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Dear Cary,
Thank you for deciding to keep your column alive. I am writing to you from Italy, a country you must have a special spot for since you even organize your workshops/retreats here. I am not Italian but it has little to do with my story.
I grew up in a troubled family. My father was verbally and physically abusive, verbally to my mother and physically to us, the children. He was and is to this day an unfaithful, dishonest person with some ugly habits.
I was 5 years old when my brother was born. My mother, for reasons unknown to me, chose to sleep in the same room with my little brother. I, in the meantime, had to give up my bed to him and sleep in the same bed with my father in a separate room. No one asked my opinion of course. But I think the abuse started even earlier, when my mother was still pregnant. She had to stay in the hospital due to some complications for a few days and I remember those days like a terrible, foggy dream. Those days were from hell. I was tortured sexually by my father and physically humiliated in ways I cannot count. It felt like it was never going to end. I did not always remember this of course. The memories started to flow when I started meditating about 10 years ago. All of a sudden they started floating in my mind and didn’t want to go away.
For these 10 years I lived without saying much on the subject. It was there, it bothered me sometimes, but I kept it in a “faraway drawer” and did not do much about it. I had also been through a lot of dope, self-imposed isolation, eating disorders, mindless sex, destructive relationships and other awkward things prior, during and after this realization. But somehow they only felt natural.
I was scared of my father for almost as long as I can remember myself. He was always somewhere near waiting to hit or insult one of us. We were all terrified. My mother was one of his victims, but had herself grown up in a family situation where there was little affection and presence from her own parents.
I first talked about the abuse with my brother a few months after my “realization.” I told my mother about it after a couple of years. She seemed shocked upon my confession but then something else came up and we never returned to the subject if not very lightly and briefly. This was about seven years ago. She did tell me that my father was abused as a kid and that he had told her this a long time ago when they were young.
I was completely unable to confront him for these years. I still freeze when I think about it. There is a part of me that is tongueless and powerless in front of him that remains mute and paralyzed.
My son is now the sweetest, most sensitive kid with a kind heart and a beautiful soul. I try to give him all my love and support it’s an everyday, every-second kind of commitment.
For some reason a couple of months ago my father decided that he missed us and wanted to visit. I didn’t invite him but I didn’t say no. However, right before his visit he had another terrible fight with my mother where he had hurt her badly and I told him not to come. I didn’t call, I wrote. I still had no voice. I had accused him of a few things that referred to the disrespect for my mother, confronting him in written form. He still came.
My father spent three days inside our home, never leaving his laptop, and I noticed him watching porn on mute one evening when my husband and I were in the living room with him. He only got out when my son and I left the house. I did watch his behavior, knowing what he is capable of, at least of what he was capable of with me. Some of his gestures were borderline and I tried to never leave my son in the same room with him alone, always going back and forth and keeping an eye on my father.
And then one day the three of us were there and I saw him put his hand under my son’s clothes. It was hot outside and my son was in his T-shirt and underwear. This movement, which I cannot judge right now as I was blinded by rage and despair, was done in such a sneaky and “nonchalant” manner that I exploded. I told him to pack his bags and leave my home. I told him I never wanted to see him or ever speak to him again. I also told him I remembered everything from my past. He only laughed (!!!) and denied it, in a very cynical, shameless manner. He didn’t want to leave. I kicked him out.
My mother tried calling the next day after finding out about the incident from my brother. I told her I did not want to be part of this mess anymore, that they should no longer try to involve me in their battles. I haven’t heard from her since, and I haven’t initiated any contact.
There are days when I feel sad and empty and like nobody needs me. I have my own life, my family, my job. But it is still so hard. And even though I know there is hardly a chance I shall ever speak with my father, my mother’s “silence” is so hard to accept at times.
What a mess I have made.
What have I done?
Thanks for reading this, Cary. I really appreciate being able to “speak” to you like this.
Two Hearts
Dear Two Hearts,
What have you done? You have fought back.
What have you done? You have saved your son.
What have you done? You have protected yourself and your family.
Now the question is, What must you do next?
No matter how we think about this situation, one thing seems inescapable: If your father has pedophiliac impulses that he cannot control, then he is a danger to children and families around him. If he is a danger to children and families around him, then he must be stopped. If you cannot stop him, then law enforcement must get involved.
This is heavy stuff. But the logic of it is inescapable.
I suggest you reach out for help. Do not attempt to deal with this on your own. It is too daunting psychologically. Do you have a trusted ally and adviser? Who do you know in the psychiatric, academic, political, legal, religious or law-enforcement community? Is there someone you can trust to guide you through this difficult matter? Contact that person. Arrange a meeting in confidence. Plan a series of steps. This is a hard matter to face but it must be faced. You will need advice and support — and I surely hope I am not your only source, for I am just a writer.
