Some People Never Recognize They Were Abused in Childhood

Those that deny the past are doomed to repeat it

When I was growing up, it was just about survival. You didn’t stop and think about the things that were happening to you. You didn’t question whether it was right or wrong. All you had to do was get through the day.

Those memories and emotions are buried, but sometimes they come bubbling up to the surface.

Today as I was dropping off my daughter at school I had a strange flashback to my dad. I had a coffee mug and I wanted to put it in the cup holder between the driver’s and passenger’s seats.

The cup holder was filled with random garbage. I cleaned it out and tried to put the coffee mug in place but as I reached down with the mug, I couldn’t seem to find the cup holder.

For some reason, this triggered a memory. My dad almost always had a coffee mug with him when we drove. Sitting there with my daughter, I remembered the expression of pure rage and frustration that used to come onto my dad’s face as he tried to find the cup holder with his coffee mug.

Remembering this unlocked a whole sequence of realizations.

Resting rage face

For as long as I remember, I’ve always been mindful of maintaining a neutral or pleasant expression. When I can feel the muscles of my face twisting up into something that might be unpleasant, I notice and relax them.

Years and years and years ago, I made the decision to smile and try to look friendly. It didn’t matter how miserable I might feel. It didn’t matter how frustrated I might be. I wanted to always maintain a nice expression.

Always.

It’s not acceptable to let your face become a mask of anger, rage, and frustration that might terrify children.

I don’t want to walk around scaring kids.

This thing with the coffee mug was part of the reason why.

Mud on my sheets

My dad used to do weird things. He used to have no regard for anyone’s personal space.

For some reason when I was growing up, I decided to sleep on a mattress on my floor. I had access to a bed, it wasn’t like that, but I preferred to sleep on the floor.

Every now and then my dad would go into a bizarre sort of fit and “tidy up.” He liked to make a huge show of things whenever he did a minimal amount of work, and it never lasted too long.

He liked to fly into a rage of motion to show us all how lazy we were, then he never did any house chores again for a month or two.

It was a lot of sound and fury and him saying things like, “See! See! See how fast I can get this done!”

Part of his tactic was to get things out of sight. So, one time, in the midst of his cleaning fury, he took a bicycle and tossed it in my room.

It wasn’t my bicycle.

There was mud in the treads and he threw it right on my bed.

I came home to this. I opened the door and there was this bicycle on my bed. I didn’t even question it really. I think you condition yourself not to ask questions even when you see something really weird like that.

I just wheeled the bicycle out of there and into the garage and then cleaned the mud out of my bed. I’m not sure what any of this was supposed to prove. I just avoided him. I had a whole sequence of ways to avoid him.

You can’t be mad…

If I’d have called him on it, he would have said it was an “accident” and I didn’t have any right to get mad. It was always an “accident.”

When he slammed my fingers in a van door it was an “accident.” When he punched me in the face and gave me a bloody nose, it was an “accident.”

“I shouldn’t have to apologize because clearly I didn’t mean to do that,” he said.

Accidents happened a lot.

I remember his face again. There was an expression he put on when you could tell he knew that he was wrong, but he didn’t want to admit it. It was obvious he was acting and he wasn’t that good an actor.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Yes, you do.

Retaliation

As I got older, I did start snapping back at him. The encroachments just got old.

One time he came into my room and this time he walked right onto my bed with muddy boots. It made me so angry I just erupted. Every now and then you just don’t care what happens to you.

“What are you doing? Why are you walking on my bed? I sleep here? What’s the matter with you?”

Whatever he was there to yell at me about just drained away and he retreated. He’s a coward after all. If you scream at a coward they retreat. He didn’t apologize for getting mud on my bed.

These stories I’m telling are the little things. They seem almost stupid when you write them down. They’re only bad when it’s every day and every thing. Obviously you’re getting hit too, but who wants to talk about that?

That jerk just didn’t respect space.

Hands off my food

Every time we went out to eat, he’d steal my French fries.

Yeah, it doesn’t sound like much, but it gets old when somebody who doesn’t wash their hands after they pee (I called him out on that too), constantly reaches over and touches half of your fries.

So, one time he took a handful of fries.

I didn’t say anything.

I just reached over onto his tray of food and grabbed his burger.

He froze.

I held the burger in my fist and squeezed it until the meat turned to goo and squished out between my fingers.

He just sat there with his mouth open. I stared at him and squeezed his hamburger, and when I was done I didn’t even eat any of it. I just threw it back in the Styrofoam box the hamburger came in.

I didn’t even say, “Don’t eat my fries.”

Then we just left and nothing was said and nothing was resolved because nothing was ever resolved.

The thing is, my behavior wasn’t a victory. It was just a reaction. That’s not the way to get through life.

You have to recognize the truth in order to heal

You don’t get through life perceiving mistreatment and then mistreating others in return never bothering to recognize each other’s feelings and apologize.

“I’m sorry.”

“I was wrong.”

“I won’t do that again.”

These aren’t declarations of war, they’re declarations of peace.

When somebody hurts you, the healthy response isn’t to hurt them back.

You remove those behaviors. You try to do better. You treat people with respect.

You have to recognize that you were abused so that you comprehend how important it is to try and do better. You can’t go through life grabbing somebody’s burger and squeezing it into mush. That’s not an acceptable way to interact with people.

If you pretend the things you went through weren’t abuse, then you just pass them on.

The next thing you know you’re standing in your own child’s bedroom getting mud on her sheets. Or you’re stealing her fries. Or you’re slamming her hand in a car door and calling it an accident.

That’s unacceptable. Call it what it is. Be better. You deserve to be better.