“You can spend a lifetime trying to forget a few minutes of your childhood.” – unknown
I have a deep need to see justice play out. It can, at times, become something I obsess over. If someone has hurt me, or someone I love, I long to see that person – the monster – pay for what they did. It’s an intense drive inside of me and it honestly confused me for a long time. I didn’t want to be this way.
Being raised in a church-going home, raising my own children in a church, and truly desiring to live like Jesus…at least as close to it as this messed up girl can…I realize this is terribly wrong. It goes against every teaching of mercy, grace and forgiveness. “As far as it depends on you, live in peace with everyone.” Romans 12:18. This plays on loop when I’m in those “Justice Hungry” modes. Then the shame sets in.
The past few years I’ve done a lot of reading on childhood trauma. I want to understand what it does to the human that has been traumatized. How does it change the trajectory of their life? What affects does it have on the adult that this child grows into? Where do repressed memories (sometimes called “Dissociative Amnesia”) or PTSD come into play? This became a serious topic for me when I experienced an “awakening” from my own hidden traumatic memory. Having the details of the event flash so vividly in my mind that morning was like living it all over again. It wasn’t that I had no memory of the thing, it was that for all of those years the monster didn’t have a face. On this morning, that face became clear. I felt dirty. I felt sick to my stomach. I felt a little bit crazy. His name was Lindsay. I was four years old. And he was my father.
When the man who was supposed to set the tone for your sense of self-worth abuses you, when he takes your first relationship with a male and teaches you that he is not trustworthy, that he is going to hurt you, that instead of being your protector, he is the very thing you need protection from…when these things happen, how is a little girl supposed to grow up thinking that men are good? How is she supposed to feel like she is worthy of anything at all if the one person who was supposed to guard her little soul would wound her so deeply? That little girl buried his face so deeply within herself, that it wouldn’t come out for 40 years. In order for her to continue on, she couldn’t remember what he did. Because he was supposed to be her security. Instead, he was her villain.
The divorce came very soon after the thing. I truly think this was God’s way of protecting me from him. I stayed with my mom and his inability to be a parent kept me out of further opportunistic moments for further incidents. I always felt uneasy around him, clear up until my last interaction – I was 28 years old and my very tall, very strong husband made it glaringly clear that he was to stay away from me. This came after his FINAL attempt at conning us out of money we definitely couldn’t spare.
“In the attic of her childhood was an old trunk and even though she couldn’t pry it open, the muffled sobs coming from inside told her more than she wanted to remember.” – unknown
In the years that followed the memory return, so much began to flood back to me that I came to believe that my parents’ divorce was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. From the age of 4 to my early 30’s, that monster showed signs that there was nothing he wouldn’t do to fulfill his desperate agenda. He married five times. Verbally and emotionally abused and cheated on all five of those wives. The fourth wife, took the worst of his evil…I won’t even go into what I believe he did to her. Suffice it to say, she’s no longer alive.
As a young girl, when I would stay with him, he made me sleep in his bed. As a pre-teen, he would tell me stories about his and my mother’s sex life. As a teenager, he would have conversations with me about his affinity for women’s “natural hair growth”. So much inappropriate talk, and every bit of it made me terribly uncomfortable. He would decide to be a father and come around for a few months, dump this sort of dysfunctional interaction on my lap, then disappear for years. And the strangest thing is, every time he would disappear, I blamed myself. I wasn’t “good enough” for my dad to want to stick around. I was garbage. I was replaceable. I had no protector. I had no provider. I had no presence in my life that taught me what to look for in a husband, or how I should expect to be treated as a wife. I was severely deficient in all areas that are vitally necessary in a daughter’s life.
As a side note…I did have a stepdad who chose to love me. He provided for me, protected me, accepted me, cared for me. I had him from the age of 6 to 22 years old. I am forever grateful for him. In my mind and heart, he is my dad. BUT, he wasn’t the one who was supposed to be in that position in my life. I wanted MY dad to be the man he should’ve been.
My stepdad was a functioning alcoholic. Even though he had a truly good heart, he suffered from undiagnosed PTSD due to his time in Vietnam. The drinking was how he numbed the demons inside. Dad got mean when he was drunk. I watched him flip a couch over when my baby sister was asleep on its cushions. I saw him scream and cuss at my mother. I saw him punch a hole in the wall. He drove us home drunk from my aunt and uncle’s house nearly every weekend. And then one night, when I was 12, he came home plastered. My mom was gone. My little 3 year old sister ran to hug her daddy. He was visibly angry, pushed his way past her into the bedroom, opened up his drawer, then loaded a gun. I grabbed my sister and hid in the backyard behind the trash cans. I thought he was going to shoot us. My sister kept trying to talk and I had to beg her to be quiet. I was holding my hand over her mouth in fear that she would lead him to us. I didn’t know how to protect her from him. I was never so glad to see anything as I was the headlights of my mother’s car that night. She found dad passed out on the bed, gun in hand. I truly don’t know what he was planning on doing. But I’ll never forget that night. Ten years later, I was sitting at his bedside watching him take his last breath. He had Lymphoma and his liver couldn’t withstand the treatments. More trauma.
