But it doesn't matter if I was in the right or not. I've left a lot of people in my wake, but if you were to ask how many enemies I had, I could only truly say one. There is a thought that you should forgive your enemies. I remember watching a talk show where a mother whose son had been shot, told everyone that she forgave her son's killer. I always thought that was so wonderful and wise and giving. I am none of things. I don't have that kind of forgiveness in me. There is one person out there that I will never forgive. He was supposed to care for me, make sure I was safe and happy, but it just didn't work out that way. He was my stepfather.
As a parent, you are supposed to go out of your way to make sure your children are healthy, happy and safe. My stepfather was ... This is tough. I can't even say that he was bad all the time, because he wasn't. Sometimes he could be so very wonderful. He could make you feel special. Other times, he was a monster. That in itself was so confusing and detrimental. Let me put it this way, if we had visitors or were out in public, he treated us like royalty. At home, it was different. Life was like walking on eggshells. We had to be careful, because one false move and he would erupt and take his rage out on us.
Let me make one thing clear. He never hit us, ever. He never laid a hand on us. I can remember a few times when he hit my mother. But the thing with my mother is that she hits back, so he learned very quickly to move away from that sort of thing. Sometimes I wish he had hit us, because then I would have had evidence that he was not the super sweet guy everyone thought he was. He read psychology books to find new and more useful ways of tearing us down. I hated those damn books. It was only later in life that I realized those books might have been a useful tool for revenge.
Whenever he erupted, he was maniacal. I don't even know if I can truly explain. Sometimes I wonder if he is truly insane. Ugh, no, I know he's not, which just makes explaining it a lot harder. He would rage and scream, that in itself was the scariest thing I've ever witnessed, but he also screamed some of the most vile things at us. Why didn't my mother leave? Because when you are told on a constant basis that no one will ever love you, you start to believe it. He got to her too. I don't resent her or blame her. Things could have been different for us if she had left, but she had no way of knowing how bad it would be. He tore her down just as much as us kids.
We all had different ways of handling it. My brother would bottle it all inside. There is nothing scarier than watching a grown adult scream the worst things at a child, only for that child to sit there and take it all inside himself. Most of the time, my brother didn't fight it. He just sat there and let my stepfather scream. That's about the time when my mother or I would start fighting for him and get the attention away from my brother. My cousin would sit there and weep, then later block it out of her memory. To this day, I don't know if she remembers half of what he said to her. I envy her in that regard.
And then there was me. I am very much like my mother. My mother fought back like a hellcat. Then difference between us is that I only fought back when I was backed into a corner. There were so many times he emotionally backed me into a corner, that I had nothing else to do but to fight my way out of it. I remember one time, he was being especially cruel. My grandmother had just died and he was raging about what a horrible woman she was. I only took so much of that before I launched an attack. I remember thinking that I had to say something that would shock and surprise him. I had to catch him off guard. I found his weak point and I exploited it. I said something to him that was really very horrible. I am not going to repeat it now. Once he heard it, he was instantly quiet. He even staggered backward a couple of steps and put his hand to his chest. Then he left the room. And I discovered that I had beaten him. There was no sense of victory at all. The only thing I felt was relief.
My discovery made it so that I had some sort of power over him. All I had to do was find an emotionally vulnerable spot of his and go for it like a lion biting into a jugular. And it worked. So I learned this art of saying the worst possible thing as a defense mechanism. As I grew up, if ever a person tried to hurt me, I would expose their weakness and go for it. I had no way of knowing this as a child, but beating him at his own game was to become like him. I hate that I caught on so quickly. I hate that I learned how to beat him, but in retrospect, I can't imagine living my childhood without fighting back.
And so it became a game between the two of us. Arrogance in all its glory. We would match wits, verbally spar until one of us was so hurt, that they had to walk away. The difference was he was an adult and I was a child. You might think that he was weak for trying to verbally spar with a child, but there were times when I beat him so badly, he avoided me for days.
As an adult, I've learned that when I feel this impulse, I must remove myself from the situation, lest I lose control of myself. I have learned that not everyone is my stepfather, and beating them is no victory, only a loss for myself. That is not to say that I have always followed this advice. I can be quite a bitch, when you get right down to it. But each time, I lose a little bit of myself that I will have to work hard to get back. I don't want to be like him. So each time I interact with people, it's always a struggle to maintain control. I think this is why I am socially awkward and avoid people.
