Child of a Predator

I can remember it as if it were yesterday, the day I came home from a counseling seminar in Indianapolis...
I was met at the airport by my parents. There was shame in my mother's eyes, and anger hiding behind her smile. I thought it had to do with me, though I couldn't figure out what I had done this time. Then tension in the car on the drive home was palpable. Mom asked questions about my trip, trying to be normal for a few minutes, and then silence. I wasn't sure I wanted to know why they seemed so mad, but I couldn't figure out what I had done.
When we got home, they sat me down in the living room. I knew for sure something was up now, we didn't have family meetings if something wasn't wrong...


My mother started the conversation by telling me that something happened while I was gone, and they would rather I hear it from them than the neighbors. That the neighbors were likely going to have some very nasty things to say, and she wanted me to know the truth.
My step-father had been seen, by one of the neighbor boys looking in the windows of the house next door. They had called the police, he had been charged. He defended himself to me saying that they had not been home. I still don't know if it was the mothers window or the daughters windows that he was looking in, I assume it was the teenage daughters simply because the mothers windows were on the other side of the fence. It had been published in the newspaper, and they were waiting for the backlash, not only from the neighbors, but also from our church.
Then he proceeded to confess that he had peeped on me, when I was showering, and that he had been caught by my mother. He said he used some excuse that he thought I had someone in the bathroom with me because he heard me talking to someone.
I was devastated, to say the least... here I was almost 20 years old, and the man I looked up to with every fiber of my being, just confessed to me that he had violated me, and I had been none the wiser. I had just returned from a 10 day seminar where I had “learned” that to not forgive someone created a root of bitterness that would ruin my life, and I was being given the greatest test of all time...
Needless to say, there were a lot of tears at that family meeting. I think I realized that the reason for his confession, as well as the tears were because he got caught. Respect ceased to be an issue for me that day. Fear...I had plenty of that, but I have never respected the man since.


So, my parents left shortly after this to go get counseling. They had a great vacation without me...I think they were gone for two weeks. Nobody seemed to think that this revelation could have harmed me any, at least counseling wasn't an option for me. I mean, he never saw anything, never touched me inappropriately, right... so what did I have to deal with? He was the one that needed help.


When they returned home, we changed churches... they said it was because of doctrinal differences, but I knew better. We moved to a smaller fellowship (it was really just two families) and no one but the pastor ever knew what had happened.


I talked to my mother about this the other day, because I couldn't understand how she stayed with him after that. Her response was that it “only happened those two times” and she could fogive him because of Jesus...that she had made a vow to god when they got married...

REALLY?????

I guess “for better or worse” means that you and your children are supposed to be doormats...

Now, it has been my experience that most people don't do something they know to be wrong a second time if they get caught the first time they do it...And I know for a fact that he had “porn problems” after this incident...after the demon of lust was exorcised...and that he had gotten caught...yep. His excuse... “I have to know what is out there to protect my family from it...” meaning, to protect me from the big bad internet porn industry...never mind that when I was online I was in Christian chat rooms telling people that they were interpreting scripture incorrectly, and had absolutely no interest in porn...

So, in retrospect, I refuse to believe that he only did that twice. Mainly I am angry that my parents wouldn't see the devastating effect that this had on me. Ok, that's not true, I am angry that my mother chose that bastard over protecting me. That she refused to see that her vow was helping drive me away from the god she made the vow to. That she still, to this day, makes excuses for the man.


I will probably never have closure for this... but the writing has helped.

Normal?

            I often wonder what it would have been like to have a normal life. 

When I was eight, two major things happened in my life, my parents became Christians and I asked God to make me a boy.  My parents’ religious conversion and being summarily ignored by their loving God paved a very interesting road for the person I was to become.

            God brought many changes into our household…no more beer, no more cigarettes, different music, less TV…but being eight things don’t appear the same as they do twenty years later.  The major changes didn’t occur for a couple of years, at least not until my parents attended a “Basic Seminar”.

            I think I was eleven when my parents attended the week long seminar in “Basic Youth Conflicts”. I was too young to attend, but I experienced the results…for fifteen years. 

When that seminar was over my life experienced another dramatic turn. I was no longer able to wear pants!  For a daughter who wanted desperately to be a son, this was unthinkable, but I also wanted desperately to please my parents and have them be proud of me. I tried to adapt to the role I was expected to play. I dutifully learned to sew, and even to enjoy it, but I was only willing to learn embroidery after I found out that a famous football player enjoyed cross-stitch.

