Ok this is going to be a rather odd and rambling post. First things first let me say I am sorry for having been gone for so very long! It has been a crazy summer and I have had a lot going on. There was my other half being in summer school, me having a class too, and lots of home improvement type things. Along the way I got a B in my 5 week Archaeology class. I was very pleased with it. The hubby also did very well. We celebrated our 3 year anniversary together, spent that weekend in Houston, Texas, which will be a post all unto itself. This post is about the weekend that just past and the drama that occurred with my father.
First off let me just say there was an ugly scene in the local Circuit City, where my dad was pretty much being a total ass. He was cursing and throwing a fit like a 5 year old would have done. It got to a point that I could not deal with it anymore and like a parent who has snapped I told him he was behaving like a 5 year old throwing the kind of fit that would have gotten me beaten as a child and that he needed to go to the car! I stress the beaten, not spanked, not grounded, not yelled at, or just smacked once. Beaten! This is important to the story. Needless to say he stormed out and there was drama to follow. Now I need to take you on a journey here for a moment. Back to my childhood and the pins and needles that we all lived on in my house. *NOTE* I do get along fine with my father as an adult! The big thing s that I am on my own and I am not afraid of him anymore, I don’t have to be and I never will be again. This also plays into my “I am nice as people let me be”. I apply this to everyone in my life including my parents, if they get ugly I get ugly! Make sense? Anyway here is the background and the story.
When I was little, things were pretty much as you would expect with most kids I played a lot, watched a ton of cartoons, had lots of toys, and overall was just like any other kid. Except that I lived in a house with a father who felt it was his god given right to just beat the living crap out of if you so much as looked at him funny or said something in a manner that well just pissed him off. This was my childhood. That I can remember I only got about 5 of these beatings because I was very mindful to not do something that would warrant one. I am going to be 30 years old and I can remember like it was yesterday every one of them. I am not kidding here. Any of you that read this that “spank” your children might want to remember what it was like when you were little and also ask yourself what your child is going to think when they grow up.
This is not one of the five incidents I mention above but it is on of my earliest memories and it was a taste of what was possible. I think I must have been somewhere around 3 years old. I say this because I know it was before kindergarten but I don’t remember a lot of my middle brother being around yet. We were in a local Alco store. I remember I really wanted to play with a playschool popcorn popping toy that you would push across the floor. Anyway I remember the threat was that if I didn’t quit he was gonna knock my head off! I must have reached for it, because the next thing I know my head hurt like crazy, I was crying and we were leaving the store, with my mom yelling at my dad. Another sign of what was to come was probably when I was about 4 years old. We were living in a trailer in Canon City, Colorado. It was the fall and dad was doing a bunch of raking. I had a little toy rake and was doing my level best to help. I guess I was getting in the way and he told me to go in the house. Well when you’re four years old and your parent tells you to go away, you cry. It just happens children really wear their feelings on their sleeve. I started to cry and he whacked my across my backside with the back of his rake and told me to hush or he would give me something to really cry about! My Mom actually saw this and I do remember the fight that ensued. It was ugly and yet again Dad had the right to do what he wanted attitude, I was his child and therefore his property that he could beat as he saw fit.
The first of the beatings I remember is not the beating itself but the results afterward. We were living in the same trailer and I really have no idea what I did but I remember that he beat my butt so bad, that my Mom put lotion on my buttocks and on my face to ease the pain and to clear up where my cheeks were sore I had cried and held my face so much. She just telling me to shhh, or he would come do it again. Now WTF?????? This is something that has always been lost on me. You’re gonna beat a child, a child who trusts and loves you no matter what, then turn around with spite in your voice and tell to suck it up and shut up? WTF??? It makes no sense! Now, this time I think it was a protection mechanism of just please be quiet.
Now the following 4 incidents happened over the course of 3rd and 5th grade. The first we were living in Castle Rock, outside Denver. I was in the 3rd grade and it was right before Christmas of 1985. We were watching tv and I had gone to the bathroom. My middle brother was in the middle of the floor and had covered up. He wasn’t there when I went to the bathroom, I don’t remember what was on the TV but I remember I was trying to hurry back and stepped on my brother’s stomach. I didn’t seriously injure him or hurt him for that matter. But the way he screamed you would have thought so. I immediately started apologizing just terrified of what ended up happening. I had just got sat down when dad grabbed me by both of my feet pulling me up off the floor and proceeded to just BEAT my ass. I thought I was going to die, I am not talking 2 or 3 swats I mean just absolutely wailing on me. I couldn’t breathe, when I finally was able to catch my breath all I could do was scream. I don’t remember how long he beat me but he did it for a long while. I was wearing some thermal pajamas, that had left an imprint across my butt he had hit me so hard. I remember the only thing my mom did to stop him was to look afterward and say well I don’t think he did any permanent damage you’ll live. WTF?????
The next incident was in this same place. What happens when kids lose something? They get upset! I had some Rainbow Brite crayons, I was so gay even back then, and they all came out and the mom found the box and threw it away. I had no idea I was just looking for it and getting upset I could not find it. Well this just served to piss dad off. He thought I was being a big baby and especially over Rainbow Brite! Well I was the type of child if I was about to cry and he yelled I just basically fell apart. I was so nervous around him most of the time it wasn’t funny. Well crying is for sissies and if you’re gonna cry he would give you a reason to cry. Well that is what happened. It was so awful and humiliating. It always added insult to injury that mother let him to do this and to this day seems to live in a sugar coated world of he wasn’t that bad to you.
I have to take a moment to say that I have never talked about this with anyone. I have buried it and tried to forget it. But anytime I witness people being ugly to their children all of the memories come rushing back and it makes me murderous with anger! I think of the humiliation and the emotional not just physical pain that child is going through and it makes me want to beat the hell out of the parents and ask them if they like it! I am not crazy, I just have a lot of pent up anger that needs to finally be let out. As I have been writing I feel like a lot of weight is being lifted off of me. Anyway, on with the story.
