Pondering

I talked to my mother yesterday. We generally talk on Sundays. I talked just like we always do, chatting about this and that, with me seeming to be open, but just not mentioning what's going on in my life. Because, of course, this is the kind of thing I just don't mention with my family.

I know it's the wise thing to do, because even if there are moments of empathy, my family is not the sort to talk about the things that happened. Or else it's just that... it wasn't worth it to go there. I don't trust my family; I don't trust them to be safe if they know about things that actually matter to me; I don't trust them not to react with anger and denial if I bring up childhood stuff. Plus, my capacity to forget the bad things is one of the ways that I was able to be "good" growing up, and that really hasn't changed.

But a part of me wonders about this.

About 10 years ago, my next-older sister talked to me a little bit about being diagnosed with multiple personalities. At the time, I was skeptical. In interacting with her, I took her at her word, but it seemed a bit dodgy. Now, well, perhaps it makes sense. She's never mentioned it again.

Going on 5 years ago, my younger sister asked me if I thought I'd been sexually abused. Her timing was horrible: I was walking out the door on my way to my first class of the semester, our youngest brother (who is even less able to keep a secret than she is) was in the next room, and it just wasn't a good time to talk. I suggested we talk about it later, but we never did.

And so, when I interact with my family, I act like everything is normal, fine, all right, nothing bad. Even when things are falling apart all around me.

Part of me is baffled by this, that I can talk to my mother as though nothing were wrong. It's what I've always done. It's just strange, sometimes. My (ex)stepfather came into her apartment while we were on the phone; he said hi (via my mother) and I said hi back.

How is it that I'm able to talk to my mother, just a couple of days after particular memories surfaced, and I am so awkward with him? I've lived with memories about him for years. But with my mother... the memories were so present last week. They had faded by the weekend, but I remember they were there. Parts of me are still remembering, or so I assume from the sick feeling in my stomach, and my reluctance to go to bed and try to sleep.

And part of me really wonders about my sisters. My next-older sister is so close with both of them--they live near each other, they see each other every day; she calls him dad, for heaven's sake. As though nothing happened. As though his influence on us was all for the good. And of course my younger sister does, since he is her father. I doubt that either of them talks about anything that personal with our mother, even though they're often hanging out with her, too. And, somehow, maybe because I do the same thing, I can kind of understand why they are so close with her. Perhaps it's because of my relationship with my own father (mostly nonexistent) that I have so much trouble understanding their relationship with him. And perhaps it's because I'm still so much in the middle of my own healing process that I have trouble understanding how they can act as though nothing happened. Because even though I know he's changed, even though I know neither he nor my mother has the power to continue doing the things that happened when we were little... even though I know they might not choose to do those things even if we were little... it's still hard to understand our relationship.

Or maybe it's just that I never much had a relationship with my stepfather, separate from the bad things. At least, not that I really remember. And not after I was old enough to remember.

Part of my mind is still focused on trying to figure out whether things "really" happened. I know that between the four of us girls, we have virtually all of the symptoms of being sexual abuse survivors. (To my knowledge, none of us currently shoplifts or sets fires, but that's about the only one we don't have.) I know this. I know that the brain is more likely to take the effort to block out bad things than good ones. I know this. And I know that silence is a natural response.

And there's so much arguing inside of me. I know that there was physical abuse. It was constant. I know there was emotional abuse, which was also constant, and which still goes on to a lesser degree. But there's the part of me that looks to how much worse things could have been, and that insists that because there were worse things that could have happened, I should be able to overcome things that seem mild by comparison. I think a part of it is simply that I have trouble grappling with the enormity of what did happen; I have so much trouble acknowledging that people I love, who were supposed to love me, who said they loved me... could do things that, on the face of them, seem so unloving.

And since I'm not able to be completely sure, because I'm unwilling to give up the possibility that I can be loved by my family, I act as though nothing is wrong. And the volume of the lies increases, because to talk about why I'm not making progress with my dissertation requires talking about how I've spent the last year falling apart. And to talk about why I've spent the last year falling apart requires admitting that bad things happened... and that my family are the ones who caused those bad things to happen.