The evil of abuse

As I look back at my life, there is much that has become clearer regarding the effects of what happened to me as a child. There was compartmentalization that occurred that I was not aware of at the time. It wasn’t until my father died in such a shocking way that the fantasy of a happy childhood was shattered.

I wasn’t tortured or severely beaten as a boy. I’d received some seriously painful spankings true, but it was not a regular occurrence. Most of the time I was left to myself to do whatever I pleased which was mostly normal kid stuff. The abuse was usually at night, secret, and never spoken of. It didn’t fit with what was happening during the day and was in contrast to what I was being taught as a good Christian boy.

It didn’t compute, so to speak, and therefore had to be relegated to a tight little box in my mind that could only be opened at special times and special places with special people.

As I grew up the contradiction of the two became too much for me and I really began to wonder if I was entirely sane. It was the reason I believe for much of my anger that I couldn’t explain and difficulty in relating to normal people. I felt different because I was different. I was two people struggling for dominance and the struggle was driving me up the wall.

Part of my journey into healthy relating to others was to accept both parts of my history as a continuous narrative. I had to accept what happened to me, what I experienced both by night and by day as my real past. They had to fuse in order to be a whole person and bring peace to that inner conflict. There is great peace in the acceptance of reality.

Just my thoughts