The next year I attended my first Basic Youth Conflicts seminar, where I learned that God created me just the way He wanted me. I was taught that any disfigurement was simply something God used to develop character in his children, and should not be surgically corrected unless it was life threatening.  I was taught that the father is the head of the house, and that to disobey him was to disobey God.  I was taught that it is wrong for women to wear men’s clothing and that just because women’s pants are designed for females bodies did not mean that they are not men’s clothing.  I was taught that it is wrong for women to wear pants because they draw attention away from the face to the butt, and that it is unnatural for a man to have long hair because it causes other men to look at them with lust.  I was taught that rock music and music in minor keys was not godly music, that back beats gave ground to the devil, and contemporary Christian music was just as sinful as other rock music…

I found out why my parents loving God ignored my plea. He wanted me this way. But I didn’t understand it. Why did he make me feel like a boy, if I was supposed to be a girl? Why did he give me a girls body, if he made me feel like a boy? It didn’t make sense, but the only option I was given was “be the girl god created.”


All of this was reiterated when I attended the next conference in the series…Reiterated and reinforced with rules. Illogical, irrational, and irresponsible rules. And the worst of it is by this time I ate it up. I wanted to be that person, because then I didn’t have to look at the real me. I wanted to be better than everyone else, to have higher standard, to be more godly, to be a light in the darkness. But more than anything I wanted the approval of my parents. They were my measuring stick... but I never measured up.

Shortly after my first “Advanced Seminar” my parents joined ATI, the homeschool program that sprang forth out of the seminars.

…more tomorrow

           

My last two posts have been things that I have written in the recent past, attempting to learn from some of the things that I have been through with my family.  Sometimes it is hard to disconnect myself from that life, to choose to live freely as I believe I ought, rather than as others believe I should.
I still struggle with many of the things that were forced upon me, or that I "embraced" so that my parents would be proud of me. I still fight against the social machine that is the family.
It hurts to know that my mother believes that I am lying to myself, and in so doing am only hurting myself. It angers me also, I mean it pisses me off royally. She has not walked a mile in my shoes, she has never experienced the physical disconnect from "reality" that I have. She has never been in the position where she had to choose between change and death. I have.
On the other hand I hate that she has decided to take personal responsibility for my actions and my choices. She truly believes that if she had just been a better mother, if she had not been so controlling, I would not have "turned out this way". She can't see that I do not blame her for who I am today. If she had not been so controlling, I might have entered dialog with her about certain things before I became an adult, and maybe have been spared years of heartache, but I believe my choices would have been the same. Yes, I blame her for bad choices that she has made, and yes those choices do inform my decisions... but my choices are my own, made not to spite my mother, nor in spite of her... but because they felt like the right thing at the time. Some of those, I would take back if I could, but only a few.
I know my mother did the best she knew how. She truly wanted to see me grow into a mature adult, with goals and a purpose in life, but she sees herself as a failure because the mature adult she raised has found a purpose that is not identical to her own.

The road home...

I think that I am realizing that coming back to this town is having a different outcome than I anticipated. Yes, I came “home” to deal with my “demons”…to attempt to reconcile the way I was raised with what I know to be true about myself and what I believe to be true in the world at large. What I didn’t realize is that I would come to the conclusion that regardless of our differences of opinion so far as methods and dogma, my parents truly did what they thought was best for me.

I did not expect to walk away with a newfound appreciation for my mother and the sacrifices that she made for me. Nor did I really think that my stepfather and I would completely sever our relationship. I thought that they would see that I am still the person I always was, just with clearer vision about myself. I guess I was right and wrong on that one. They do see me as the same person that I was… but what they see is not me, they see their perception of me, and the physicality of who I am now, will probably never change that.

I guess it is hard for me to accept that everything I have done only feeds into their ongoing delusion of who I have always been and who I will continue to be… the rebel daughter who only seeks to shame them. The apostate child that needs to be forcefully brought back to “God”. Whose every decision is motivated by “that demonic crap” and sexual perversity.

My mother at least seems to be coming around a bit. This is by no means a small thing. I believe that we have agreed to disagree, and many aspects of my life are like the elephant in the closet…if we do not talk about it, perhaps it really isn’t there. She is in some ways attempting to treat me as a human being…for that I give her props. But she thinks all of my decisions are somehow linked to her being a horrible mother. Maybe she was a bad mother, but my decisions are my own, brought about by my own understandings of how the world works. Many of my decisions are based on things I was taught as a child, but most of those are good things. Some of my decisions have been reactionary…but then again, that was my decision, and I could have reacted in a different way.

