Thank You, Sir, May I Have Another?

Today, boys and girls, we are going into tales of my childhood abuse, aka The Trauma Years. Yes, this was quite a formative time for me. Now if you lack a sense of humor or cringe easily then I suggest you stop reading now because I am simply going to be blunt about some of the abuse I suffered through as a kid. With that said, and my conscience clean, I am ready to begin.

My father was a complete and utter asshole. There is no way around it. I respect the man. He dropped out of high school and yet managed to support and raise six kids. He suffered a minor heart attack when he was thirty due to the amount of stress he was under. The man simply didn't know how to deal with his stress save in one way and that was myself and my siblings.

I can claim to be a partial hero. There were times I took the blame for things because I knew my sisters couldn't handle the beating. Ah, but what do I mean by beatings. Well, I'll get a little descriptive:

Once, when I was five, my twin and I were taking a bath and my father walked in. He discovered a small puddle of water on the bathroom floor and, like Ward Cleaver, acted in the most moral way: he grabbed my by my hair, dragged me out of the tub, and proceeded to ram me face first into the tiled floor repeatedly until he broke my nose.

Another time, when I was I believe eight, my sister was telling a joke. I decided to be a smart ass, in one of my euphoric states (see the post about my bi-polar problem to understand), and spoil the punchline. Sadly my father didn't see the humor in it and proceeded to drag me out of the room into the back hall where he used his belt to strip the skin right off the back of my legs. The man literally whipped me until blood was seeping out my black and purple thighs.

I did get to see my father abuse my mother on a consistent basis. Him throwing dishes at her, breaking furniture, screaming at her at the top of his lungs. Oh, memories. If there was one thing she taught me it was the power of passive aggression. That woman literally did give as good as she got by undermining many of his plans whether it be slowing down family trips when my father was making good time(she always had to go to the bathroom), controlling the finances (she never could really remember where she hid the checkbook except after dad left the house), or consistently taking us off on trips to see our grandparents when things became a little too heavy (he'd eventually want us to come back).

I don't want to deceive you. Not all the abuse was physical. There was mental abuse as well. I had to deal with the mandatory adjectives of "worthless", "pathetic", and other delighted terms. I remember my eigth birthday. The twin and I, as well as the rest of the family, had gone out for pizza. We were celebrating, yada yada. Well, being young and impulsive, the twin and I began in on the pizza before my father had returned from wherever the hell he had vanished to. Well, when he came back to discover the twin and I eating our birthday slices before he had returned he let loose in a torrent of us being "ungrateful bastards" and more (forgive me if my subconscious has repressed a great deal of some of the things I should remember). The twin and I could only look down at the floor after he stomped out, chewing miserably on greasy cheese. Happy birthday.

There were multiple whippings, hair pullings, and worse but they didn't compare to the threats to my personal belongings. There were the classic moments when my father threatened to sell my toys (of which I barely had any and thus were very precious to me), his willingness to abandon my things when we'd move (I lost so many comic books, baseball cards, books, etc. as we never had enough room in the car), or the holidays when he'd play cruel jokes like giving me something other than what I asked for. That last may be why I don't ask for anything on my birthday or for Christmas. God knows I never expect to ever get what I really want.

The man loved to let us watch horror movies. Geeze, nothing like being five and catching a showing of The Exorcist.

There were the challenges to fist fights that my father raised, daring the twin and I to "take him on". Of course being twelve and him forty seven, it didn't seem a fair fight. Factor in his amateur boxing background and judo training while in the military and you can understand the trepidation of the twin and I. Well, we did learn strategic thinking throughout those abusive years. Choose your battles. Know when to retreat. We did want to reach manhood. How else were we going to escape save in a pine box!

All of this really hurt me in ways I've never completely dealt with. I suffered through night terrors horribly and still do from time to time.

Now the twin and I were gradually becoming psychotic under the endless pressure we found ourselves under. By the age of thirteen he and I vowed we were going to kill the man. Oh, tis true I tell you. Lucky for him he began to notice we weren't taking anymore from him and he began to back off both us and the rest of our siblings. Sadly we didn't murder him. I was never really good at achieving goals.

Now there were funny times. My father pulling a gun out to shoot a car that had cut him off was classic. Then there was him being so drunk he fell down the stairs with such a loud series of booms that the entire family ran out to the stairwell to see what the hell had happened. Then there was the time he made us all watch as he whipped my sister (who always gave away when she was at fault by asking the stupid question of 'what is going to happen to the person who did it?') only for the belt to break after two lashes. Seeing the confusion on that crimson face as he didn't know what to do now that his weapon was no more had us all laughing rather morbidly. The man crumbled beneath the giggling and hurried out of our sight.

I'd say the worst part of it all was the constant moving. He refused to live anywhere long and thus I never had real friends. I only had the family and trust me we were twisted enough. You can imagine my shock after basing my model of the world off of the only thing I knew, my family, to discover people weren't as fucked up as we were.

I'm a very introverted person. I think because of the fact that I lack some of the belief that I can ever truly do. I'm extremely passive aggressive and manipulative. These are not positive traits but then what are? I've been beaten, verbally lashed, sexually exploited (though not by pops but that in and of itself is a whole different story which I will not share with anyone), and spiritually scarred. I don't trust easily if at all.

The above is a little insight into my formative years. They instilled a type of brutality in me that I largely directed at myself because of the fact that I did not want to harm others. I learned to split myself into multiple personas to deal with some of the pain. No, I'm not a split personality though I can veer sharply from one point to another. I am what I need to be; fluid. Maybe that is why I don't believe there is any real substance to me.

I'm sorry if I'm being vague and if some of this seems to be a rant rather than true introspection. My mind isn't completely here right now. I'm in a partial depression and doing my best to keep the body going.

Now don't feel bad for me. I've developed quite the dark humor and found ways to laugh at a large amount of the shit in my life. It's all been an adventure. People are drawn to me despite the person I believe myself to be. I love to talk, yearn to help you guys through your problems. As for me, I hold onto my trauma like a sack of bricks. They're all I really have despite the heavy weight.