Category — the crazy stops here

When I was four years old, my parents asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I politely informed them that I wanted a little sister.

When I was five years old, my Mom got pregnant.

On October 25th, 1985, during morning recess, I noticed our next door neighbor walking pointedly towards me.

She told me that the baby was coming, that Mom and Dad were at the hospital. I wanted her to take me there. She explained that there was a problem, Mom was okay, the baby was okay, but I couldn’t go. Because there was a problem.

I found out later that they thought she had spinal meningitis. She was born three weeks early. My sister spent the first few days of her life in an incubator.

When they brought her home, I instantly fell in love.

If she cried in the wee hours of the morning, my Mom would inevitably find me over her bassinet in the living room.

Like any young love affair, mine was short lived.

If memory serves, she was two years old when we started fighting.

Mom would ask me “What do you want me to do, lock her in the basement?”, and at some point I worked up the nerve to give her an honest answer. “Yes. Put her in the storm shelter. I’ll slip pancakes under the door. We can give her a water dish, like the dog.”

(Apparently I cannot blame my sometimes heartless nature on the influence of a hardened world. )

It was around this same time that my parents left us alone together all day over the summer. Sometimes my Dad would be sleeping soundly after working a midnight shift. Sometimes they paid a worthless babysitter to watch me feed her and change her diapers. Sometimes, though, it was just her and I.

On one of those occasions, the neighbors invited me across the street to swim in their pool. She was too young, though, they said. So I found the carrier we used to take our Labrador/German Shepherd mix to the vet. I gave her a water dish and some sticks to play with, crated her ass and parked the carrier under the shade tree in the side yard.

My Mom got home from work before I got home from the pool, and her head exploded. (and rightfully so, but I still wonder if the neighbors knew I was responsible for my two year old sister when they invited me but not her.)

For the next fifteen years, my sister and I waged war against each other. Truces were called for the handling of schoolyard bullies, joining forces against our parents to run a mutually beneficial agenda, or if one of us was sad, sick, or hurt enough to garner the other’s temporary sympathy.

She stabbed me in the shin with a steak knife under the dinner table (I still have a scar). I tied her to an arm chair. She threw a roller skate at my head. I locked her in the pantry. She would hit me and then tell Mom I hit her. I would ask her to play hide and go seek, and then not look for her. She hid fake snakes in my bedroom, or left them outside my door.

Still, when Mom made a habit of working late and calling me after dark in the dead of winter to go get my sister from daycare, I started picking her up on my way home from school. We both hated walking the two blocks in the dark, in the cold, in what felt to us like the wee hours of the night. So I got off the bus in front of her school and took her home with me.

She took care of me too, in her own way. She killed bees, and committed other countless acts of bravery so that I didn’t have to. She was the best and most reliable member of my wedding party, the greatest maid of honor I could ask for, even though Mom pushed me into giving her that title, and we had a huge fight about my refusal to allow her to wear a tiara. When my sweet orange tabby got stuck in a tree, I pulled Dad’s truck underneath that tree and propped a ten foot ladder against its trunk. The lowest branch was a good five feet from the top of the ladder. I was working up the nerve when she came out of the house. She climbed the ladder, pulled herself up onto that branch, shimmied up a little further and sweet talked the cat into her arms. I should note here that the cat always hated her before that- he would hiss and spit if she looked at him the wrong way.

That same year we got into a violent screaming match over a pot of macaroni and cheese.

Some months later, she was in trouble with Dad. They were arguing in the hallway outside of our room. The wasbund and I sat in silence while I listened to my father’s rage build. When that rage hit its tipping point, when I started to squirm in my chair, anticipating the beating she would receive, the wasbund silently stood up, opened the bedroom door and walked out into that hallway, standing between them. He stared my Dad down, and without a word or a movement, forced his retreat.

When my Dad and the wasbund had their fight, the fight that found me kicked out of my own parents’ house, my Dad roared at my sister in a fit of anger that it was her fault. All her fault. When he wasn’t around, I assured her that it was not her fault, not one bit, and that I didn’t blame her for it.

