Diving in....

Ok....

Let’s get deep.

I watched a Netflix documentary about Darrell Hammond and it knocked my socks off. 

He was abused by his mother. His mother who on the outside, to everyone else, seemed.... “normal” but to him was his worst nightmare.

He makes these two quotes:

1. “The issues are in the tissues. Every Tom Dick or Harry who ever did you wrong is still in there.”

    I thought.... holy shit! Thank you. Yes. Yes. That is the root. Why has nobody ever said that out loud before? Or why haven’t I heard that before? 

You go through your life picking up this shard and that shard and this shard and that and before you know it, you know and remember the time, the place and the person who dropped every single shard that have become your bones. They are now what hold you up. They make up your story, they come rushing in uninvited, they drift in with a smell, a song or a taste. Sharp. Always sharp.

But as I was thinking that. As I’m thinking that I can remember back to 2.5 years old and seeing my father beat my mother or even further back as my hands were red and cracked and they burned. Swollen. So much pain. I sucked my hands as a infant and I remember holding on to chairs at a table, helping my infant legs to stand up and wobble around from person to person( they were playing cards) and crying. Crying from one person to the next. My hands were burning, probably infected really, and they laughed. 

My mother went somewhere and came back with something and placed it all over my tiny infant hands. “she’ll stop doing that now” 

I wobbled to a playpen just over there. Just one, maybe two steps, let go of the chair at the end of one step and stumble, grab the playpen for the next. I instinctively put my hand in my mouth and it stung. It was bitter and harsh and had an unfamiliar taste. I drooled. Just opened my mouth and let it pour out. The adults laughed. Cigarette smoke swirling around their heads. She’d put anti-nail biting stuff all over my hands to teach me to stop.

It didn’t work. The taste would go away.

Then she told me that she’d buy me a toy if I stopped. 

I stopped that day.

The entire first part of the story is the most prominent in my mind. BETRAYAL.

The next quote was by a doctor who said that it’s incorrect to call people who have lasting results from child abuse, any abuse, really, that cause them to have anxiety, depression, personality disorders etc, “mentally ill” or that they have a “ mental illness” because the reality is that they have a mental injury.

Mental injury.

Science shows that the brains of the abused looks different on an MRI or CT scan. That there are dark parts in one lobe that are lit up in another. That abused children lose something in the process of trying to escape reality. The reality they live.

Several years ago I made a choice, with absolute intention, to confront one of my largest splinters.

The time came when my gut said.... “Baby Girl, it’s either now or never. Get to stepping”

And I did. A little over a year later a splinter called me and as I listened to the voicemail in the dark hotel room I had a reaction that I hadn’t seen coming. I.... froze.... at the sound of the voice..... flashes of splinters came fast and furious. I played it over and over as my spine was straight up, my shoulders pulled in to almost, hide myself. Tears ran down my cheeks as my stomach churned. These memories of touches and words and hands and moving quickly, having to “joke” it away... up against a sink, a refrigerator.....In that chair I felt 30 years younger. 

But!! Out of that came the strangest outcome... I confronted it. Not to him personally for the most part, but to someone that I desperately needed to feel protected by.

And it was gone. Within days it was gone. Not like I’ll forget and skip down the lane, but like it wasn’t poking me every single day. That I could skip a day or two or more. That I could unwrap my arms from around myself and be open....

And that’s when my brain started unlocking things from my childhood tiny bits at a time. A flash here a flash there. My brain... the one that locks it into a box, puts in a safe and throws it into the ocean.... was releasing events, actions, from childhood up through adulthood that involved my mother. Tiny bits. Little puzzles. 

So, two years ago when I sat my dad down in that hotel bar I got to ask.... who was the man who gave me a dollar at some nasty hotel and had me take my two year old brother to the ice cream truck “ don’t come back for awhile. You understand, kiddo?”

And I learned of the affairs, the prostitution, the suicide attempts, the person she was. A predator. Not an injured child.... well, that too, but take a fucking number, right? We have choices to make. Be a fuck up and blame the mental injury or have a mental injury and get the fuck on with life. Make a few mistakes. Learn from them. Do the work. Take the time you need. Grow. Be quirky and cuss like a sailor, love hard and forever, be the best friend, find a bear if you’re lucky and be grateful that you did because not everyone does. Be silly and spontaneous and laugh until you cry and remember this.....

There weren’t only splinters. There was kindness and praise and softness and hugs and nervous hand holding and car rides and sweet words and rainbows and sledding and first kisses and birthed babies and dancing and playing the air guitar and drums while at a stoplight and New Orleans and cotton candy and deep conversations and late nights and the 80’s, yes the👏🏻Entire👏🏻1980’s👏🏻 And kittens and the warm feeling of a drink going down your throat and Christmas and sloppy baby kisses and pulling all the meat out of a crab leg in one piece!!!! Yes!!! And, forehead kisses and eyelash wishes, and many many things that can soothe the points of a splinter.

Oh! And cattails! Those are pretty fucking cool.

Watch it on Netflix. It’s really insightful. 

Me