Best We Could (eBook)

Introduction

Overcoming shame

An indomitable human spirit ... is it something with which one is born? Or does one learn not only to survive but to thrive?

How wonderful it is to state that yes, I have overcome my shame. As a woman well into my seventies, I am grateful to share with you that my lifelong struggle with self-hatred and negativity about my person and my body is in the past. It has taken a lifetime of perseverance and determination, but looking back, every bit of effort has catapulted me further into the life I have wanted, one of joy and success rather than pain and suffering. I have created the nuclear family I always wanted, enjoy loving relationships with my two sisters, and treasure friendships and bonds with my extended family. I have a healthy relationship with my body, no longer hearing the denigration my mind so often whispered in my ear. I have replaced my revulsion with pride. I have licked my wounds, healed them, and with the coping methods I have discovered within myself, I will not allow anyone to pick at the scars that remain. I feel empowered to know that my parents did what they could, my sisters did what they could, and I did as well.

This is a memoir of becoming well again, since I was not born with negative feelings about myself. Those feelings were learned. Mine is a story of second chances to find all the goodness life has to offer and, most importantly of all, to recognize that I was loved. My story is also an homage to the concept that each of us grows from an amalgam of so many elements. Many of my elements were difficult to overcome, but I know my strength and determination. I appreciate the power I have found within myself, my spirit, my fight, and my bravery, as well as my ability to help others in their time of need. I do whatever I can to enable those who may benefit from what I have learned. That drive is key to my own survival and, when I allow myself the luxury of focusing on it, fills me with pride. Had I not grown up with my parents, I might not have known any of that existed within me, which may just be my superpower! So there truly is a yin and a yang to everything. Our goal as humans has to be to grow from all that comes our way.

Still, awakening in the middle of the night, as I so often have, I find myself smoothing my nightgown as I walk to the bathroom. Regardless of my age or growth, I can’t help but feel the slap of my mother’s words: Your lower body is bulky. Your legs are short and stubby, like your father’s, and you waddle like a duck at times. Humiliating! Similarly humiliating was the nickname my father gave me: Itty Bitty Titty, for my small chest. (He gave Michele and Mindy, my two younger sisters, nicknames that were no more respectful or comforting.) Looking in the mirror, I see my mother’s deep-green eyes and her broad smile, which startles me, since how could I smile as I remember the pain, the hurt, the sadness, the thousands of what ifs? These what ifs encompass years of What could have been? Yet I am grateful to my mother for giving me the greatest gift: appreciation for the mother I had because she led me on the path to become the mother I have always wanted to be.

Both of my parents were mentally ill. According to the myriad of mental health professionals with whom I have worked, my mother likely suffered from borderline personality disorder, and my father, bipolar disorder. In contrast to many others who struggle with mental illness, my parents were also abusive and unable to control themselves. They hurt my sisters and me over and over again, unwilling to see their own part in the overwhelming sadness that blanketed us, blanketed our family. My parents each arrived at their marriage with a host of emotional challenges, and their challenges only escalated from there. Together, they were combustible; it didn’t take much to cause an explosion.

In my fantasies, I often wonder what would have happened if my mother had told my father that she would not tolerate him crawling into bed for days, even weeks, at a time. Of course, he would have gone to bed anyway. That was all he knew to do when faced with overwhelming stress, tension, or the combative energy erupting from their interactions. It was how he ran away for whatever period of time it took to resurface, ready to face the demands of family life once again. Or sometimes, in my reverie, I imagine him standing guard at the door of our bedroom, like the brave marine he had been, preventing her from pulling my sisters and me out of sleep, deep in dreams, awakening to her fingernails digging into our warm flesh, forcing us to clean out our toy chest. In these imaginings, my parents look at each other, and us, and see what could have been a family composed of parents who guided, assisted, shared, mentored, and worked through problems with dialogue rather than punishing silence. Instead, speaking with words of love, not humiliation. In my imaginings, when one is unable to cope, the other knows how to soothe their three daughters with words of confidence and encouragement, love and softness. A fantasy, a beautiful fantasy.

I was no more than three years old when my father placed me on their big bed, pulled down my underpants, took off his belt, and used the strap on my bare skin, two or three times, as punishment for some infraction of which I have no memory. What could a three-year-old have done to deserve a strap beating? As he hit me, he told me it hurt him more than it hurt me. My husband Bruce would never do that, but had he even showed intention of hurting either of my daughters in that way, I would have grabbed her and run for the door, slamming it in his face. I would have laid down my life to protect my girls! My mother, however, would rather have had my father attack me than her.

In reality, the dance my parents performed was just that, their own dance, but my sisters and I felt its collateral damage. Michele, Mindy, and I grew up experiencing shame, neglect, sadness, secrets, sadism, loss, and abandonment. For much of my life, I felt the sting of not being loved. Like my sisters, I wanted to be cherished and treasured, wanted and secure, yet those comforts, like stability, remained elusive in our home. My parents only rarely considered our emotional needs, so consumed as they were with their own.

My sisters and I grew up in a time of silence about most diseases, a time when mental illness was one to be particularly hidden. The world we grew up in also hid abusive behavior. My family lived within that intersection of mental illness and abusive behavior, with limited to no coping skills other than screams or silence. Even our neighbors probably had no awareness that the family next door, the one with the three cute little girls and the car that frequently sat in front of the house all day, for days, and the beautiful mother who often walked around as if in a trance, kept countless secrets. My friends assumed I wasn’t gracious enough to invite them to our home, never imagining that my parents considered such visits taboo.

Today many people who live with mental illness, including borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder, are able to learn new and healthy behaviors with treatment and support. Yet my parents lived in a time when treatment for mental illness was often stigmatized, unavailable, and ineffective. Our society vilified many people with mental illness as criminals. How could any of us have spoken of such people in our own families?

I now feel fortunate to live in a time when treatment for mental illness is more effective and accessible. Yet cultural and economic pressures can still perpetuate stigma and inaccessibility. I am a mental health advocate, and I want you to understand the vital importance of destigmatizing mental illness, making therapy accessible to families, and reaching out for help when we are struggling. I think it is an optimistic and important viewpoint to maintain—with therapy, people with mental illness can become effective parents. I believe that healing takes effort, learning, and community. It is important to acknowledge that my parents did not experience the support and treatment I have worked hard to secure for myself through my own story.

My father was sad and pathetic much of my life, when he wasn’t sadistic, cruel, and abusive. My mother was needy, chaotic, violent, and physically aggressive. The volatility of their relationship was ever present, and living within their sphere was a constant danger. However, as I enter this last part of my life, I have decided that their very act of preserving our family, challenging as it was for them, spoke to how much my parents loved my sisters and me, even as their actions were not loving. While their intentions and their desires might have been to show their love for us, my parents did not have the skills and behaviors to put their love into action. Still, my parents could have left my sisters and me. But they didn’t. They chose to keep us together.

My sisters and I have relied upon and devoted ourselves to one another. That is a unique and lifelong gift, one we greatly appreciate, one whose abundance cannot be overstated, one that has breathed life into us countless times. We have stood upon one another’s shoulders to fight whatever battle needed to be fought. We have always had one another, and that is how we survived. As you will read, on the day of my wedding, had my sisters not been there with me, for me, I would have had no wedding gown to wear. I knew I could count on them to...