But in my terms, in the terms of a writer, here is what this means: In acting against the silence that your family teaches, in defying this man who has victimized you and others, you become a hero. In bringing justice to bear, you become a hero. In protecting your own family, you become a hero.
To become this hero, you must, in a sense, sacrifice your father. To save innocent people, you must sacrifice your father. Mythologically, psychologically, that is a nearly impossible thing to do. Yet that is what the hero does: She undertakes the nearly impossible. Why? To prevent the destruction of her city, of her life, of those around her whom she loves.
Naturally, one feels an animal reluctance to effect the father sacrifice. Naturally, one’s own body fights back, for one’s body believes it is the father’s body; the cells believe they are the father’s cells and that they cannot defy the father because they came from the father. But the calling of the hero is to defy the body and rise above its fears: the hero becomes more than the cells in her body; the hero shakes herself, remakes herself above and outside the body’s fears. Your body is not where your courage resides; your body will make you sleepy and lethargic, telling you to delay, telling you you are sick and anxious and weak; your body will do these things and you will have to fight through that. You will have to fight through that with your spirit, the magical, heroic part of you that can rise above the body and own the body and stir the body into warrior action, to rise above the cells, above the animal belief that your body belongs to your father.
Your body belongs to you. Your spirit belongs to you.
You will be afraid. But you can do this. You can do this because you love your son, your little boy. You can do this because your father must not be allowed to laugh at you and walk away after what he has done.
Here is also why you can do this: When we know what we must do and go where we must go and ask the questions we must ask, eventually, whether supernatural or statistical or enigmatic or material, whether charted by prognosticators or the makers of Freakonomics or Malcolm Gladwell or astrophysicists I do not know, but when we go where we must go and ask the questions we must ask, somehow, eventually, justice is done.
I wish I could help you further but I am just a writer, a man sitting in a little room on the other side of the world, wishing that he, too, could be a hero.
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Thank you, Cary, thank you, everyone. It is so good to have found the simple human words here, the feeling of being able to be oneself and think or act accordingly.
I cannot do much about my father currently as I stopped going back to my home country a few years ago. But I am sure some sort of justice or closure will happen eventually. This would be the right thing. I am not a superpower to decide what or when but there should be an end to this.
I also realise that once you have been broken you do live your life trying to hold together the pieces that sometimes come unglued. But with love and awareness you can.
It’s a kind of task I have to face almost every day and remind myself that I am whole. Abuse is not something one can resolve once and for all and put away like a finished book. Some days are harder than others. But awareness is such a beautiful tool that once you have set the bar there is no lowering it.
Thank you, Cary. My love goes to you and everyone who may need some right now..
Your mother served you up to him. There is no reason to feel bad about her. She knows what she did.
Two Hearts, you say your father decided to visit “for some reason.” I don’t think it’s farfetched to assume that he came for the express purpose of looking for a chance to molest your little boy. You have not “made a mess” of anything. You have prevented one. The hardest thing in the world is when we finally have to accept that a close family member or friend who should be a trusted loved one is actually a dangerous abuser with whom it is impossible to have a true relationship. But once that realization is reached, you cannot waver. And as long as you have your son, and make his and your own well-being your number-one priority, you will always “be needed.”
What you have done is broken a cycle, a machine in a sense, a freight train of pain and abuse and loveless cruelty that has powered through generation after generation, running over the spirits and bodies laid on the track.
You’ve broken it. You stood on the tracks and held out your arms and stopped the train and threw it off the tracks.
Breaking things is a little messy. But there are worse things than a bit of a mess. When Superman is done fighting Lex Luthor, there is generally some tidying up to be done, but nobody minds.
Change like this is disorienting. I’ve been there. I agree it helps to have a counselor or a support group or someone who can help you sort out feelings from truths.
When you chose to kick your father out of your house and your life, you chose to protect your child. You chose to protect yourself. You are amazing for doing that, and I for one am so grateful to know that there are people like you who do amazing things for their kids. What you did may seem impossible to you, but it is one of the most incredible things anyone could ever do. Ever.
I have very different circumstances with my own parents, but I keep my distance emotionally from both and essentially have no relationship with my father other than occasional visits in which I am in control (in my own home on my terms). When I made the choice to go that route, there was tension, of course, and I felt guilt. But then I also felt hollow, empty, so very alone. Because children naturally attach themselves emotionally to their parents. It is a very important, natural thing that starts when we’re babies, and it has to happen for survival. So now you’re dealing with the separation from your family as if you’ve lost them, as if they’ve … maybe not died, but no longer exist for you because our parents and our feelings about our parents inhabit our minds, and there is an almost palpable loss when that sense of closeness/belonging/being parented somehow goes away. Even if the parents are terrible to us, harm us, and we are better off without them.
As others have said, please seek counseling to help you through this time. The right therapist will be able to help you find your way through this time of loneliness and emptiness, mourn your loss and move forward in a more positive way.