Ultimately, my life is my own, the fault of no one but myself. Yes, I was shaped by early experiences, but how I choose to respond to those experiences today is MY responsibility. I can embrace those experiences, I can reject them, I can even look at them objectively and determine whether or not they fit the choice at hand, but those early experiences…rather the players involved in them…do not dictate my reaction…they simply inform it.

I am at a crossroads in my life, one that I will probably return to in many forms throughout the rest of my days. Where two diametrically opposed dogmas meet face to face and agree to go their separate ways.

This is a difficult journey for me… the return to my childhood, for that is what it is. I have returned to the very people who helped mold my character. One thing I have learned is that I am not much stronger than I was. I can stand up to him…but then I cow before him again. I do not know why I do this. I do not know how to change this. I have learned that you cannot argue with a bigot…you cannot even have a productive conversation…even about how to fix the car, because it all comes back to how wrong you are, and how right they are. Unfortunately, as I write this I see how I have in fact mirrored his attitude. Always, I have to win the debate, which turns into an argument because I cannot cede. Always, I have to prove that I am smarter, stronger, more bull headed than the other. It may not be weakness to walk away from a fight, but I am too strong to do so.

Pattern in the Stone...

I was taught that through adversity we achieve strength of spirit. That the human will needs to be broken before it can be rebuilt. I was taught that like a diamond in the rough, we must be reduced by sharp and penetrating forces to our most brilliant center. I was also taught that if there was an imperfection in said diamond it could easily be shattered and rendered useless. What I wasn't taught, is that even shattered and useless diamonds can be ground to dust and used as the most powerful abrasive known to man. That the only substance hard enough to bring out the true beauty of the flawless diamond are the gritty remains of the  shattered soul of the imperfect diamond.
I was taught that the flawed diamond, by virtue of it's flaws, chooses to resist the cutters chisel and by that resistance brings upon itself destruction, alienation and the stigma of no longer being a workable gem. I was taught that there was only one pattern by which the most beautiful, brilliant diamond could be cut. That all other patterns were inferior. That all other patterns were undesirable. There was only one way to most beautifully reflect the light captured inside before releasing it back onto the world.
That only through perfect submission to the pressure and heat can this beautiful object even be created, to be subjected to a hammer and chisel. That only the purest of stones creates the most beautiful gem. Imperfections are to be cut off and cast aside as waste, unable to beautify the stone and bring glory to the stone cutter.
I was taught that, imperfect sinner that I am, I was to aspire to be that perfect stone. That I should throw myself upon the stone cutters anvil and relish that I could be chosen to be chipped away at the risk of being shattered. That the pressure and heat of my "god-given authorities" were compressing my sin in order to transform my soul into something worthwhile. That a soul as it is created is not valuable, but only as it is bullied into being something else entirely. The rules that I must choose to live under were for the express purpose of relieving me of the weight of my imperfection, and outrageous though they may be, were the specific instructions of a loving God, through loving parents to shape a beautiful, brilliant stone.
I was taught that only through perfect submission and obedience in an imperfect world would a priceless gem be created. I was taught fear, anger, reprisal, cutting words, emotional blackmail, manipulation. pain, isolation. I learned that fear is a motivator for submission and obedience, but that obedience born of fear is disobedience. That submission motivated by fear is rebellion. That fear causes you to be in the wrong regardless of the action and in the realization of this truth is born apathy.
This I was taught by the hand of my blood, by the hand of my "church", by the hand of my authorities. This lesson I learned to hate without understanding why.
It was only later, as I trudged down another path, that the light of dawn began to brighten my understanding. As I sought truth to which I could relate, that I began to learn the real truths my history attempted to impart. I began to see that inclusions and occlusions within the stone lend it to various uses. One to be more suited than another based, not on impurities, but on the structure of it's composition. That a single element included in the chemical makeup of the stone has given us the most exquisite, priceless, flawless and largest diamond to date known to man. It's name? HOPE.
I learned that the flawless white diamond of engagement ring craze is boring. That every brilliant cut diamond is identical. Reflecting the same light in the same way, with nothing to stand out except size.
As my path took another turn I began to learn another lesson from my past. Perfect submission and obedience only bows it's head to perfect love and perfect trust. That it is the stonecutters love for the diamond in all it's dirty imperfection that allows him to see the lines that will allow the stone to cleave and not shatter. The stonecutter can see the pattern in the stone, as the sculptor sees the image in the marble and removes everything that is not the elephant.
Ironic really, I was taught to fear and subsequently hate by those who wanted me to realize the ultimate of love.  Yet it was the very people that they hated and feared who taught me perfect love and perfect trust and the reality of submission and obedience.