Grandpa

Life is definitely crazy.  Especially in comparison to how we are told life should be by institutions, organized religions, and public schools.   Real life cannot be communicated even though I feel compelled to attempt it.  

My writing has come to a stop recently for this reason.  It's not enough to read and study, it must be applied; lived.  I've been busy doing that living.  Swimming in the dark.  Blind.  Groping for something solid.  Praying for a ray of light.  Wrapping my mind around what has been done, so that it can be undone.

Something happened to me a long time ago that happens to almost everyone.  The hardest part is getting a person to realize it.  Even if it is not to the same degree; it did happen to you too. 

The woman who gave birth to me was abused too, but as a child I obviously had no awareness of this.  To my child eyes that woman was my everything.  She was god.  She knew everything and I knew nothing.  She could send me to hell, or place me in heaven at her whim.  My life was in her hands.  She was my everything.  Her everything was her father.

It can be easily labeled and classified using classic psychology.  I've never read about it and it not be mentioned.  A parent abuses a child, that child grows up, has its own children and abuses them in turn.  Classic.  It is as predictable as gravity.

But a child has no awareness of this.  So blame plays no part in this.  The way things were, is how I believed things were.  Who doesn't do this?  Blame means nothing.  The name of the game is to see it for what it was. Cause and effect have no value here.  

That man though, he was only a man after all, her father, in my own life was the very source of all my childhood nightmares.  I was merely taught to idealize him.  Because I was a child, force would be a better word.  In my specific life, judging by those that I physically knew; he was the literal source of my abuse.  I did not know his parents.  He threw his daughter under the bus, and she basically had little choice but to do the same.  She didn't know any other way supposedly.  Perhaps the same can be said of him.  What seventeen year old girl with an abusive father is going to be able to raise a child correctly?  The bus was driving fast. 

Where I stand today.  I step out of this situation emotional situation.  I look at it from as many perspectives as I can muster.  The one I take here is that of a counselor or mentor.  That is to say, I am using my thinking, to mentor my inner self, because at the time of this abuse the child in me could not understand nor deal with what was happening.  My opinion of its causes and effects mean nothing when attempting to simply regard what did in fact happen. 

What was happening?  I was loving the man who abused my mother.  As a child I was loving the abuser of the god of my life.  That man was the only man that was ever nice to me, yet he is the one who brought into being my suffering.  He was the sole source of my plight in life.  He was the reason I was being beat.  He was the reason I lived in fear.  He was the reason my mother did not love me, yet he was the only man who was nice to me? 

He died when I was eleven or twelve.  I cried for weeks.  There was no one to replace him.  No one to help me with his loss.  I without even knowing it loved the person who caused my abuse.  Can you believe that I felt safe when I was around him?

Don't you know?  Church says you must love your parents no matter what; even if they abuse you.  Don't you know?  Public schools say you must love your family even if they throw you under the bus.  This is a terrible paradox for a child because a child has absolutely no way to wrap its mind around such things.  We are taught all manner of ways to justify it, explain it, and rationalize it as adults so that we don't actually have to deal with it.  That one should love their family no matter what is a devastating blow to the psyche of a child whose parents do not know what love is.  I could fill a book with heart felt poetic sayings that cause one to feel love for their abusers.  That is just advertising propaganda for dysfunction.

It simply is not true.  One does not have to love someone simply because they share genetics; that is racism defined.  Try explaining that to a child though.  It's a truth very few wish to face.  Do you know why?  Because it requires seeing the abuser in one's self.  If you are merely doing what was done to you, because that is how you learned it, and you didn’t learn any other ways; more than likely you are neglecting and/or mistreating your children.  More than likely you were neglected and mistreated and just think that is how it is.  Because it wasn’t straight up abuse you don’t really have to think about it because you can still survive in society without doing so.  Meanwhile the girls down the street in the corner house are being raped every night.  This is what the woman who gave birth to me is unable to do.  She doesn’t want to own up to all that.  She is unable to come to terms with it.  It is too painful for her.  

At this point most people will have already had an emotional surge.  I can hear it now, "Did he just say I neglect and mistreat my child?"  Such an individual is afraid to face the facts.  Such an individual, like the woman who gave birth to me, places their emotional feeling of the moment above all other information.  Selfishness defined. 

