A friend of mine once said that she believes that most people stop developing when they meet their first serious trauma. If that is true then I probably have the emotional capacity of a three year old. I think that in many ways it is true. At least I have to now admit that my emotional development slowed down dramatically. I do not remember when my father began to molest me. I believe I was three when he began to allow others to do so and photograph me. ( When you dissociate it's hard to remember.) It was the age at which I began to retreat into my own little world. When I retreated into my own little world makes me the center of my world.
I also once heard that our brains do not finish developing until we reach our twenties. If that is true then maybe I never had a chance. My siblings never had a chance either. Thousands of children in America and millions of children worldwide have never and might never have a chance to develop normally.
For most of my life I had a cinderella complex. I have spent decades waiting for someone to save me. I waited my entire childhood for my real family to show up and save me and much of my adult life waiting and fantasizing about my prince showing up to finally rescue me. I have spent my whole life waiting for things to get better and, I think because of that, not taking the actions that would truly make my life better. Never facing up to the real level of mental illness that I experienced.
I do believe I am developing though. I have been, slowly, most of my adult life. Choosing to be a good person was the first step. Finding forgiveness for myself is another big step. I recommend to everyone to look for ways to forgive yourself for the mistakes you have made. Maybe finally admitting how sick I have always been is part of that forgiveness for myself. I believe forgiving oneself has to come first before we can learn to forgive others. If we hate in others what we do not like in ourselves then forgiving ourselves must lead to forgiving others.
When I was eleven years old and and was gang raped, It was not after school like I always told people. I was skipping school. I went to a friends house and drank some beer and smoked some weed and on the way home they got me. If I had not been doing those things I would not have been gang raped. I spent years blaming myself and dreaming up the most horrifying revenge fantasies(Cheese grater on the peenie type things). If this had happened to a friend I would have told them everyday that getting raped is not a fair punishment for skipping school and they did not deserve it. I only learned to tell myself that in the last few years. I didn't deserve what happened to me. And now, I wonder if these young men spent their whole lives hating themselves. I wonder if they led such fucked up lives? Did they let any guilt they felt turn to anger and more acts of violence? I think that was part of my father's problem. I think the violence in my home was mostly caused by his guilt. He got drunk to forget about his guilt and angry at his family for making him feel guilty. Could my father forgive himself? Has he? I cut him out of my life when my daughter was a baby. I will never know.
When I was growing up I did some bad things. I am trying to forgive myself. I have spoken about it in other diaries. Maybe that public confession is part of the process. Admitting that I was wrong I mean.
I have discovered that forgiving myself is the path to forgiving others. If it was not my fault that I became so screwed up in life because of what happened to me in my childhood, then my father is not at fault for being so screwed up. His father abandoned him at three. His mother died when he was seven. He was ripped away from everything he ever knew and sent to a place where he was beaten and raped to the point where he was willing to live on the streets and sell his body at the age of eleven to escape it. This is almost everything I know about my fathers childhood. What turned him into a predator? Was it living on the streets and being willing to do anything to survive? Did he ever grow up? I don't think so. I think both of my parents were, like myself, so emotionally stunted by their childhood experiences that they never grew up. They could not cope with the burdens of poverty and four kids. My parents never had a chance either.
If there is anything I want to communicate about my experiences with mental illness it is this. The cost in dollars and lives to our nation is staggering. Much of it goes uncounted. We never look around and recognize the true cost of violence and the mental illness that can result. Most mental illness is undiagnosed and untreated. Millions of mentally ill people are in prison. Most of the homeless are mentally ill. I understand that the plural of anecdote is not data but nearly every person I know who is on disability for mental problems has experienced violence and abuse in childhood. Much of it sexual abuse and violence. The only people I do not know for sure were abused are people who will not tell you why they are on disability. Mentally ill persons are much more likely to end up addicted to drugs and/or alcohol. If you have ever been robbed or had your home or car broken into there is a very good chance that the person was mentally ill.
I know some mentally ill persons who had a theft ring for years. the leader was orphaned like my father and ended up in a place(the soldiers and sailors orphans home in illinois) like the one my father ended up at. He was molested and raped by other inmates there and beaten by the staff. He once stole almost all the materials to build a house and built it.
Another friend, Craig's mother died when he was four or five. He was adopted and abused by his much older half brother. Heather, his partner, was given up for adoption by her German birth mother and adopted at the age of about three by an American couple. Her adoptive mother became pregnant shortly thereafter and had the child she really wanted. She grew up knowing she was not wanted and being abused by her adoptive mother who now seemingly looked on her as an intruder in her life. When she was raped at the age of thirteen her adoptive mother actually laughed at her. Never protected her. Heather also suffers brain damage from rheumatic fever at the age of five. She was further traumatized by being paralyzed for several years. Heather and Craig spent, I think, nearly ten years addicted to meth. Craig was in jail a total of 16 times. Heather was also in and out of jail. They committed thousands of crimes to get the drugs they needed.
My oldest brother seemed the healthiest of us all. He and my uncle Stevie are the only men from my childhood who I can say never intentionally hurt me. He drank and did a lot of drugs but held a job and apartment. He had an accident at work and was seriously injured. He could not work for a long time. He became a meth addict at that time. He got a huge settlement and blew through it in a few years. He ended up homeless and committing crimes to get by. My other brother was not so normal. He was always the most troubled among us. His first encounter with the law came when he was thirteen and stole a bike from a neighbor kid. He is also a meth addict last I heard. He and his girlfriend(she had two kids of her own) ran an identity theft ring. He raped his girlfriend in front of her son. Their own child did not learn to walk until almost two. Their children will be another generation like my own generation. I fear they have lifetimes of violence, drug and alcohol addiction, and crime ahead of them and they never had a chance.
My sister has also had a couple of run ins with the law. She was on her third marriage last I heard and her son... I love this boy. He was such a sweet and charming little boy. I am afraid of what he will become. He will very likely serve in the military like many members of my family. He is about 18 now. The abuse he suffered was mostly emotional. They made him cry in front of me and my daughter repeatedly. With my sister I knew that trying to stand up for him would only make it worse for him. I wanted to kidnap him and take him away. The courts will never interfere for emotional abuse. If he goes into the military and learns how to fight and kill and goes into combat I truly fear for him and his future. And for people who live near him.
The personal is political, and this is both for me. We need as a nation to have standards on how children are treated. We must as a nation put a stop to the violence and abuse our children encounter. We all pay for it. We all suffer for it.
Also: I just wanted to update on my little foundling kitty bubbles. I am thinking of changing her name to happy cat. She never stops purring. The oldest cat in our family is Daisy who is anti-human. She will actually come sit on my lap and want to be petted for about ten minutes every three months or so. Usually if you pet he she walks away. Friday, who just got altered, is more attached to Ben. Bubbles the happy cat just loves everyone. The other day Friday had her pinned down and was chewing on her head. When I bent over to push him off I could hear her purring. Anytime anyone picks her up she either starts purring or was already purring. She is just what our family needed. Another kitten for Friday to play with. A soft, purring little bundle of love for me to pet and hold. A sweet playful friend for Ben. A healing gift from god.
Her eyes are clean and clear and her ear-mites are getting better from the cleaning even though se is still too young for the medicine. And she is growing fast.
update: I forgot to add this. Part of the healthcare reform bill being considered involves the screening of young children for mental illness. If I had been screened for mental illness in the first grade, instead of mental retardation as I was, there might have been some intervention. At the very least I would have started some kind of treatment at a young age when it would have made a difference in my development.