Art By: Luis Royo
In order to explain why I write I need to start at the beginning.
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I wasn’t my mother’s first child even though I was raised as an only child. A year before I was born my mother had a son who she put up for adoption. I believe that son was conceived in a nonconsensual union. My whole life I have known that my mother was raped, she didn’t have to tell me because I know the signs. Those signs are embedded into my own identity and at times they overshadow my personality entirely. As a young girl my mother used to instruct me to lie very still if a man ever attempted to rape me because it would hurt less. I reasoned that it would hurt my spirit more if I didn’t fight back but I only nodded my head. It was this bit of wisdom that lead me to believe that my mother had her own secrets, her own terrible secrets. This same bit of wisdom paralyzed me in situations where I might have escaped sooner and it made me fearful of men in general where as before I had only been afraid of very specific and very dangerous men.
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My mother wasn’t in a good place financially or emotionally when she had me. If that wasn’t bad enough she was being physically and psychologically tortured by my father. She didn’t want a child but in those circumstances who could blame her? I can’t even fathom the trauma and guilt she must have endured as a result of my unplanned and ill-timed existence. Growing up my mother worked excessively and what little contact we did have was hostile. On the one hand, I was the ideal infant for a young and neglectful mother because I was quiet and undemanding. She could take me to work and leave me hidden under the bar for a full 8 hour shift without so much as a disruption. On the other hand, I was the worst child my mother could have had because my mother needed, above all, to be loved and I wasn’t interested in the outside world. I didn’t make eye contact or smile at her, I was a very self-contained child. She couldn’t understand me. I was insensitive, heartless, perhaps incapable of human emotion. There were moments, she even wished I would simply cease being. I know this because she tried to drown me on more than one occasion.
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My father was/is an alcoholic who suffered/suffers with severe mental illness. Incapable of caring for himself he was/is erratic, unreliable and fiercely Narcissistic. I had two parents but I was an orphan. Most of the attention I received from my mother was in the administration of punishment. Most of the attention I received from my father was sexual. Mental illness and substance abuse were/are rampant in my family. My story was probably not that different from the stories of my relatives though to speak of such things was/is taboo. So I didn’t speak and my “impervious” nature worked in my favor. When I realized that my parents could not properly raise me I decided to raise myself. I became oppositional and resentful of authority. I had no interest in fitting in so I never fell in with a bad crowd. If I started to belong I would invariably move on, no one was permitted too close. I was not as impassive as everyone believed, up close I was full of cracks and contradictions. I might be found out and worst of all my parents might be found out. Like many children who were abused I blamed myself. I had corrupted them. I had provoked them. I had ruined their lives. I wanted to save them. To protect them.
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I realized to my horror that I couldn’t save them. My father remained a drunk in denial of his drinking. His Schizophrenia and Psychopathy became more apparent to me with age. He was incapable of understanding that his actions were wrong even though he knew his actions were harmful to the well-being and safety of others. He took pride in abusing women and frequently boasted about his crimes. It became increasingly hard for me to look at him and impossible for me to respect or like him. After my mother left him he became even more isolated and paranoid. My mother, on the other hand, had begun to change, to grow stronger in light of a new and healthy relationship but I had not changed her. She had changed herself through her own hard work. I still did not talk to my mother. She was happy and I liked her much better that way.
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Invariably I began to question my own mental health. As a child I would lock myself in the bathroom and punch myself in the face for comfort when I became over-stimulated. As a teenager I sensed that this was not a typical response to stress. It wasn’t even a particularly helpful coping strategy. I was perpetually frustrated and overwhelmed. I could not remain unconscious but I was at odds with the outside world. I didn’t dislike people but they represented a kind of normal that I had never seen before. A kind of normal that I could not even hope to emulate. When peers would talk about their close family relationships I became physically ill. I had grown out of the admiring stage and was appalled by how much I’d loved my father as a child. I assumed, erroneously, that all parents abused their children. I tried to turn my friends against their parents. Other people’s suffering was unbearable to me. I cried hysterically over obituaries. I cried when other people became injured even though I rarely cried for myself. Yet I was still considered distant and unsympathetic. Language had failed me. I could not communicate my feelings having repressed them for years and worst of all I could not communicate my affection. My mother went right on thinking that I didn’t need her even though I needed her desperately. I imagine she went on believing that I didn’t love her as well.
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When I was in the 9th grade I read “The Bell Jar” at that time I was going through my prerequisite identity crisis. Sylvia Plath was perhaps the first person that made sense to me. I was still seeing my father on the weekends unchaperoned and still going through the motions of pretending that everything was fine. I was different from my peers, my story was different because of the extremes of mental illness, my interests were different, my preferences were different, my coping mechanisms were different, and my fundamental philosophies were different. I knew things that they didn’t and they knew of a world whose entrance remained impenetrable. I decided to write in order to understand myself, in order to understand human nature. I wanted to understand why my parents had failed me and how in turn I had failed them. I wanted to create a language of the heart, a language accessible to everyone. I didn’t want to forget my story. I needed that story if I was ever to come to terms with the embryonic aspects of my nature. Writing became my therapy.
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I understand myself through pain and I relate to others through pain. I knew that my story was no worse than any other story. I knew that everyone suffered. I even knew that some had suffered as I had suffered. I also knew that through pain we developed compassion. Even now I am considered emotionally primitive by those closest to me. I write that I might become human. I write in order to keep my heart open. I write so that I will not harden. I write in order that I might understand this world in which I still do not truly belong. I write for those who cannot yet write for themselves. I write so that no one will feel that their story is not worth telling or that their story is too taboo to tell.
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(This time I am giving you guys a heads up on the prompt because this might take longer for you to write. The prompt will be “My Story” you can choose any part of your life or you can attempt to write a piece that summarizes/encapsulates your whole life up until now. In the above story I am speaking primarily of my early childhood and adolescence. I have left out a lot of details, a lot of horrors, a lot of pivotal relationships. My Story attempts to answer the question “What triggered you to write?” I was influenced by Elia’s magnificent piece which you can find here
http://eliabintang.me/2013/09/06/what-triggered-you-to-write/
I want your story to answer a question as well but it need not be the same question it can be any question at all “What is the driving force in your life?” “What is love?” “What is the most profound spiritual experience you’ve ever had?” The question can be deep or it can be much simpler “Why do I love penguins?” “Why do I hate hotdogs?” The story you share can be light-hearted and funny or it can be the kind of story that leaves your audience in tears or it can be something in between. You can be the hero, the villain, or just a neutral character in the story. I have shared some dark elements of my nature and past. I have shown that I am unwell or defective in some way, you do not have to share anything you do not feel comfortable sharing. If you want to talk about summer camp and you loved summer camp talk about summer camp. It is up to you. If you want to share a photo or artwork share something particularly meaningful to you, a work that you are especially pleased with.)
mindlovemisery 