The People Behind My Eyes

credits AND summary

credits: Alanis Morissette’s “Perfect” from her CD “Jagged Little Pill Acoustic.”

summary: This is an entry about falling below my mother’s expectations. It gives strong details about abuse as well as the main reasons why I could not measure up.

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She said she would love me no matter what. She said I was too independent. She said she loved me. She said I stink. She said she loved me. She called me “bitch” instead of my birth name. She said she loved me. Mama said I could only trust her and that I had no one else in the world to lean on but her. She said she loved me. She said I would need to listen to her voice because one day it would save my life. All of the torture training, the beatings, the lectures and the sex education were so that I’d be prepared for the world outside. She said she loved me. She said I’d grow old and die alone if I didn’t change my ways, I was killing my love for her, I couldn’t be trusted, I was disrespectful, disloyal and ungrateful. She said she loved me.I lived through it. I lived through the dowel rods, sleeping in the streets and being mocked for sexual attraction to men. I lived through her mother’s cruelty. I lived being called by her mother’s name. I was named after my grandmother so that my mother could win her love. It didnt matter Grandmamma didn’t love her and she never will.

Sometimes is never quite enough
If you’re flawless, then you’ll win my love
Don’t forget to win first place
Don’t forget to keep that smile on your face

We dressed like little dolls when we went to Grandmama’s home. Rich wine velvet dresses lined with three layers of lace lying perfectly under a petty coat. Little ruffled socks in paten leather shoes, hair curled perfectly, our speech and mannerly ways as perfect as our curly hair. It wasn’t enough. It just wasn’t enough.

Most kids visit their grandparents to play. They dress in jeans and play clothes, but not this African-German family. Appearances meant everything, especially when appearing before Grandmamma. It had to be right in every way. What ever mood she was in affected how the visit went. If she was looking for an emotional punching bag we were there to knock around. If she was looking for a little doll to show off to neighbors we were there on display. Few visits went without some major upset. Driving home from that house was worse than the visit because Mama drilled into us how much we disappointed her as children and how if we’d act right her family might love her. Never mind the fact that they didn’t love her before my conception, if I’d behave they’d love her now. The fate of the family resting on two small children is not fate, it’s a predictable disaster but that burden was given to my sister and I. I didn’t realize it wasn’t mine to bear.

Be a good boy
Try a little harder
You’ve got to measure up
And make me prouder

Sometimes when Mama hit us it was to make a point for her family. They thought she wasn’t hard enough on us. Sometimes she’d just start waling on us for seemingly no reason at all. Her audience was her family. They approved of her then. Her family said that kids were for whipping and for work. Although it’s unbelievably cruel to say something like that, it’s even worse to put that mentality into practice. The aunts took turns whipping my cousins. One aunt after the other would go in the room to whip my youngest first cousin. There was a time when I counted 100 lashes. She wasn’t crying anymore. I thought she was dead. My second oldest cousin is the only person I know with a full face iron burn on his back. They fed him on the floor like a dog. They wouldn’t let him eat at the table. His biggest fault was being born in a family that hates men more than they hate themselves.

I’ll live through you
I’ll make you what I never was
If you’re the best, then maybe so am I
Compared to him compared to her
I’m doing this for your own damn good
You’ll make up for what I blew
What’s the problem… why are you crying?

I tried so hard to please her. I placed cut our hearts all over the house to show her how much I loved her. In the second grade she fell into a depression. I thought if she got a vacation she might feel better so I collected money from the neighbors to send her to Hawaii. She thought it was sweet. I handmade greeting cards clear up into my junior high school years. I gave intelligent conversation when she wanted it; I gave humor when the moment called for it. I tried so hard to please her but it wasn’t enough.

Mama always said I was a liar, a thief, a troublemaker and a master manipulator. She said she could see through me when others could not. She said these faults would come back to bite me. If I kept lying to people about her hurting us I’d end up worse off in some home where the children are beaten and raped repeatedly. It didn’t seem like there was anyway out for me, which is why my first suicide attempt was in the second grade followed by a second attempt in the 4th grade. I started counseling in the 4th grade but that caused more problems because she worried I’d air our dirty laundry.How do you keep a hurt child quiet? You hurt them more. You get into their head and let their childs imagination work. Sometimes the mental images of pain are worse than the pain itself. I’m not sure where the line was drawn with my mother but wherever it was, it was blurry and thin. My mother controlled with fear. Any 4 foot child standing below a 5 foot 11 inch woman with a dowel rod in hand would shake in their paten-leather shoes and ruffled socks. Fear and control go hand in hand. Mama combined them well. If you factor in the dowel rods, personal fury and emotional disturbance with her height and size it becomes clear that monsters are real. They don’t have to be green with huge teeth; they can wear a business suit and carry a brief case.

I realized early on that I was going to have to learn to like the pain or I’d die under it. When she’d start I’d go away in my head. I’d sing a song or watch a made up TV show in my head. I’d throw out a few tears, squirm and moan a bit to appease her. She’d stop and I’d get up and turn the radio on and dance. She’d come back in and ask me if I wanted more. I’d turn it off and listen to the music in my head. I suppose that’s why next to Morton’s Pride is The Orchestra Collected. They’re the second group inside. I realize that having my own music meant I didn’t have to turn on the radio to drown out her voice.

We survived her. We lived through the fear and the pain. We taught ourselves to take the pain by leaving the body. My sister couldn’t do it so we tried to teach her how. We’d practice hitting one another with the dowel rod so that we could develop calices and not feel the pain anymore. We wanted to get used to it. Sometimes when Mama hit us we couldn’t feel it at all because we were so far gone in our head, but when she hit us on the palms of our hands there was no way on earth to go far enough.

Countless dowel rods have torn into the palms of my hands, the soles of my feet, my naked skin and my unquiet mind. Perhaps the worst part was watching my older sister jump up and down and scream in agony as she held her hands under the dowel rod. It was obvious that she was there for the entire thing. She couldn’t leave mentally. She felt it all, ever single lash with its full force she felt it. Perhaps the images of her in pain are the ones I struggle with the most. Guilt for not being able to protect her and guilt for not being able to teach her not to feel the pain was a heavier burden than unsuccessfully holding that family together. If I had what it took to make that household a peaceful one I’d have given it in a heartbeat but it didn’t matter what I did I always seemed to fall short.

Be a good boy
Push a little farther now
That wasn’t fast enough
To make us happy
We’ll love you just the way you are if you’re perfect.

The dowel rods were for cleansing. Once she hit us with them whatever sin we committed was wiped away. She said our slate was then clean and we could move on from there. What we’d done was history until the next time she needed to cleanse us then she recounted those ills that should have been wiped off that proverbial slate board.

I use to sit in the back of the car listening to her tell me what a horrible child I was and wonder what was wrong with me that I’d drive my mother to say I was killing her love for me. I’d cry inside. I never said the words outloud but in my heart I begged her to forgive me for being such a burden. I apologized for being so bad and ruining her life. I didnt say these things to her but every time she started in I’d keep my eyes focused on nothing outside the window and just cry inside. What was wrong with me? What was it going to take to cleanse me? I just wanted to stop hurting my Mama. I didn’t know what I was doing wrong. I realize now I fell below her expectations. During the evenings we discussed goals for the next day. Sometimes she’d tell us the goal for the next day was to be perfect. We failed before we put our feet on the floor.

We’ll love you just the way you are if you’re perfect.

Short of perfection, there is nothing I could have done to make Mama not hurt me. I was born into the 5th generation of 6 that thrived on abusing its children. There wasn’t anything I could have done to measure up or to make her happy. Saving my sister was never my job but the guilt of not being able to still strangles me.