Trauma Superstorm Part 1.

Part One. Handmade Victim

As an infant. We almost certainly would have been identified INFP-T. The gentle nature would have made us the apparent victim for an experienced abuser. The heir apparent.

As a toddler, our reality already shattered, and the emotional, physical and psychological abuse comes to pass from our parents, all the whirl they continued to offer us up to our paternal grandfather. The secret that everyone knew, and nobody ever acknowledged. The hatred our father felt for us, for himself, and his own parents, manifesting in the resentment he had for us. An easy outlet for his anger and self loathing. Already damaged by the same man who ruined our father. Although, our life as was intended, Now robbed from us so early in life; The terror was compounding with every passing moment in time. The molestation, which had been our original offending injury, had been perpetrated by such a cruel man, he used the abuse not only for his own deviations, but to dispense emotional punishment and torture on our father.

He treated us like the prodigal son, a far cry from the abuses he inflicted on his two sons. We did have two aunts from the same family. But neither one of them made it adulthood. One mysteriously disappeared around her twelfth birthday, and the other died from a skull fracture as a newborn.

The amount of hatred my father must have had for my grandfather must have been monumental. This would clearly explain the dynamic difference in the treatment differences between my sibling and myself. Our grandfather was already dead when Ashley was born. He was neither offered up to our grandfather, nor was he used as an emotional plaything like we were. Reality it seems always finds the truth, eventually.

Here we were, an emotional, highly intellectual child, shattered and hated for no reason of his own. A child that has spent every day, feeling the hate from his father, the twisted love of his grandfather, and the mentally unstable mother. Wow. These abuses and events were not an isolated event. These events , and more importantly the accompanying emotions, were no longer events in existence, rather existence has been redefined as the chaos of trauma, from all directions. Follow me here..

A child, us, is severely abused at home. This abuse consists of torture, physical discipline, emotional conditioning, management through fear. This is the child’s relationship with his father. Our baseline has been moved. The obvious rescuer for us at this point would have been our mother, however she was very unstable, as we can now deduce from memories and found documents.

When our mother was in a good mood, she could be great. Very loving and supportive, however those times were fleeting and rare. Mostly she lived in fear of dad. As we all did. She, could get caught up in the fear of dads anger. Throwing us under the bus, and more of the than not, using us for the outlet of her frustrations. Here too, it seems we had become the family patsy.

With our gypsy-like moving history, we never developed any close relationships after the third grade. With our grandfather dead, and the confusion we unknowingly had from it, any chance of a safe place was gone. We couldn’t turn to the school, the threats at home for anyone to know anything about family affairs, and as strictly forbidden. We had nobody and nowhere safe to go. We had to try and assimilate our body, into a way of survival. The only way we could accept the life we lived daily, was that intact we were truly responsible and deserved, our treatment.

As a young child, we moved so many times. Whether from a desire to hide us , as part of the family secret, or to keep our father employed. We see. Is that our behaviors have always mimicked his. Our alter Larry, is the best and worst traits of our father. His ability to read people, to manipulate them, and to paint another narrative are mirrored and n our father. This is how we know he hated himself. We feel this in our alter, and recognize the pattern.

As our hidden coping skills continued to develop, and we displayed very bizarre behaviors at school, the environment at home became more volatile, as we brought attention to our home. The panic button was always pushed, bringing forth the canned threats and physical punishments. This caused even larger social deficits as we entered our tweens. The teachers all reported a lovely, well mannered and intelligent child. Never rude or interrupting. Who would complete class work well, had severe hand eye coordination issues, and never turned in homework. Ever.

We could never understand, just as the schools struggled with our lack of academic performance despite being able to master exams. We always wanted to perform well and do our homework, but even at the time when we needed to practice a musical instrument at home for homework credit; We failed band, despite being a first chair on three instruments. We believe we hat after the events of our third grade year. Our executive fictions we’re severely interrupted, thus triggering a lot of learning disorders. Disorders we do prominently had.

Beginning in the fourth graded, but significantly in the fifth grade, we displayed a cornucopia of symptomology. This was in the late seventies, when child psychiatry was a quickly evolving art. Our parents, looking for a diagnosis, and quick fix, that did not involve them. We had four school changes between third and sixth grade, we had no idea how to trust, relate, or actually have hope for hat anyone would help us. As dad told us so many times, he owned us.

