Oh my God! I have a personality disorder. I took your advice, little sister, and searched Complex PTSD. I would say I scored about 100% on that list. (Not that I have every symptoms, but that all of my symptoms are accounted for...) In fact I would say of the 9 of us siblings, we each scored a perfect mark. I wonder how many perfect specimens we could find going back through the family, going forward into the younger generations, spreading laterally through extended family. I bet there's lots of us, all just barely surviving.
I found a website called Out of the Fog. The list of symptoms was written just for us. We could be the poster family! You mentioned that the first thing we need to do is find a safe place.
That hit home. I never feel safe. I am always waiting for something bad to happen. I never feel like I belong or that I am wanted, and so I am always ready to go it alone. Some of the other bits of advice - acknowledge what happened and know that it was not trivial. I have moments of thinking that others had it worse than we did/do. Maybe so, maybe not, but really who cares. My goal should not be to settle for not being the worst. Next, acknowledging the wounds and responding then making peace with self will take time. And we need to identify what we lost and mourn. We need support, and maybe therapy, and maybe pharmaceutical support.
So where should we start? I think we have been and should continue identifying what happened, and perhaps consider it in terms of what we lost. Then we mourn. I had never considered mourning. I fall more in the stoic Swede, suck it up camp.
You mentioned the Hmong, and said you wanted to gather your selves before you die. Think of the rebirth...and you get to stick around and enjoy the second life! How cool!
You mentioned the little girl rescued from the box. She has not been delivered back to me. I think maybe I should sing to her. If she comes back and if she can move, maybe the memories of what happened will stream back into my consciousness.
I wonder if I was sexually abused or if I heard it happen to my infant brothers. I can't remember. I do know that Dad had an excessively violent reaction to gay men. It was like he was terrified of homosexuality or of gay people - we never knew, and I don't believe he has the capacity to tell us. I think it's pure emotional response. I don't know if all the abuse in that family was father/older brothers on younger, or if they attacked the girls too. How closely do the generations mirror each other in these situations?
I know B#1 was violent with me from an early age. I already mentioned being pushed down the stairs. I also remember being hit over the head with a metal cap pistol and locked in a small storage closet for hours - so I couldn't tell on him.
Another memory - I remember walking around base - probably the summer before you were born - leading Bs#1&2. An officer saw us, recognized us, called Dad, who was furious at Mom for losing us - we were way across base. But I always thought he was furious because he was humiliated. He had the bad kids, and so I remember it was my fault, because I was the oldest, so I was going to have to "get the belt." I can't remember if it happened or not. My gut says yes.
I remember being around 4, and Mom used to grab my upper arm and swing me back into her hand that was swinging forward. I used to try to put my other hand over my butt to protect myself. She told me to stop that, because I could hurt her. So I submitted willingly after that, because I didn't want to hurt my mommy. I quoted that back to her once, years and years later. I asked her how I could have hurt her. She said she was going crazy at that time and was not surprised that she did not make any sense. That was one of the years Dad was stationed away from the family, and it was before she learned to drive.
She didn't learn to drive until I was 7. It was the year S#3 was born. I remember, because Grammy would take her out to practice, and we all had to go along for the ride. Grammy had a baby blue early 60s Ford Falcon. Even now when I see a Falcon, I feel warm and happy. Isn't that silly? And can you imagine having to learn to drive with 6 or 7 kids in the car? But what sort of caught me when reminiscing, was that Mom didn't have a license. She was fairly homebound during those years when she was having a baby every year. Did she know what was happening to us? How could she not know? Am I still angry because she waited until we all left home before telling Dad she didn't like the way he treated us? Should I be even angrier? Or was Mom as naive as I can be sometimes?
Her side of the family tended to be more artistic/melancholy with a tendency toward alcoholism and cigarette addiction. Only one of her sibs had a good marriage, although two had good second marriages - at least it looked good from the outside. Who knows what was going on in the inside!
When I look back on our childhood, I see erratic rules. I see total emotional chaos. One day dad would come home and play with us, and be loving toward us, smile on us. The next day, although we were doing the exact same thing, he would storm in and tell us how horrible we were, and berate us really digging at each one of us. He knew how to hurt us.
And when we tried anything new - remember? - his first statement was that we weren't good enough. He would tell us to not even try. I remember B#1 went out for football in ninth grade. He said something at the table, and Dad tore into him. Our brother quit the next day. I am fat, dumb and ugly and our brother is not an athlete - he could never play football. Father Knows Best Delana style!
So what did we lose. First question - what did we never get that we deserved? We deserved to be adored. We deserved to be applauded for all of the things we learned to do. We deserved to be worth acknowledging as a miracle. We lost out, and can never get it back. If you compliment me today, I will immediately tell you why you are wrong...
OK, I need to go mow my lawn. I have a large lawn. And you are at a class. So we will touch base later. Enjoy class, learn lots to share with me. I love you!! Thank you for being my sister/friend/companion!
Clare
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