This was around the time that I also developed my love affair with Russia/The Soviet Union and decided I was a communist. I know you must be thinking WTF but I was 9 years old and just being a kid. Kids say they are or want to be all kinds of things. Well this was the cold war and my dad wasn’t having a communist for a child. I was threatened with being beaten so many times if I did not stop being a communist. Being the stubborn little child I was I was just emboldened, scared but emboldened. It was the first time I decided I wasn’t going to put up with it anymore.
Now keep in mind the psychological factor is huge here. Sometimes the threat was just as humiliating as the action itself. When I was in Cub Scouts we had a function at my house. I don’t remember what it was I said or did but I must have given dad a dirty look, but he threaten to beat me senseless in front of all the other scouts. I was mortified, I wanted to hide I wanted to cry I wanted to just die. I was about 10 or 11 and he did this loudly, none of the other scouts acted the same around me again when he was around. It was like they were waiting for the next shoe to fall. I look back and I think none of this had to do with discipline. It was just about control plain and simple. I was not a horrible child I was to scared to be and every time I got beat it wasn’t that I had been awful, I had either done something that offended my dad or he just felt justified in doing it because he could and he felt I needed it. I also think it made him feel better, because the oldest and most sissy of his sons had had the nerve to take a tone of voice or look at him funny and by god he was gonna show me who was boss. WTF??? I will never understand it. Every time I was beaten it was because he was mad and it made him feel better. So beating someone who has no way to defend themselves, just because you’re mad and it is gonna make you feel better is ok? For the love of fucking g-d! That is insane.
Now, the next time I got beat, I was trying to do homework and it was math and I was getting frustrated because I did not understand something. I was in the 5th grade and we lived in Florence, Colorado. I was so mad, I couldn’t figure it out, we had a ton of company: aunts, uncles, cousins and friends over. It was not quiet and I was trying to get done. I asked my mom and she said she didn’t know, I was already mad at myself ( I was always good at math) and stomped off before she could figure it out. Well this was all he needed for a reason. I barely made it across the threshold of my bedroom before I saw white and could not breathe he was hitting me so hard! I have never in my life experienced pain that bad. I could feel every blow through my entire body. The throbbing did not quit in my butt for 2 entire days. I have had both of my big toe nails removed completely 3 times and that pain was bearable after the drugs wore off. This was excruciating! Like before all I could do was scream when I finally caught my breath, I think it went on for a good 2 or 3 full minutes, I don’t remember exactly. I just know I fell to my knees when he was done with drool just running from my mouth and just screamed. This just pissed him off more. You see I think he lost face in front of people that night when I stomped off unless he showed what a man and in control of his house father he was if he didn’t beat me. This is the kind of family he is from. He even wonders why I cannot stand his family and when I was little even wanted to have my name changed. My mom got me into bed and a fight ensued about my homework. Well a bit later he left with my uncle and my mom tried to calm me down so he would not do it again. When he came back he was till pissed he basically took the… I will gladly do it again if you don’t quit crying attitude when he returned. He was such a fucking son of a bitch, and I have never in my life felt the kind of hatred towards someone that I used to feel for my dad when I was a child. There was one more incident not long after this that you can pretty much get the jist of without me going into it. He yelled I was scared, I started crying he beat me to give me something to cry about, end of story. Now if I had my mother read this she would completely disagree with my version of the events. I have noticed that she likes to conveniently forget things and just live in the now of good times and not the bad times.
After that last time I swore to myself never again. I would kill him before I would let it happen. From that point on I always had blunt objects near my bed, and knew where the knives were in the house. I did my level best to avoid him and stay out of his way. That worked better than anything. See we finally moved closer to my grandparents so that I could spend a lot more time with them and not at home. I also think my mother grew a set of ovaries and stood up to him more often. I was well into my college days in my early 20’s before I was able to start to move on and have a normal relationship with my dad. I really had to just try and forget a lot of the stuff go. As the years have gone by now he seems to have mellowed except his temper is still the same. He still gets mad over utterly stupid shit. I should know I have the exact temper as an adult. You see this is why I will not have children. I had to do something to stop the cycle of violence in my family. It’s a pittance but it is something. It has done no good though my brother is just as bad with his 3 children. I feel so sorry for them sometimes. It makes me wanna strap my brother to a chair smack him and say wake the fuck up!
My mother to this day will defend my father. Why I will never know if none other than to not have to admit her own apathy toward what he did at the time. I see the same cycle all around me in multiple people I know. It saddens me so.
Back to the present, when I told my Dad off he was livid! When I got to the car he threatened to punch me out if I ever talked to him again. I bit my tongue. I wanted to say you know what? You will lucky to live if you ever touch me again! Sadly it would have been a promise not a threat. I would also do what I should have done when I was little which is call the police and gotten protection. He went on and on about how I should give him the respect that he deserves! Sound familiar to anyone who likes Mommy Dearest? The thing is no one deserves respect, they earn it no matter who they are. I just sat there and let him calm down. I later informed my mother that is she thought I was the quivering mess I was as a child she was sadly mistaken and that this time she wouldn’t be able to protect him. She just looked at me, the poor victim of the cycle that she has become as well. As he was threatening to hit me as an adult I kept thinking of Joan Crawford saying “I will always beat you Christina!” and her saying back “Yes Mommy Dearest”, except in my case it was “Yes Daddy Dearest”.
*note* At this point in my life I want nothing more than an honest apology for being put through that kind of hell but I know I will never get it so I try to just live in the now and enjoy the kind of parents I wish they had been when I was small.