With the moving truck, never far from our driveway, we learned to live out of packing boxes. We were always the new kid, always in the spotlight. Initially, we would excel. The first semester, give or take, everything seemed like a fairy tale.

We were the prodigy everyone was excited to meet. Every school rolled out the red carpet. This was only temporary. Soon after the honeymoon was over, we would fall back into the role of the weird kid. The strange one, the retard. This again, was something we were told at home, so the label was easy to wear.

Every school would begin the process of identifying us as a child at risk. When the letters and phone calls would start to home, our world became even worse than before. This level of hatred at home would not subside as time passes between traumatic events, however the level of hyper sensory acuity, remains at. The same level as the fear that brought us to that point. We were truly living in a world that most people may never experience, or maybe only once or twice through a lifetime. This was our normal.

Dad was proficient at dispensing his anger on us. For a man who never smiled once in our life, he sure could communicate anger, hatred and self loathing, like an expert. To this day, in all of our travels and exploits, we have never been as terrified as we were in the presence of our own father. Fear of not only the physical pain, but the pain and emotional head games he was famous for.

Our basis for fear and hatred of our father is well founded. In our course of growing up, we saw violence in our home regularly. This usually manifested in the treatment of my mother and us, but not always. Sometimes the resentment for my grandfather, by proxy through us, would encompass cruelty on levels we came to see as normal. Today. As a middle aged adult, we know that nothing was normal about our father.

We were five at the time, maybe six. We were a fairly happy child, spending most of our time with grandparents. We lived with mom and dad, in the country on a mountainside. Like most six year olds, we had chores, we thought.

Mom and dad were retiling the bathroom floor. Mom was getting ready to start dinner, and dad was giving me a task. Our task was to pick up all the tile debris, take outside and clean the bathroom before dinner. Being the child we were, as much as the fear inside us grew, we resembled the deer in the headlights. Our task was incomplete. This was unacceptable to dad, mom and dad both standing at the bathroom door screaming at us. The name calling would be something we would accept.

As dad reached down to grab us by the hair, we knew, we just never knew how bad it would be. After all, it was all our fault. We were lazy, ingrates, selfish, and worthless. We expected to be hit all the way to the bedroom, as usual. This was not the case today. Today, we were going outside. Off we went, barefooted through the house towards the door, but wait, we stopped! Maybe we were getting a reprieve today? Dad threw us to the floor, telling us to stay put. When he returned from the hallway he was carrying his pump action, shotgun. We just knew he was killing us. It was finally time.

As he grabbed us by the hair again, he would either drag us, or we were just struggling to walk with him. We went towards the barn. The only thing in the barn was my pony, Princess. Our heart sank as we now know what his plans were to hurt us today. We continued towards the barn, our thoughts racing, our feelings completely on alert. There was nothing good that could happen here. We knew our dad, we had seen him torture mom, dogs, anyone he hated. He hated me most of all, we knew that for certain. He made sure.

As the hope faded for any kind of outcome here that did not involve death, dad was sure to deliver on the fears he embedded. His diatribe devolved into our fault exploration. How there had to be consequences for failure, and there was nothing worse than laziness. With this decrees, we were directed to look at our pony, we knew why. We refused , sobbing and wailing, knowing what was about to happen. For the boy who wouldn’t even shoot birds, this was horrific.

As dads frustration with our lack of conformity; he used his other tools, his hands. Dad grabbed us, threw us to the ground with our face pointing to our pony. She was standing there, not three feet away, looking at us. Dad put his foot on our neck, and forced us to watch as he murdered our pony, and made us believe it was our fault. Just like everything else in our lives, we were the root cause. The compulsory kicks and hits, all the way back to the house only sever to make us hate him even more.

So. Here we have taken a young child, and shattered any sense of normal boundaries, normal affection, trust, and the bassist sense of right and wrong. Now, compound this is exponentially, With decades of humiliation, intimidation, shame and abuse. As if the abuse alone were not enough to cause a profound and catastrophic shift in our personality, the constant relocations would only further add insult to injury. Thirteen schools in eighteen years. Is it any wonder the only connection we can have to the human race is under chemical influences? When the facts are presented in this continuous fashion, how could anyone ever expect anything but, well, us.