It’s easy to say.  It’s another thing to live.

If you are like me, the first thing that pops into your head regarding this chain of blame is that he must have been abused as well, to have been able to abuse her.  Without a doubt this is true.  This phenomenon goes very deep in our culture.  This is just another reason to disregard the blame game.  Cause and effect is of no use.  For thousands of years this culture has been abusing children in mass.  The blame game would never end.  Child abuse is so rampant; the majority grow up accepting it.  Making statements like, "that is just how it is."  Yet, nothing could be further from the truth.  The correct way to say it would be, "that is just how everyone makes it."

So where does it stop?  In my family; it stops with me.  In many ways I am thankful that he died when I was so young.  I am glad he died before I realized the truth.  Before I realized what he really was.  Of course I idealized him; I was a child.  Had the thirteen year old me been aware of what he had done to the god of my life he would have had to pay.  Had the thirteen year old me been made aware that he was the source of all that had happened to me and he still been alive; it would have gotten ugly.  A new focus for my rage would have materialized instantly.  And that he was male meant I would have dealt with him. He would have had to answer to me. 

Someone will say, but he was abused to.  So what of it?  I was abused as well.  Where are my abused children?  Where is my daughter who longs for my love?  You see, this is where it stops.  This is how it stops.  The line in the sand is that he never tried.  She never tried either; still is not trying.  She like him blames others for her woes.  She takes no responsibility.  Yes it is true, that he was abused.  It is also true that he abused.  He must be held accountable for both.  They are individual things that must be handled individually at the same time keeping in mind the whole.  She must be held accountable for both.  Else the cycle merely continues.

Accountability is the line in the sand. 

What gets covered up in all this labeling is the reality of the situation.  The only man who patiently taught me anything at all was the very reason I was being choked out.  He was the very reason I was being ridiculed and demeaned.  How does one express that?  How does one remedy that?  Is it any different with her?  I loved the source of my suffering just because he had the label "grandpa."  Because she had the label "mother" she was able to turn the abuse against me, by blaming it on me.  Not only did I love her because I came from her, but also because everyone said I must.  I would be beat for not loving her.  Shamed.  What is wrong with you they say, that you hate your mother.  All the while it was blamed on me.  I was told it was my fault I was being abused more times than I can count. 

It simply is not possible to articulate that feeling.  Language does not suffice.  What word is there for the precise amount of hate and love at the same time?  What description is there for the energy that entails?  Her I have always hated, but he was someone I didn't hate until I was old enough to be told stories of her growing up.  The part had already been played.  I was played a fool.  I was tricked into loving the source of my abuse. They tricked me in every way imaginable.

I've learned though my feelings about this only affect me.  In my daily life I know no one who even knows this about me.  It's a torment of the soul.  It's my own journey.  Everyone else is the same, but on their own journey.  Their emotions about their journey have no real effect on me.  Because of this the way in which this matter is dealt with emotionally is individual. 

How it is handled outwardly though, in action, is another story altogether.  The only way to remedy the situation outwardly is through responsibility; accountability.  When one is being accountable emotions have little value.  I know this, because that is what I applied to myself.  I took responsibility for my own actions, and the bullshit stopped.  The very moment I made that decision my entire life was forever after altered.  The moment I blame someone else for what I do, I am justifying what I do, which means I will continue to do it.  I decided to hold myself accountable for what I do, regardless of what others have done to me.  In that same way I hold them accountable.  They are responsible for what they did to me, regardless of what was done to them.

It cannot be true to love one’s self and at the same time willingly allow one’s self to be abused, or to abuse another. 

If this accountability doesn't happen, the abuse keeps on happening.  The way in which one takes on accountability does not matter, but that one does is all that matters.  Even the saying of it can be said in a myriad of ways.  Without realizing it in one's self one cannot do it to another.  Like love.  One cannot truly love someone else if they cannot love their own self first.  One cannot hold another truly accountable, if they cannot hold their own self accountable.  It's up to me, the same as it is up to you, to do this work.  To handle this task.