My husband always asks me why I don't go out more. I think to myself, "It's for the best. Can you imagine the destruction?"
Okay, I couldn't resist one little funny line in there. Even as I sit here composing this, there is a small trickle of fear that runs down my spine. I would hate for him to read this, because I know he would call me and try to apologize his way back into my life. I refuse to allow it. I won't forgive him. I won't let him be a part of my life now and more importantly, there is no way in hell I will let my son anywhere near him.
And he still does it, ya know? I have let our old arguments from the past go. I don't care anymore. He still believes he's right and will go to any length to prove it. He still finds ways of trying to tear me down. He's still replaying our epic battles in his head. I have moved on. He means nothing to me.
Somewhere inside me, there's still that little girl getting backed into a corner. So yeah... I'm not all sugar and spice. Somewhere, there's a little venom inside me. I might not have put it there, but I most assuredly can try my best to keep it from taking over. And really, that's all I can do.
posted by Ari at 5:45 AM
11 Comments:
He won nothing, he is nothing, and frankly, venom or not, what you bring is always full of wonder. There's nothing hiding beneath your surface that is not worth knowing, and treasuring, all of it, good or offkey, is a thing of beauty, because it is you. You rock, end of
I'm trying to read your entry, but I am stuck listening to your music. Who is that?
I had that same problem with my moms boyfriend (common law husband, they were together for over seven years). I wasn't as strong as you were, I was affraid of him. Til this day I cringe at when i think of him. He used to beat the crap out of my mother, and she would come back to him. Sad thing is he was more like a father than my actual father.
I have a mean streak too and I must admit that I am very defensive. I have to constantly keep it in check, and it slips every now and then, and I end up regreting what i've said.
One of my worst fears is becoming like Doug.
Ya know those kinds of people are the ones that deserve our pity because obviously that is the only time they value their self is when they are "winning" they just aren't quite bright enough to realize that they are actually on the downside of loosing, they've already lost their own self-respect so they are trying desperately to win it back only they have "lost" it from their victims. You did what you had to do, I've been there, done the same. I have a mother that way only she liked to verbally and physically spar and it's taken me years to look at her and see how I should pity her because of her obvious self-loathing. It's good that you've let this go. Many become a "victim" to their circumstances forever and I say you have two choices in this life, use what happened to you good/bad to become the victim or use it to make a strong character and I like to think I chose the later. I believe you did as well. Well done letting us in the way you did. I admire that.
I still have memories of the screaming, the throwing of things. I cringe when one of them sneaks into my consciousness. And mine wasn't nearly as bad as what you describe.
I think there's venom in all of us. And when we try so hard to keep it from spilling, sometimes it just boils over.
I think this is one of the best entries you have ever written. The self evaluation and awareness you display is amazing to me. I feel like I am so lucky to be one of your virtual friends.
But that sneeze bit. I was laughing like a loon.
My mom was married to my Step-father for 9 years. He was an alcoholic. When he was sober he was the nicest guy... Too bad he wasn't sober all that much. There are two ways to handle that rage, fight back or just be invisible. At one point or the other I did both. I know exactly where you are coming from. And even though you are an adult and 'past all of that' there are times/situations when it all just comes crashing back into your awareness.
Great Entry.
i was abused at 17 by my ex husband, he was the same exact way... i have never let myself fall again for another person, until recently. i found love and while i will never forgive or forget.it doesn't not make you or me a bad person.... i just found your journal and i am a fan already!!!
Ari, I feel like I could have written this myself..My step dad was an emotionally abusive man. It's had it's impact, but like you, I try to keep it out of my current life because I don't want to stoop to that level. What a beautiful entry, hon. It's hard to put yourself out there, I know!
Somehow, I don't feel all alone now. I was as your brother was, and you are very much like my sister.
My only prayer is that I don't fuck up my kids that way.
I sit here in awe...
I can relate. I found it easier to build a wall and just not let anyone in, which labled me jaded. I dont go out as well..why? It is just better that way, again, I get it Ari.
This is a beautiful essay! Thankyou for letting us in and to meet Erika.
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