Generally my parents tried to keep my loss of bodily function a secret from the public, because they were afraid people would ask too many questions and piece together a cause. Also my Father was ashamed of me. He wanted to have a son he could brag about the way he could brag about the dog. I was too young to be out sowing wild oats, but couldn't I at least be throwing a football around all day? The loss of my bodily functions was a crushing blow to his ego.
My Father's brush with manslaughter charges on my 4th birthday had a dramatic effect on him. He no longer would strike me. He never hit me again for as long as he lived. He also never hugged me or held my hand. For many years we had no more than incidental physical contact. Accidental bumping in narrow hallways, the hands accidentally brushing one another as the salt got passed, things like that. The most physical contact I ever had with him after my 4th birthday occurred much later when I was strong enough to be enlisted by Mother to help her move him to bed, when he was passed out from drinking.
But it wasn't all good. Just as he stopped beating me, he ramped up the verbal abuse.
At the time it didn't make any sense to me, but I get it now. He was so afraid of what he might do to me, and incidentally to his life and career, that he wanted to push me as far away as possible. He started referring to me as my Mother's son regularly. He called me an idiot and yelled at me for making the slightest noise to drive me out of his company. It was designed to reduce the likelihood of contact.
My need to have new words spelled for me, so that I could have ready-made "pictures" of them, was initially a small source of pride for my father. He wanted to be a writer and he wanted me to share his aspirations. He could brag that I was only four and already becoming a good reader. But that only lasted until the demands for spellings got on his nerves. Then he began to say, "Why can't your son learn to spell it later? I told him the word, I told him what it means, why does he have to know how it's spelled right this instant? Your son is an idiot!"
My parents had guests over just one time at Shirley during the period I was in diapers. As I've said, I don't think they wanted anyone over, but a certain amount of socializing is required in the Army. I was horrified to learn that the couple would be bringing a child my age. My parents treated my condition as shameful, and I knew from my experience at the nursery that children my age would laugh at me because of it.
My parents consoled me by telling me, ""It will be all right, she's only a girl. She won't be mean about it like a boy would. She might even feel sorry for you." As if that were my goal in life now. As if my life would be complete if little girls my age would only feel sorry for me.
The visitors were, if I remember the rank correctly, a Major and his wife and a cute little blond girl with curly hair.
My hyper-sex drive, from the injury at age 1, had subsided. I'm not really sure I ever got to normal though, because I have no way to know what normal would have been. So I don't know if the fact that I was sexually attracted to the girl was typical of a 4 year-old. My guess is no, or no, not that much, but I would also guess that my high level of libido wasn't due to head injuries any longer, but a psychological or neurological consequence of the rapes.
It often happens that children who are sexually abused engage in overt sexual acting out, and some of that might be due to increased libido. Besides the psychological impact, constant sexual stimulation can alter the body chemistry, affect hormones, and change the activity of the brain.
Some child rape victims, a very small percent, turn around and rape other children. I wasn't part of that minority. The idea of doing to others anything like what my Mother did to me sickened me. My reaction to being sexually aroused by the little girl was to offer her a tour of my outdoor pacing route, just so I could talk to her and bask in her presence. I showed her the ruins of the old house that was torn down. I showed her the woods.
She was in fact sorry for me. it was just another disappointment, no big deal.
As we were finishing the tour my Father brought our guests out and set empty cans along one wall of the ruins, and he and the Major engaged in target practice while the wives and us kids looked on. Then we all went inside and the adults had drinks.
At no time did the Major or his wife comment about the fact I was in diapers. They were too terribly polite to avoid the embarrassing subject. Instead the Major complimented me on how well behaved I was.
My Father took this as an opportunity to brag about his child-raising skills. He said, "I'm of the school that says you don't coddle children. You have to raise a kid the way you break in a horse. You have to do whatever it takes to break his spirit. He has to know who's the boss. It's you or him."
All I could think of while he was giving this speech was the blood spurting out of my head over a month before and the sight of him driving off. I didn't fully get the references to horses. I asked my Mother later and she explained to me how horses were prepared for saddling.
Even before I got that explanation I knew that my Father wasn't going to be breaking my spirit, whatever it meant.
Somehow, I was going to break his.
No comments:
Post a Comment