It is not our fault this society is whack.  It’s not our fault that it literally tricks people into believing it is okay to abuse children.  It does this by never actually doing anything about it.  It tricks us into thinking so many things that are not true by teaching the lies before we are old enough to question.  It is directly our fault if we continue to pass it on.  We all have the ability to step out of this cycle.  

If I can do it, so can she, so can he, and so can you.  

I am lucky.  Very very lucky.  My personality is such that it is nearly impossible for me to not stick up for myself.  I literally cannot rest if it is not happening.  So naturally that is what I did.  I stood up for myself and told those people to fuck off.  Most though do not have this backbone.  Most people cannot bear the idea of not having a family.  Of not having a mother or father.  They don't want to look an abuser in the eye and reconcile the truth regardless of consequence.  

I have no choice though, but to ask, “How can this person actually love me if they are abusing me?”  I'm sure somewhere you will find a psychologist that says that's true, that she did love me, but I don't buy that.  The truth is available to all.  What love really is, is free for all to know.  The truth is if you honestly love someone, you do not abuse them, because when you really love someone you find out what love is first.  Real love requires effort.  Attaining the knowledge of what real love is requires effort.  Anyone can say the words, “I love you.”  The people who raised me merely did what was done to them.  Apathy defined. 

In my journeys in life most people I have met were neglected and mistreated as children and do not realize it at all.  My grandfather was in his fifties when he died and he was still an ignorant man.  He died clueless to the ramifications of his actions.  He died in a hospital without ever reconciling with his daughter at all.  He discovered no real truths about life, or love.  He was a cruel and mean man.  His children did the same thing in turn and have been cruel and mean to their sons and daughters.  If you talked to her today, she would tell you that she loves me and that she did her best.  I promise you there was no love in that house.

There is no rule book you know.  No guide.  There is no judge either.  How one handles this matter is about as individual as it gets, but if it isn’t handled the cycle continues.  To break the cycle though certain things do need to happen.  The pain has to be faced down.  It has to be gone through.  Fully experienced. They story has to be told.  Getting a grip on my emotions I had to look at things for what they are free of my emotional opinion.  Just because I was tricked into feeling love for her doesn’t mean I am not going to acknowledge what happened.  

For instance, using the label abuse.  That the title mom is involved does not magically mean abuse is suddenly acceptable.  Because she gave birth to me does not mean it wasn’t abuse.  Our society tolerates abuse if it is done by someone in the family.  Plain and simple.  Just saying that out loud is pretty messed up.  Say it with me, “If it is a family member who abuses the child we don’t do anything about it.”  What is even more messed up is that after saying it, people will still go home and do it. The easiest thing to do is point the finger at someone who abuses their child even more, so that one may justify/continue their own abuse. 

The mirror is a sketchy place.  No one likes to look there. 

Why doesn’t the title mother mean that one goes above and beyond figuring out what it means to handle such situations, what it means to love, to raise children appropriately?  That is too ideal right?  Those expectations are too high right?  Why was my grandfather going to church, going to work, then going home and abusing his daughter?  Why was he respected?  Why did people love him?  Some still do.  From my perspective the belief that one love their family no matter what is so ingrained from such an early age that people will literally suffer their entire lives and still love that person, never realizing their false love is the very source of their suffering.  Society has robbed children of the ability to stick up for themselves because the parents themselves don’t know how to do it. 

The only positive male role model I had as a child was a perpetuator of child abuse.  The only thing the woman who gave birth to me wanted was for her father to love her.  She passed that on to me.  She made me long for her love like her father made her do so.  She did unhealthy things seeking that love in other men.  Men as disgusting as my grandfather was.  She drug me through it all.  All the while telling me she loved me. 

Everywhere I look I see it happening to other children.  Everywhere I look I see it in the adults I know.  Every day I walk home from school and I see it in their eyes.  It just isn’t something I can ignore.  It’s right in front of my face. 

I need to take a shower now.  

The memories of my grandfather are like a dream.  I had a dream of a good grandfather.  One who loved me and taught me things.  The child I was was a dreamer.  I'm an adult now.  I have to face the truth whether I like what I see or not.  These memories of mine are not real, thus the dream.