Dolorous Dawl - A Survivor's Tale

2006-10-29T10:10:00.000-06:00

"Fear" — Switchblade Symphony

I see the children,
I see all their scars.
I fear the monsters that
don't know who they are.

When did this all start?
When did I fall apart?
When did this all start?
When did I fall apart?

I am too frightened
to open my door.
I can't stop shaking
as I drop to the floor.

When did this all start?
When did I fall apart?
When did this all start?
When did I fall apart?

Can you hear me? Can you help me? Can you hear me now?
Can you hear me? Can you help me? Can you hear me now?

My hands, unfaithful,
did not protect me.
My voice, transparent,
when I need it to scream.

What really happened
during those nights?
I could not move so
I just turned off inside.

When did this all start? When did I fall apart?
When did this all start? When did I fall apart?

Can you hear me? Can you help me? Can you hear me now?
Can you hear me? Can you help me? Can you hear me now?

Hear me now...

2006-10-23T15:22:00.000-05:00

I don't remember exactly when it started, but I learned pretty early on to beware the "wrath of Daddy". He's not really my father. He married my mother when I was 18 months old, and he's the only male figure I remember, so he became "Daddy".

I don't remember the first time he hit my mother, but I think my earliest memory of incident would be when I was 3 or 4. It was around Christmas time, and I had gotten a Lite-Brite. I had made a picture and wanted to show Mommy and Daddy. I walked in on them, together on the couch, in the den -- he yelled, spanked me hard, and sent me running and screaming for the safety of my room. I don't remember him hitting me elsewhere, but I remember being absolutely terrified of him.

Looking back now, I don't remember much, and I might had been instructed to stay in my room so they could be alone. From what I'm told by other relatives, I was not a child who acted up a lot or misbehaved, usually did what I was told, and was usually very content to stay in my room ... I guess I picked the wrong time to go show off my artistic achievements. Whatever the case may be, he should not have reacted that way, and my mother should have stepped in and put a stop to it. But she didn't, and things only got worse as time wore on.

My brother was born just before my 4th birthday. I remember being excited ... I wanted a playmate. I've always loved my brother very dearly, but growing up I always sensed a bit of favortism towards him from Daddy and never understood why. I was never told that he was not my biological father. I never knew that my mother was married to another man before Daddy -- I found out when he first contacted me at age 23. Daddy has never acknowledged this and does not speak about it ... but I'll expand more on that later.

2006-10-22T10:23:00.000-05:00

I'm sure there were more similar incidents, but nothing comes to mind at the moment. Fast forward a couple of years to another event that has remained a very strong memory. I had received a makeup kit of some kind for Christmas, I think I was 7. It was something you used to mix up stuff to fill inside lip pencils and eye shadow pencils -- some sort of "do it yourself" kit.

While Dad was gone to work, Mom put my brother down for his nap and let me stay up while we were going to play with my new kit. We had gotten so far as 2 or 3 lipsticks when Dad came home from work. I think he may have come home early, I don't know, but I do know that for some reason he was furious that I wasn't taking a nap and that Mom and I were "playing makeup". I remember him yelling at me and Mom, and throwing things around. He sent me to my room to take a nap and I remember leaving, and hearing him continue to scream at my mother while he struck her. I was too afraid to turn around to see where or how he hit her.

I never saw the kit again, I can only assume that he broke it and/or threw it away. T'was par for the course ... looking back, that happened with many of my things.

2006-10-21T11:57:00.000-05:00

Things pretty much blur until after I'm 8 and we're moved into our new house. I know at this point I'm in the 3rd grade and had a lot of trouble adjusting to the new school and making new friends. I started having trouble in school and would cry when frustrated, upset or angry. My teacher tried often to speak to my parents about my behavior. My bus driver once stopped at my house and honked the horn until my mother went out to speak with her. I wasn't acting up on the bus, but I would get upset and cry if I was not allowed to sit with the one girl that I knew from school. I remember being punished for crying at school.

At this point I think was when I started to withdraw. I was quickly becoming a very unhappy child. I learned that if I showed any signs of unhappiness I would receive hard punishments, so I "put on a happy face" bottling everything up inside. Relatives have told me that I was bright and very bubbly at a young age, but grew "quiet" as I got older. I think being punished for showing any sign of displeasure or disagreement is what started my decline inward. I was forced to hide my emotions, not to appear upset in any way, or I would be spanked and yelled at when I got home by Dad. Even now, as an adult, he gets angry with me if I cry or get upset in public.

2006-10-20T10:33:00.000-05:00

Dad's erratic angry control persisted over the years. I can remember getting yelled at and spanked for even the most asinine things: toilet paper being on the roll "the wrong way", condiment bottles with the name and/or label turned around in the refrigerator, laying a hamburger face down while eating it (instead of sitting it up), ... and Heaven help me if he heard a fork hit my teeth while eating at the dinner table -- that earned me a hard slap to the face. Once he hit me so hard that he knocked me over backwards, still seated in my chair.

He was also notorious for making these insanely strict rules about chores/things, then changing them later and getting pissed if you couldn't remember the latest way he liked something being done. For instance, loading the dishwasher: I had to close it a certain way if he was anywhere around because he liked things being done his "way". When I vacuumed the house, I had to do it so that the "marks" were fresh when he saw them, or he'd say I didn't vacuum at all, or I "half-assed it" and would have to do the whole house over again with him going behind me the whole way yelling in my ear, telling me how worthless I am because I couldn't vacuum correctly.

2006-10-19T15:07:00.000-05:00

At school, I was shy and had few friends. I felt alienated and alone. But as much I hated my estrangement, it was a welcome retreat from my turbulent home life.

I can remember bus rides home, dreading every stop closer to mine. The sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. The uneasiness as I tried to pretend everything was OK and that I was happy to be going home. The truth was, I wanted so badly to go back to school because it was one of the few places where I felt safe. Sure, some of the kids teased me, but no one beat me or yelled or called me cruel things. Life at school was bearable, life at home was torment.

When I was young, my mother would take me and my brother to church with her. To this day, I have never known my father to attend church except in the case of rare holidays or special occasions. We stopped going only a couple of years after moving into the new house, but it was pretty nice while it lasted. I was too old to attend Children's Church, but I had enough imagination to daydream away during sermons. I usually kept a notepad in my purse so I could doodle and write.

One service in particular sticks out in my mind -- the preacher had chosen the subject of Hell and was delivering what was probably his best fire and brimstone pitch. I can remember snapping to attention because his voice boomed and echoed throughout the church. I wasn't so much afraid of the noise, but was curious because for a man who was usually very cheerful and soft-spoken, he was suddenly loud and angry-sounding. He preached the dangers of living in sin and continuing to live the wicked ways, rejecting God, and so forth. He talked about the fires of Hell, and unending torment, carefully stressing the "forever means forever" angle, and Hell would eventually be here on Earth. I remember thinking that Hell must certainly be a terrible place ... then my thoughts crept to my home life. I realized with a startling clarity and understanding that Hell certainly did exist -- my house was my Hell on Earth.