As others have said, what your father did and has done is so truly awful in a way most other crimes are not, and you really are a hero. Your voice was stifled as a survival skill for you for so long, and it hurts to speak out, it is frightening to go down a lifepath without parents that you never contemplated living, and yet you really can heal and learn to feel whole without their presence.
I send you much hope and healing and wish you all the best. I am so, so glad that you found your voice.
Your father made the mess, a huge one. You reacted to protect your family from it. You are your own hero, at last! This is a major victory. Many women in your position would have let Dad abuse another kid, their kid, rather than do what you did. Women and men who are reading this now. You might help them change their behavior too!
What your dad did to you and your son was really, really bad. Maybe you need someone else to say that for you. You have probably been distanced from your ability and willingness to protect yourself from evil because that was your dad. And relatives don’t like to face the fact that their own flesh and blood is evil. Even if it means hurting and harming each other in order to keep themselves and others from realizing how messed up that one person is.
So let me be the one to lift that off your shoulders. What he does is arrested, convicted and in jail bad. Labeled and no one would want him in their neighborhood bad. It’s not your judgment of him. This is not you vs. your dad. It’s much bigger. His actions make others in prison hurt people like him, they’re so inflamed with the wrongness of it. That’s pretty bad, no? Do you feel justified yet? Please do.
About six years ago I did something similar — I finally drew a line in the sand with my father. His problem is different, but he too does not care about the consequences of his actions and what harm they do to others. I thought I’d feel lost and lonely without most of my family as many closed ranks to protect him from his consequences or simply stayed out of it and silent. But it turned out I wasn’t lonely. Turned out that it was the best thing I could ever have done for myself. My sense of self-confidence and peace with the world strengthened enormously. For once my deepest self knew it was safe, because I was taking care of it. I was more upset by some of my family members actions. Some supported me, some attacked me. But without them it was the same, everything in my life got better. Everything. But I had support and you need it too. Don’t try to convince anyone you’re right, just hang out with the ones who know it and support your health and well-being.
You’re part of a new generation of truth-tellers. You’re changing human history. You changed your child and grand-children’s history. You are a family heroine.
I feel Cary’s advice is stellar. Seeing one’s life through the lens of mythology can create astounding clarity and help plod an effective course of action.
It is a “modern” idea for parents to care for their children, to go to any length to protect them. And it is a modern idea to hold our parents in esteem (not to be confused with fearful respect).
Mythology shows us how to deal with parents who mistreat us: To recognize them as a threat and neutralize them. There is no shame in that. Mythology is also a great lens with which to delve into spiritual implications of one’s journey, with the call of destiny. It allows the “Hero’s Journey,” Campbell wrote so magnificently about in the book by the same name.
The treatment of children in antiquity is indirectly limned by Bennett D. Hill’s description of the seminal book “Kindness of Strangers” by John Boswell. He writes: “Abandonment of children–by leaving them, selling them, or consigning them to someone else–was practiced from Greek antiquity to early modern times by parents of all social classes, because of poverty, incest, shame, self-interest, inheritance, or to improve the child’s future. Most children were rescued and survived due to “the kindness of strangers.”
The terrible things some parents do to their children are outside of the norm of accepted filial behavior and so should be the response.
I’m blown away that you reference “The Kindness of Strangers,” by John Boswell. I’ve recently devoured (and keep returning to) this book as research for a novel, and it was one of the most useful and enlightening works I was lucky enough to come across. It explains the history behind seemingly modern-day social ills such as human trafficking, child abandonment, and forced prostitution, and puts them in their true historical context. What the book made clear is how incredibly new it is that these actions are even considered to be a crime, and how amazing it is that today there are even times when they are effectively prosecuted.
My heart and soul go out to the writer- my god the travesty and no wonder the agony. Please I hope you have good, trusted professional help. You have not made a mess other than to stay in contact with your so sick parents, and you must must protect your son no matter what you think it costs you, If you don’t you will continue this incredibly sick cycle. You must tolerate being without blood family, and create a healthy family of choice- good friends who have your back. You must tolerate being on your own and the aloneness of that. Sometimes, and I know whereof I speak, we simply must divorce ourselves from our families of origin for sheer survival’s sake. It breaks my heart how sick and self-serving some disgusting people can be, and that includes your mother as well as your father. PROTECT YOUR SON! At the same time you will be protecting yourself.
Dear Two Hearts – Believe in yourself. Your father doesn’t have anything to offer you but pain. Your mother won’t stand up for you either. Shame on her for making you sleep alone with him as a child. Please don’t feel sad and empty, feel liberated. Enjoy the freedom that truth offers. You have to decide if getting law enforcement involved is something you want to do. Sometimes all we can do is protect ourselves and our babies. Like Cary says, you are already a hero. When families are so broken, it’s hard to accept they are our own, but knowing is better than hiding. You don’t have a choice but to stay away from those terrible people. They made the decision for you.
Two hearts, YOU ARE A HERO. Cary is spot-on!