Tag Archive for 'Father'

The father’s upcoming visit

Published
by
JAGA
on September 20, 2008
in B.J., Billie and Julies
. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

We’re here again, I suppose at least.  We’re not sure what to say and yet there is much to say.  Such is our usual quandary at times.

Our brother’s wedding is October 18th and the father will be there.  His live-in girlfriend of 15+ ?? or something like that years will not be there.  Her reasoning as told to my mother of all people– She’s afraid that she won’t be able to control herself around me and not lash out at me with her anger, etc., and she doesn’t want that tension as she knows it will make my father tense and spread out to others.  The reason for her anger is that she is disgusted with me for ‘falsely accusing my father of sexual abuse and how dare I do such a thing.’ She has made it clear over the years since I confronted my father at my therapist’s (Wendy), office in October or November of 2000.  And yet this last time when my mother spoke to my father over the phone concerning my brother’s wedding, Betty (father’s girlfriend), wished to speak to my mother.  This is an odd thing because Betty has been very strange in the past with my mother– i.e. refusing to go to my cousin’s wedding years ago simply because my mother was going to be there, even though my mother and father had been divorced for years and were on good civil terms, etc.  The lady is weird.  Anyway, according to my mother, Betty now understands more of the shit my mother went through when she was married to my father… including my father’s sick needs in the bedroom to call his first wife’s name aloud while having sex with Betty and according to my mother, this was a common occurrence for her as well.  My father is fucked up.  My mother likes to excuse all of my father’s problems with “he’s sick,” meaning he has bi-polar and the emotional development of a teenager and thus, this is an excuse for all of his behavior.  Bullshit.

On one hand my mother is hurt and angry and talks and acts like she was a victim of my father all those years she was with him.  I can see that, based on what she said.  I have no real memory of that though.  On the other hand, my mother is the first to defend him in many ways and get defensive at the mere hint or mention of the sexual abuse by my father.  So sometimes she talks as if my father is an asshole and jerk, but of course, you know, he is just “sick,” and she implies he can’t help himself because he’s so “sick.” And yet the wall of anger and defensiveness rises and her denial and disbelief kick in when it comes to her daughter’s sexual abuse by this man she married.  And yet she knows what the asshole is capable of.  She told me she was sure he tried to kill her a number of times in various covert ways over the years she was married to him and looking back she sounds as if she is convinced of that even more so.  I don’t recall him physically abusing her, but I know and believe he emotionally and verbally assaulted her and I suspect there were probably things that happened in their bedroom that she has never really divulged to me.  She’s told me a few things, but I suspect there was probably more there.  He did however threaten her in a number of ways over the years.  I don’t know… it’s just like if she knows this much about him, how can it be so hard for her to stretch her mind to the realization that the piece of shit father also sexually abused his daughter for years.

Sigh.  Whatever.  Why the hell do I even care?  A part of me really doesn’t and yet some part of me does care and also hates that I fucking care whether she believes or not and whether she supports me or not when it comes to my healing about it.  We know not to fucking trust her– been there, done that, been fucked over one too many fucking times.

Hell, I had no idea I was going to write about this.  I didn’t know this was on our mind really.  It doesn’t seem like that really and yet it has come pouring out here.  Mostly I’m aware that insiders are pretty focused on the fact the father will be here in about a month.  That we will be seeing him, but plan to keep it limited.  We are honestly hoping to be able to step back a bit and look at him with more observing eyes and a disconnected mind and just observe and analyze and see him from a different perspective.  I feel like we’ve grown and changed so much since we last saw him and I think we’ll see things about him that we haven’t been able to see before.  The problem is that we forget a lot of it.

My biggest problem is that I never know how to really describe my father or explain how he is or what he is like.  I know he isn’t like the raging alcoholic that one might see on t.v. and that he isn’t this “in your face overbearing father,” and yet there is this threatening and icky nature about him in his passive, though probably passive-aggressive, emotionally manipulating, way about him.  And then I question even that much.  So I’m hoping to be able to view him from a more observing distance and I’m looking forward to Sean’s observations as to what he/they think and see about my father.
[Big relieving sigh and breath]  So basically I think we’re anxious and on edge about the father showing up and yet some of us are hoping to be able to use this opportunity as a way to understand the father more and to see more of who he is and maybe get it deeper ingrained within to those who have a hard time believing the abuse… that maybe they’ll be able to believe it more by watching and seeing how he is, etc.  I’m not sure though.  I’m a little concerned though about any possible fallout from the father’s visit.  I feel like something is going on within about it and that it has our system stirred up, understandably, but I am also so far removed from it and insiders aren’t really communicating to me about what’s going on.

To make it weirder is that we’ve gotten stronger lately and have been having this really weird phone relationship with the father from time to time and things are just different because we play “the family game” less and less these days, especially now that we’re feeling safety and security with Sean and the idea of us having our own family with Sean is happening.

That’s all for now.