She and her boyfriend helped the wasbund and I move to Asheville. There was nothing to fight about anymore. No more competing for resources and attention. No more jealousies and resentments. It was then that our friendship blossomed. They were here when we closed on our house. We took a vacation together. We spent holidays together, the four of us.

Then, last spring, “we” became the three of us. The summer was in full swing when “we” became the just the two of us, again.

I picked her up from the airport Tuesday afternoon. She was here for thirty six hours. I bought dinner. She built shelves. I showed her around. She had coffee ready when I got home from work. We shared a bottle of Riesling and ate ice cream straight out of the carton, side by side on the couch, with two spoons.

She said it felt like home. Before the leaves turn, it will be her home.

I haven’t told her yet that for the first time in years, it felt like home to me, too.

On the 5th of every month, bloggers from around the world are open to write about rights and issues concerning women. First started by Shine and Marie, we’re hoping to bring a variety of women’s issues to the forefront to make people aware of what’s going on. For the month of August, we’ve chosen to write about Physical and Mental Abuse. Please join us in telling us your stories, thoughts, and ideas on a monthly basis.

I was in the break room, pouring my first cup of coffee when she opened the door. Behind a thick layer of well applied make up, a rail thin girl looked back at me with two black eyes. I asked her what happened to her, even though I already knew the answer. She told me that she ran into a door. The silence between us was thick and heavy, until I locked eyes with her.

“Just because you love him doesn’t mean he’s good for you.”

The door hardly closed behind me before I choked back my own tears.

Because I couldn’t take my own advice.

As horrible as physical abuse is, it’s easier in a way. You can see a black eye. You can see the flinch that comes with a quick movement, a raised hand. There is no question about physical abuse- lay hands on me in anger, and that’s an easy problem to identify and solve. I swore a long time ago that I would never tolerate being hit ever again. I thought I broke the cycle.

I was so very wrong.

Mental and emotional abuse is a gray area. It’s fluid. Easier to take the blame for. I have a temper and a sharp tongue of my own. I can’t say I’m not sometimes cruel or ugly. I’m difficult. Demanding. Pushy. Impatient.

It wasn’t until I got out that I let myself realize how bad it was.

I still hear those words when I look in the mirror. When I get stood up for a date. When I have a bad day.

“At least I don’t beat you like your father did…”

“You repulse me.”

“You’re crazy. You’re fucking insane.”

“If you weren’t so needy…”

“You’re just being melodramatic and hypersensitive.”

Of course, there were good times. He was very charming and loving when he wanted to be. Manipulators always are. That was what he did. He whittled away at my self esteem, at my judgment. He kept me so busy worrying about and struggling to earn his affection, attention and approval that I didn’t often take the time to consider whether or not he was worthy of my affection, attention and approval. When I did take the time and he fell short, it was always my fault. I didn’t inspire him to treat me well. I expected too much. I was too needy. I put too much pressure on him to make me happy. I needed a life of my own.

So I got one. I made friends. I started writing. I caught a huge break in my career. I started college.

Things got worse and not better. Now I loved my friends, my “screwing around on the internet”, my “corporate jet set lifestyle” and my schoolwork more than I loved him. He was suffering from neglect because of this life he asked me to build. My outside interests were proof that I didn’t care about him.

I was the selfish one. I was the foolish one. We couldn’t pay our bills because he couldn’t keep a job, but I was selfish and foolish for spending $30 at Planned Parenthood on my birth control patches instead of $5 pills. The fight that ensued was horrific, and he said something that broke my heart, something so horrible and cruel and ugly that I cannot and will not make it public.

It was my fault he wasn’t attracted to me. I was unattractive, repulsive. I didn’t take care of myself. Never mind that I stopped taking care of myself because he quit paying any attention to my appearance, because I was exhausted, because there was no time, money or energy for makeup and cute outfits while I was struggling to support both of us.

That’s all behind me now, and I’ve linked to an article that I’ve memorized to keep it from ever happening again.

If your boyfriend or husband makes you feel worse about yourself, if you find yourself walking on eggshells, if you find yourself lying (even by omission, which was my specialty) to the other people who love you, you are being abused.

Love doesn’t have to hurt.