CHAPTER 4

Take My Life... Please

   Unless you've been there, there's no way to express what it's like to live on the edge of love. Even imagined love. To know that at any arbitrary moment, the kiss and hug you crave from a father, mother, mate or whoever you believe holds your potential for being loved, can pull it from your life like a beloved teddy bear from your arms with no explanation.

   It's a devastating terror to live with.

   And when you begin suspecting teddy may not even exist, that he may just be a teasing carrot head, then living on the edge becomes a precariously frightening isolation.

   I know. I was there. It's hell — or pretty damn close.

   In the atmosphere enveloping my kidhood that bounced capriciously from indifference to hostility, love never had the chance to dismount. Though I suspected there were sunnier roads for growing up, I never thought I could cross over.

   Though I never believed my kidhood was an Almighty Punishment, it still caused enormous confusion. So, the closet became my private crying room where I used to beg Destiny to release me from the mad house I never called home.

   I begged for the magic words I might say that could break the spell I assumed my mother was under. Words that could free her to love me as well as herself. Words that could detoxify the asphyxiating fumes of fear and anxiety underscoring the bizarre relationship I shared with my mother.

   Most significant to me now is the fact that I never thought of myself as an abused child — as I'm sure my mother never considered herself an abusive parent.

   Not simply because the terminology had yet to filter into our vocabulary or social conscience when I was a kid. But, because people tend to appraise outward — not inward.

   I doubt if any abuser would readily identify their actions as wrong. Nor as a moral, legal or spiritual crime.

   Considering the massive media awareness now occurring, one might assume that all abusers are being forced to acknowledge their actions and refocus their hostilities.

   I doubt it. I bet the majority does not relate. I bet they continue feeling justified in how they raise their kids or treat their mates. Either they're toughening them up. Or, “This is how it's done, isn't it? A whack across the face sure kept me in line as a kid!” OK, but in line for WHAT? Reruns?

   And as a kid trapped in an abusive home, no matter how violent the atmosphere, it's tough to realize you are what the media is calling: an Abused Child or Abused Mate.

   It's very natural for a kid to believe that what they are enduring is the way it's supposed to be for them. Maybe for all kids.

   Or, if they suspect other kids are being loved in a Father Knows Best Land while they're surviving in Amityville, it's easy to buy the lie that they're getting what they deserve for being a “bad kid”.

   Or, it's the way it has to be if they can't find an optional door to knock on to make a better deal. Heck! Most kids don't even know they have a right to knock as they have no inkling they are a member of a global crisis.

   And, as a kid, if you are aware of the crisis, it's easy to exclude yourself from the victim list. After all, the people you're being asked to recognize and name as your abusers are also your in-home superiors. Your family. The ones you are growing up with. The ones who changed your diapers, fed and clothed you. The ones you've been told to honor.

   Ergo! YOU must be the cause of their anger. And, the punishments must be right. It must be what you need. It's natural to suspect if everyone else is living a flawless family life, then you were meant to be alienated from normalcy and love. You must be the primo oddball because your home-life is so senselessly different from the TV sitcoms.

   And if you don't know there's a finer, more loving and supportive way to live, if you imagine Fate's purposely denying you love because you were born unworthy of happiness, HOPE can cease to exist in your heart. And when HOPE dies it's a very lonely hurt.

   It's easy to conclude Love is for others — not me. A conclusion that screws up many an adult's capacity to create and accept a terrific love connection — not only from others but with themselves.

   The temptation to run away can be very tantalizing. As can the illusion that there's something or someone better to run to out there in the unknown streets.

   Yet, when you're a kid — even an adult — it's hard to grasp that every situation offers some fragment of worth. Offers some valuable message in need of observing, learning and mastering. Offers some strength within ourselves we're being forced to tap.

   To me, everyone, everything, every encounter is either an example of what to do — or what not to do. How to live — or how not to live. What is honorable — or not.

   Our challenge is figuring out which is which.

   However, until we figure the message issuing from every situation and association, we continue to run smack into similar setups. Different faces — same concept. Whether we run into them as an abused child, a battered wife, or even an impractical romantic in search of perfect love that cannot exist on an imperfect planet.

