Growing in the Dysfunction

Imagine you find a magic fountain or genie in a bottle or a Super Mario warp whistle or some other source of enchantment that would allow you to go back in time and then erase the worst moments in your life. You could simply banish that awkward moment, foolish error, or painful loss from your history so its vindictive shadow can never again make an ugly uninvited appearance in your memories. Poof! It's gone. What might you delete from your life so that it can no longer haunt you?

How about a big fat nothing? Cuz, seriously, imagine a butterfly effect in your life where you selfishly erase that horrible, embarrassing, awkward moment your junior year when your tampon leaked and you had to wrap your sweater around your waist like it was 1950 even though it was 110 degrees outside and even though erasing that moment in life would get you the best prom date in high school and the dream spouse of your life and a yacht and a pony and full time personal trainer and so many diamonds, you would sink to the bottom of your Olympic sized pool, it would also result in a tsunami that kills 30,000 people. Can you live with that? Would you let 30,000 people die so you can watch a shirtless pool boy named Mauricio glisten in the Miami sun?

But, I digress. Stay with me, though, I have a point in here somewhere.

Now, my question to you is, "do you like who you are?"

If you do, then you can throw away that genie in the bottle and walk away from that magic fountain because everything in your life - good, bad, odd, joyful, devastating - has made you who you are. Your passions, your goals, your likes, and your motives are all a composite of your journey in life. Remove the bad car wreck when you were sixteen and you remove that cautious driver at forty who now makes sure her teenager slows down on service roads.

Maybe there is no valid argument for accepting death, crime, and other tragedies as growing pains but for me, personally, I can say that if I could go back and remove the physical and mental abuse, neglect, embarrassments, fears, and life with a mother suffering from an un-diagnosed mental illness, I would not. I would have much preferred the Ozzie and Harriet life, but the dysfunction I suffered growing up has not stopped me from becoming a functional person and I think the reality today is that more and more families are so increasingly dysfunctional that I'm worried my third grade nephew's class schedule will say Math, Reading, Recess, Recovering from Addiction, Living with a Schizophrenic Parent, and Suicide Prevention.

There is no shame in the dysfunction I grew up with. It was not my fault.

I was sexually abused by not one, but BOTH of my grandfathers. I was a small child with one and not yet a teen when it began with the other. Victims of childhood sexual abuse are not responsible for what happened to them and even though it may take many victims a lifetime to accept it, the truth is that children are subject to the authority of adults and are not accountable for what adults do to them.

But WHY ONE EARTH would I say I would not go back and erase the madness?

Hang in there. I'm getting to that.

It's weird that while I despise the mention of the name of one grandfather, the harm the other one caused is kind of an unemotional memory because I was so young. I rarely discuss either one of them at all. But my memories of them have starkly contrasting emotions attached even though they both did nasty, unspeakable things to me.

With one grandfather, I remember pain and fear and shame and a tremendous sense of invasion and the need to protect my sisters from this monster. I remember telling my mother what he was doing and getting a curt "Oh, Mary" in her "just stop it" tone of voice and wondering why this was okay with her. I remember wanting to run away and to sleep forever because sleep was the only time the pain in my life went away.

Such is the memory of an almost teen.

With the other grandfather, the bad things that happened are kind of dream-like and far away because even though I remember it clearly, what I remember more vividly is him brushing my hair, giving me baths, reading me books, taking me to the five and dime store and making up the most ridiculous stories about the monkeys who lived in the traffic signals and railroad crossings. There was no fear. I felt nurtured and protected despite the ugly things happening to me.

Such is the memory of a small child.

Were they both monsters? Both just sick men? Both situations are messed up beyond decency. Both should never have happened. And if I could back and erase any of the unspeakable things that happened to me, I would not. Not one single awful, terrible, nasty, ugly, violent moment because I like who I am today.

They say survivors of childhood physical or sexual abuse can become abusers and that most sexual predators were once sexually abused as a child. Well, I say that while all poodles are dogs, MOST DOGS ARE NOT POODLES so to lump all childhood victims in the same pot is as ludicrous as saying rape victims will become rapists. And, more victims of childhood abuse become advocates than abusers.

Childhood sexual abuse is vile. Dysfunctional childhoods are a tragedy. Living with a parent who has a mental illness is nightmare. But we can grow through all this ugliness to become human beings that leave positive footsteps and prevent others from experiencing the lives we lived.

What living a dysfunctional life did  for me:

• Knowing what is like to not have food in the house has taught me care if people are fed.
• Knowing what it is like to be slapped and struck has driven me to fight for the physically abused.
• Being verbally abused, belittled, insulted, and made to feel small has taught me to treat people with kindness, compassion, respect and dignity.
• Being sexually abused as a child has made me a fierce advocate for children
• Feeling unimportant has taught me that everyone needs to know that they matter.
• Feeling helpless has instilled in me a passion for victims of all kinds
• Feeling afraid as a child has given me the courage to stand up for what I believe in as an adult

And, there's more. Much, much, more. But, this post is already too long. What has being a victim of dysfunction taught you?

There is actually ONE thing I'd like to go back and change. I have a fear of the sound of an automatic garage door opener. When I was a teenager, my sister and I shared a room above the garage and when that door went up, our room would shake and roar. That meant Mom was home from work and we were likely about to get screamed at, accused of something, cursed at and slapped for - oh, I dunno - not putting the vacuum cleaner away or forgetting to bring the mail in.

So, if I could change something, maybe it would be my irrational reaction to automatic garage door openers.

But, then, ten million acres of rain forest would probably die off somewhere so I guess it's just a good thing we converted our garage.