DESCENT

The more I read her journals, the more I found myself wishing, not for the last time, that I had spent more time with Granny.  That I had really gotten to know her when she was a living, breathing person on this earth, not just through the things she wrote.

She would’ve understood.

It felt like the thought came out of nowhere but instead of taking it out and examining it, I shrugged it into that part of my brain where unwanted thoughts go to die a slow death.  This was all about Granny, not me.

Except…

I had thought I could plow my way through a significant portion of Granny’s journals within a relatively short period of time.  How wrong I was.

I discovered that I had to take what she wrote in quite small, almost bite-sized portions because anything else sent me into days of spiraling depression.  I found myself sobbing with nearly every stroke of Granny’s pen.  Yet it took me several weeks to realize that my tears were for me as much as they were for her.  I began to see way, way too much of myself in the chronicles of her pain.

How did she even manage to function let alone seem like a normal person to everyone around her?  I mean, I know it wasn’t like we were besties who spent oodles of time together, but if she was that damaged, how did I not pick up on anything?

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

June 25

I think one of the most difficult things in dealing with mental and emotional issues is that if you’ve become as adept as I have at miming and reflecting and adapting, it’s like trying to tell people that a tree is actually a cat when you say you are mentally and emotionally unhealthy.

They usually have a perception of you that has very little to do with reality, which results in their response ranging anywhere from “…but you seem so (fill in the blank with some kind of well-meant encouragement that misses the point entirely)…” to “…wow, stop being such a whiny loser you big baby—everyone’s got a sob story so just get over yourself…”

Do I have good days?

Of course I do.

Do I have ‘normal’ days?

By most people’s definition of normal, of course I do.

Do I spend all day, every day weeping inconsolably?

Of course I don’t.

But if I didn’t know it before, I most certainly know now that if you can’t point to a bruise or a broken bone, no one will believe you were abused in any way.

You’re just overly sensitive.

You just misunderstood.

And if you don’t lie in bed in a dark room and refuse to eat, you obviously don’t have any REAL mental and emotional issues.

You’re just weak or lazy or melodramatic and you don’t see things as they really are.

How do you explain to people that the kind of abuse I endured informs every single second of every single day in ways I’m still not fully aware of?

How do you help them understand it’s not simply a matter of painful past experiences, that those experiences didn’t remain in the past but they are with you in very real and terrifying and disturbing ways in the right now?

I know it doesn’t make much sense to people who haven’t gone through the same levels of abuse (or haven’t admitted or recognized that they have).

The past is nothing more than memory, right?

Except that for people like me, it isn’t.

And it is so hard to get some to understand and grasp that for those suffering any kind of PTSD, time is definitely not linear.

My past is my present and in a way, my present doesn’t even exist, except maybe in tiny fragments that have never been strung together to form a cohesive whole.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Ah.

I suppose if people knew what was really going on with everyone they met, they’d run screaming into a cave and never have contact with another human being.  Still, though, it made me wonder if Granny had anyone she confided in.  Anyone she could trust.  Based on a lot of what I’d read, I kinda doubted it.  Which made me ridiculously sad for her.

What about God?  Where was He in all this?  He didn’t really feature in much of the initial entries of this set of notebooks, but considering both sets ended around the same time, it stood to reason that she maintained at least some kind of something with Him.

How, though?  I mean, she hadn’t held back in writing about what she’d been put through and it was…hideous.  She was never chained to a wall or anything like that, but in a way, the subtlety of so much of it made it even more insidious.  And then there were…the other things.  Seriously, how this woman hadn’t just checked out of life was a mystery to me.

Even more of a mystery was how she could continue to believe in a God who would allow her to suffer so heinously.

I was in no way surprised when I came across these next two entries.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

October 1

People telling me all my life how blessed and happy I should be that I was abandoned by my parents when I was a toddler because it was clear they knew they couldn’t take care of me has left me thinking my entire life that God thought it was a good thing I was abandoned.

Obviously He was watching out for you, they say.

Obviously He has a plan for your life.

Yeah, some plan.

Being put in a house and forced to exist with violent bullies and narcissists.

I have lived in fear pretty much every day of my life.

I have been afraid ALL THE TIME.

And I am still living in abject terror because I remain in that house even though my body hasn’t lived there in decades.

I’ve always hated going to sleep and now it finally makes sense.

I can’t prove it factually, of course, but I really think that I went to sleep and woke up in front of that library by myself with no one and nothing familiar around me.

Do not EVER succumb to sleep willingly because bad things will happen.

The equally heinous flip side of that is the fact that waking up only means one more day in the hell that is your life.

A verbal smack and then dismissive neglect is all I’ll ever deserve in this life.

Abandonment is what I deserve.

Because I am nothing but an aggravation.

That’s what she told me my entire life in every possible way without actually using fists or hands.

And I’m still trapped in the belief that it’s all my fault.

I didn’t ask to be born, but I was and it just caused everyone annoyance.

So much so that they felt it necessary to abandon me physically and emotionally.

I know those words are just a defense.

I’m just so scared.

I’m scared of feeling it all.

What if I drown?

What if I suffocate?

I’ve done my absolute best to minimize, to excuse, to brush off.

I’ve blamed myself.

I’ve called myself too sensitive.

I’ve told myself that’s how all parents are.

I’ve done everything in my power not to feel the lifetime of pain she has inflicted upon me.

And I’ve kicked it into overdrive when it comes to certain other relatives.

I’ve practically deleted all feeling where they’re concerned because I think my brain just could not handle the truth of there being more than one abuser in the ‘family.’

I am devastated.

I am utterly wrecked.

But I don’t feel angry.

I feel scared of anger.

I feel like anger isn’t right coming from me.

Anger is dangerous.

Anger produces murderous looks and violent outbursts.

Anger gets you called impudent.

Anger gets you accused of being a house ruiner.

I can feel pain and devastation and agony, but I cannot feel anger towards the perpetrators of it all.

I’ve been taught my entire life that anger is sinful and only God has the right to be angry.

October 3

I realize now that Jesus saying we need to take up our cross every day and follow Him simply enraged me.

My unconscious thought was, I’ve already been murdered in every way imaginable and now You just want to murder me some more?!?

Another teaching that has just messed me right the snot up is the idea that what I’ve done to God is worse than anything anyone has ever done to me.

That’s the truth of the unforgiving servant, right?

I’ve been forgiven the equivalent of the national debt so when I turn around and can’t forgive those who abused and assaulted me, whose offenses rack up to about a buck fifty, I deserve to be tossed to the torturers until I’ve paid my debt.

Thanks, God!

That’s an awesome life lesson.

Good to know there’s a reason my life has been a living hell.

It’s all my fault!

Yay!

WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!?!?!?

Did I ask for any of this?!?

Did I ask to be born?!?

Did I ask to be neglected and abused and assaulted?!?

What did I EVER do to You that warranted any of that?!?

You were the One who let me be conceived.

You were the One who didn’t let me die in any of the dozens of ways I could have perished before being bought as a slave, if not in name, then in practice.

You were the One Who looked on while I was being violated in the most horrific ways imaginable.

If it was all just so I could become an adult who is so screwed up I have no idea who I even am, then WHY?!?

Why let me live?

What have I ever contributed to this world except pain and aggravation?

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

I sat there, hugging my knees to my chest, rocking back and forth.

Granny, Granny, Granny.