   Having run all those races, I can attest to why most runaways, of any age, usually end up in same setups where they continue to be abused and feel they deserve to be abused.

   It's because what they have experienced is so very limited.

EXAMPLE:

   If you've only been fed Assaulty Stews and no one's ever shared life's full menu with you, then you continue to order Assaulty Stew Entrees.

   For adults on the run, stress continues as long as we avoid what we need to address within ourselves. Ergo! When we run, we drag what we need to dump along with us. Especially, if there's nowhere to run that's prepared to help us face and deal with our inner fears and struggles.

   It's like a house of cosmic mirrors. We subconsciously keep running into what we need to face in our own being-ness until we resolve it. Or are helped to resolve it. We continue casting ourselves in situationships that force issues we thought we left behind. Issues we thought were solely dwelling within others.

Case in point: ME.

   I now see that all the abusive setups I tripped into were shoved in my path to get my attention. For me to see WHY I needed to stop giving the vote for my life to others — be it mother, mate or any other mortal. And realize the vote buck had to stop with me.

   I had to love and evaluate me without giving weight to others' quirks, prejudices, angers or vexations. I had to see clearly NOW. To like and love me. Period. No outside vote needed to be tabulated.

   I couldn't allow myself to be a feather blowin' in the wind of other's torrential tantrums nor other's gentle breezes of benevolence. Or else, I'd shipwreck myself on the isle of eternal helplessness like a heartship with neither rudder nor direction.

   I'd end up giving the ominous they permission to use me at will. I'd have no personal investment in my own being-ness.

   Well, hogwash! That's giving others far more power than they deserve, need or are designed to have.

   True. As a kid, there was no one to turn to, so I turned to me for help. To my conscience. Although it took many years to effect my final recovery, recover I did. This was not only self‑serving, it expanded my awareness of what we need to offer kids and anyone escaping similarly abusive setups.

   Not simply a safe, loving harbor for them physically, but spiritual help to free themselves from their abusers. To help them see why they're grabbing full blame for their abuser's actions and hostilities. Thus, assisting them to see where it originated:

The most wake‑up pivot I discovered is:

   So, maybe that's another reason for this dialogue. To examine my situationships with the past so as to possibly discern which looking glass I and my significant allies and adversaries lived within. Then perchance offer the opportunity, via my experience, to become a mirror for others to reflect upon their experiences.

   Besides, I figure I might as well use me to explore the abuse issue. Heck! I let enough other people use me until now — from family, in‑laws and outlaw business barracudas.

   Looking back, I see how I affected a lot of people and directed the motion of many past events by allowing my first 16 years of childhood nonsense to subconsciously act as my guidance counselor throughout the later years.

   I recall all the fantastic opportunities I consciously blew through judging myself unworthy of notice and compensation for my creativity based on other's lack of my self‑esteem.

   How crazy. How Common.

   I am amazed there were days that I got up in the morning without first getting outside permission. My opening line to life became: Take my Happiness! Take my Life . . . Please!

   Last year, I noticed a swelling reaction ricocheting me briefly into a kidhood disc. I was ready to relinquish all my rights to a project so I could be the first to walk. So I could avoid hearing an associate say: “You're not needed!”

   Though, thanks to digging out that dusty disc of yore buried deep in the recess of my emotional hurt drive, I quickly understood my reaction was not valid. Nor based on my worth. Nor my associate's intentions. It was an involuntary motion, showing:

   So now, as I consider the multitude of adults still haunted as I was, to whatever degree, by their kidhoods of abuse, and how it can affect their choices in life. Choices which eventually affect us all due to our joint membership in this specie. I figure we all share a vested interest in the dis-ease called Abuse. As well as in discovering the cure.

   Though potentially grungy, exhuming the past is the clearest way to uncover what's handicapping our current life.

   And! It's the only way to evaluate the excess emotional garbage we need to toss into the dumpster — no matter who shoveled it. Be it parents, siblings, guardians, teachers or any authority figure in our past who we assumed held the verdict over our worth, including the Fear Fleas who bug our spirits.

   Sure, traversing over illusions into self‑honesty can be a rough trip. But, when Freedom is the destination, it's well worth the price of the ticket.

Copyright © 2006 by Krystiahn - All Rights Reserved