Out of suffering...

There have only been a few books that when I encountered them I was simply compelled to buy, without any prior knowledge of the author.  The Prophet, by Kahil Gibran is one of those books. I saw it in a thrift store in Virginia in the 90's and although I couldn't tell what it was about at first glance, it immediately resonated with my soul.

Books have been one of my favorite escapes for as long as I can remember. I've been told that my mother read to me often when I was very little and I was reading by the time I turned four. When they were loading my mother in the ambulance I was calmly perusing my bookshelf to decide which books to bring. During childhood summers I  remember reading about a book a day.  Lovely fantasy worlds that I needed to visit frequently to survive the reality of mine. One of my favorites that I read over and over again was about a teenage American girl who found out that she was switched at birth with a princess. By the time I was in junior high I had turned to Stephen King and RL Stine. Even when I was grounded from everything else (which was often)  my mother still allowed me to read; she recognized it's importance and I am grateful for that. Not all of my memories of reading are happy ones...

We were on a long road trip, I was about 7 or 8, my parents were arguing in the front seat. I was reading in the back seat. It was approaching dusk and my dad told me to stop reading because it was bad for my eyes to read in low light. I closed the book and looked out the window for awhile. When the arguing got too much for me, I picked up my book again; escaping to another world in my mind was my only coping technique at the time. I tried to be sneaky about it and no one noticed for awhile, but eventually my dad realized it. He pulled the car over on the side of the freeway and told me to get out as he took off his belt. I wasn't really surprised, I knew this was a risk I was taking by disobeying. He had me walk around to the back of the car and put my hands on the hood; the familiar sound of the belt sounded different in the open air than it did inside the house. I looked around as the belt hit me again and again, we were almost to the overpass, but I couldn't quite see if there was water or another road beneath it. One car passed, he kept hitting, the rest of my family sat silently in the car. Another car passed. I stared at the back of their heads through the rear window; they didn't even turn around. Another car, and another.

Comfortably Numb...

I ran away once, when I was about 9. I rode my pink bike and  I brought Peanut butter and bread with me. It was early on a Sunday morning  and my father was in town. I left before the sun came up, I remember watching the sun rise as I rode away, with the hopes that I would never have to go back. I rode my bike further than I ever had. I was on major streets and I wasn’t sure what I was doing. A man offering car washes yelled to me it would be “half price for the half pint”. I felt self conscious and even more unsure of what I was going to do. I had nowhere to go and no one to trust. 

Things were getting bigger and scarier so I rode back home, praying the whole way that my parents were still asleep in bed so that I  wouldn’t  get in trouble. I really thought that somehow I could make it on my own, I thought I was strong enough and would know what to do once I left but after realizing that I couldn't even deal with major intersections sufficiently, I hesitated. My hopes of escape drifted away from my heart like fog in a damp breeze. My only hope at that point was to get back before they realized I was gone, so my already tired legs pedaled faster. I tried to come in very quietly and resign myself to things never getting better; the only way I could go on is to close my heart – not just to hope but to everything. Nothing mattered any more and I felt hopeless and that I would never find a way out of this prison.

There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying
When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown
The dream is gone
And I have become
Comfortably numb.

~Lyrics from Pink Floyd- Comfortably Numb 

My parents were already awake when I got back, and there was not an ounce of the heartwarming welcomes so often portrayed in film and television. They weren't happy to see me and it didn’t matter. I felt numb and dead inside, which made the beating my father gave me irrelevant (until the next day when it still hurt to sit down).  My mother laughed at me and said with a sneer “I knew you’d come back”.

My family of origin told me from a very young age that I was "too sensitive" so I tried to suppress that sensitivity and those feelings. I have since come to learn in therapy that this is a common reaction to my situation:

One of the greatest “aha” moments of my training as a therapist came when I learned about the concept of the assigned “sick one.” In unhealthy family systems, it is often the most sensitive child who takes on this role. This child registers what’s broken in the family, and simply cannot bear that awareness. She or he tries countless ways of calling for help—many of which are convulsive, immature and unhelpful—strengthening the family’s case that the sick one is the problem. Yet in many ways, the sick one is the wise one, even though she or he probably feels broken, weak, or constantly angry. It’s the healthy family that finally becomes brave enough to listen to the painful callings of the “sick one.” When that happens, the family can begin to heal.