Julies with B.J. and Billie around

Prelude To A Flashback

Published
by
JAGA
on June 12, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

She knew she had to tread carefully, for the anxiety and memories lay near the surface, and yet she pushed herself onward, to give the love and teasing she desired to embrace as a woman without a history of sexual abuse.  She longed to be that woman, with no fears and no ill feelings at the mere idea of anything sexual, and so she pushed herself to be that woman.  To do that, she focused on her love towards him, the enjoyment she had in just being near him, and she delighted in giving him the pleasure of oral sex.  She pushed away the old thoughts, the disgust that was of the past and not the present, and pursued a moment in time where she wasn’t a survivor of sexual abuse whose past haunts her everyday.  She hated herself for having those thoughts and feelings, that surging rush of throwing up, and children being triggered towards the front while trying to control the body from contorting itself in frightful and sheer terror convulsions and shakes to rid itself of the emotional pain, visual memories, physical tissue memories of the abuse.

She knew she was taking a chance, but she tried to be aware of when it became too much for the system, and yet be unaware of the abuse, as though she had no ties to it and it binding her to the past that she so desperately didn’t want to acknowledge as being hers and owning her.  She smiled and giggled at the control of pleasing and teasing him, and at the idea that she may have conquered this sex act after all, instead of it torturing her and forcing her to surrender.  She continued onward and continued to push away those thoughts, those intense feelings, those memories that kept creeping toward her.  She wasn’t going to let them take over and win.  It was 2008, not 1986, not 1978, nor 1988.  But she had gone too far this time.  This time she was succumbed by a new visual memory instead of just sheer emotions and young children tossed forward in a triggered state unaware emotionally of what year it was, their safety, the reality of today and an adult’s body, etc.  All they knew then and still know is that anything sexual is bad and that they are inherently bad, dirty, and disgusting.

The memory involving her father came and she knew she had to stop the oral sex.  To this day, it remains a blur as to how it all swelled forward in an overwhelming fashion–she who thought she had it under control, but didn’t.  Once again, the past controls her, owns her, tortures her with its indelicate right.  So she stopped, whilst trying to believe this new memory.  She held the feelings, the newness of the memory within her.  She knew it was safe to tell him, to seek comfort, and yet she felt it was bad to do so.  The timing of it was off.  For just the night before, he had his own flashback terrors, nightmares, and support needs.  It would be bad of her to freak out now with her own stuff, especially the night after his difficult time and also knowing he was still struggling with his own new flashback.  She knew that keeping this memory and struggle to herself was unhealthy and a relationship issue to analyze and discuss together, but she couldn’t push herself past it, and so she remained silent– something she knew she could do well.  She tried to not show any problem to him– only that she was “done” with oral sex on him even if he wasn’t finished.  She tried to show her love to him by laying close to him.  To this day, the time after the memory is a blur.  She doesn’t know what really happened in regards to lovemaking or if it stopped.  She only knows she stopped the oral sex.  The next thing she recalls is laying next to him dealing with the memory flashing over and over, and turning on her side to fall asleep, though she didn’t fall asleep.  It wasn’t unusual for her to be on her side because of her back issues and her natural sleep position anyway.  She just silently cowered within herself and her/their system began to process the new memory in the mostly shared memory space.

She desperately sought ways and ideas to disbelieve the memory.  After all, she knew that giving oral sex was a very triggering thing to do and she knew she had to take heed in being aware of her limits and the system’s limits.  Therefore, her mind could have simply “made up” without her knowledge a reason and a memory as a way to “make sense” of the trigger and having pushed past the limits.  She wanted to believe this and yet this memory was specific.  It was in her bedroom in Arizona and her bed was in a certain position (she rearranged her room there from time to time).  But then she tried to reason and rationalize that a lot of her memories with the father are from Arizona, so perhaps the brain just resorted to the room in Arizona and her bed in that position.  Yet, she had to acknowledge that Arlena (or so she thinks it is her) had written a few years back about her attempts to prevent the father from getting her, and the bed was in a different position in that room along with an entirely different comforter set.  The bed in this memory was located elsewhere with a different bedspread on it, although she fought hard to point out that the memory is very dark and only shadow outlines, though very clear outlines. Yet she had to acquiesce that the sexual abuse happened at the time in the middle of the night, and hence, darkness would shroud the memory.  Though she would like to argue that we always had a nightlight working all those years growing up.  Even still, she eventually had to realize that none of this negated the truth of the memory with the father.

Along came the need to expunge this memory from its gripping terror and constant reminder upon her soul.  The children inside were beside themselves, especially without any therapy, no therapist really to rely on.  They decided they would mention it at their support group and see where it took them.  The children ended up telling the memory in group, complete with emotions and switching commonly held and allowed only for one-on-one therapy with their therapist or when the body was alone.  They received necessary support from their fellow survivor friends, from their partner, Sean et al, and the Julie and the Julies who wished the memory to not be real or true, they slowly began to realize the depth of the emotions and how wrong it would be to deny those children within their truth, memory/ies, and feelings.

And alas, we are here at this point.  A point at which we seek to find (and know we own) a photo of our room at that time revealing the bed, the bedroom of Tucson, Arizona many years ago.  We are also at the point of telling the memory and sharing the thoughts of those inside that have thus far shared their thoughts and feelings.

Until later…