So, why am I writing all of this? Why am I sharing such ugly, sad memories? Because I believe that so many of us have suffered through traumatic experiences as a child and never received any help learning how to process and/or cope with them in a healthy manner. Those wounds created a life for us that we were required to “survive” rather than enjoy and flourish in. It created twisted thought patterns. It caused us to believe lies about ourselves and form warped ideas about how to function in other relationships. And, unfortunately, when we are simply flopping through life like a fish out of water, gasping for our next breath, it causes us to make bad decisions…causes us to adopt disheartening behaviors. It creates even more turmoil and pain in our adult relationships, without us even understanding why.
Because of what the monster did, we tend to raise our children through the web of fear. We function in our marriages/partnerships based on instincts we created to protect ourselves. Any time anybody does something that causes hurt, anger, or loss, we are triggered and taken right back to that initial violation. Then we react like a wounded animal; which, in a sense, that’s exactly what we are.
Let’s take it one step further…that monster never had to answer for what they did. They got away with it. But how can that be? How can somebody so horrid, who does something that literally destroys a child’s potential for a beautiful, “normal” life, continue to walk the earth never required to pay for what they did? Here is where the need for justice kicks in. Here is where our instincts arise needing to find some outlet for this desperate desire.
If a best friend suddenly disappears from your life, kicking you to the curb, never to be heard from again – how can you make her pay for that pain she caused you? The sense of abandonment it triggers?
If a partner lashes out at you in their anger, saying things that you will never forget, things that confirm every thought you had of how insignificant, and useless you are…if they broke your heart over the years, how are you supposed to forgive that? How do they get off without any consequences? How are you ever supposed to feel safe making yourself vulnerable with them again?
If an adult child, in their confusion as they are working to navigate adulthood, tell you they don’t love you. If they, because they’re absolutely terrified and have no tools to deal with that fear, look at their mother who they know will never abandon them, and they tell her she is weak, that they want no relationship with her, but still ask for help when they are in need. How do you not lump that child into the category of another person who has destroyed your heart?
What would the non-traumatized person do?
She would understand that this best friend’s season in her life had run its course. It was a great season, filled with laughter, love, and memories…but it was over. And all you can do is trust that it was simply time to move forward – in peace.
She would recognize that we all say things to our partner in the heat of anger. Even though it doesn’t make it right, and words, once out in the air, cannot be recaptured. She would find a way to understand that any negative feelings her husband had toward her needed to be discussed and worked through. And once that is done, life moves forward; the relationship grows stronger; again, peace is found.
She would remember how hard it was to be a young adult. She would remember what it was like to have that person – that parent – who would NEVER walk away from you. She would realize that because her child felt safe enough to speak those hurtful words, to get the garbage out, it meant they truly understood that you were the absolute definition of unconditional love. She would love them through their turmoil, walk alongside them as they figure out this difficult chapter, and be there to embrace them at the other side, having forgotten all of the painful words because she understood that it was about them and not her; the other side where peace dwells.
But, here’s the problem…that requires a person who was not thrown off her foundation at such a young age. That requires healing that most of us who were violated…traumatized…never got; especially when the monster was lost deep inside the memory banks. So, to find that peace that is longed for, you MUST find a way to heal. You MUST find a way to live this life in the manner it was meant to be lived.
My purpose in writing this is to encourage you. If you have a monster in your world. If your monster never had to pay for what they did. If your monster is still following you around continuing the destruction, go get help. It is possible to find healing again, no matter how long ago the hurt occurred. It is possible to release the monster, cut the tether, demand that it leave your life. We MUST hold onto the fact that nobody actually gets away with their wrong. We must release our grip on the obsession to see that monster suffer as we have. There will be hurt and pain in life. And, you know what? We have the right to learn how to manage those hurts and pains without being sucked back to that terrible event that set us into a spiral that we were strapped to until now. We have the right to peace. Go get yours!
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Kim Smith is a Certified Integrative Health Coach who lives in the San Gabriel Mountains with her husband of 30 years. She offers health, nutrition, and weight loss coaching, as well as stress management training, and support for autoimmune disease and chronic illness patients. She has released her Membership Site providing her signature coaching as a self-paced program. Dive deep into all areas of life in order to find balanced health, reach your health & life goals, and discover a renewed sense of joy.
Visit her website listed below for more information.
http://www.resetihs.com
You can also contact her at (951) 634-1100 or email at kim@resetihs.com
The Third Quarter 