Rewind

Tags

Anxiety, Brother, Bullying, Depression, Lost, Self-esteem, Sibling abuse, Verbal abuse, Violence

This is not a sob story. Nor a pity party.

I’ve tried to understand, but in retrospect, it makes little sense. The answers aren’t obvious. I’m struggling to see as I reach back through the years to that murky time.

Was it just opportunity and wilfulness? A very sad case of absent self-esteem? An undiagnosed family history of depression? All of the above?

How does a bright young child take so many wrong steps? Embarrassingly letting down all those who imagine great things for her? She never knew really, what she wanted for herself, not then. But it was clear her own failures hurt those who hoped her life would be more than theirs.

Why was her head so fuzzy? Looking ahead, she saw nothing for her. No future appealed or seemed within her grasp. So much of her short life included pain, rejection, poor guidance, lack of support, anger, heartbreak and sadness. Feeling unloved, unwelcome, unhappy, unincluded.

But it’s all pedestrian stuff. Rather unexceptional, to tell the truth. Yet she was a mess before her twenty-first birthday. Before she’d left her teenage years, actually.

Woeful yet ordinary tales of angst could be told. Was it just the number of them, one after another that counts? Her over-sensitivity to the world, its slings and arrows? High levels of unaddressed anxiety?

Feeling comfortable in her own skin around other people was never her forte, after all.

Maybe in part, she was just born that way. Overly imaginative and sensitive. Artistic, showing early intelligence and yet, so very shy. Which she covered with extroverted behaviour. Still does.

How to tell this tale without recounting things that probably don’t matter?

It’s icky and tough-going peering through the eyes of a sad teenage woman-child, who, felt herself invincible but had clearly and truly lost her way.

Looming large in the viewfinder of those times were of course, her first boyfriend. Her subsequent pathetic attempts at relationships. And her brother.

Imagine living with someone who told you aggressively negative things about yourself every day of your life, relentlessly for years on end.

From the age of twelve (or thereabouts), til the time she left home at nineteen (to escape his non-stop torment)… she was her brother’s prime target.

The seeds of his behaviour were there earlier, though. And actually she has no memories of him ever being nice to her. But as she got older, he focused on her more and more. Especially when their mother went back to work.

As the eldest child and only male sibling, his anger and aggression ruled the hour before parental order was restored.

At first it was just verbal abuse, day in, day out. Sneering, growling, lip curling aggression for reasons completely unfathomable.

You’re fat. You’re ugly. You’re so fucking stupid it’s not funny. Worthless. Hopeless. You’ll never make anything of yourself. Get out of my face you ugly slut! No wonder you don’t have a boyfriend, look at you!

And so on. And on. Every day. Relentlessly. Often, the same angry mantras repeated over and over. Years of such bilious nastiness, sprouting from who knows where?

Constantly, she’d try to tell their parents. But what can a child say to properly explain this kind of verbal assault? To make it sound serious enough? Challenging too, when parental figures don’t like dealing with conflict and want the easiest solution to make it all go away.

The physical abuse started earlier than she recalled. She must have been ten, at least. And for no reason she knew, at her brother’s soccer club, on awards night… he pinned her arms to her sides, kneeing her in the stomach. Hard. So hard, she couldn’t speak. Bent over, clutching herself in the middle of a room of people who saw. They had to.

Somehow, she wasn’t quite believed. And he didn’t quite get punished for his actions. But the panic and humiliation stayed with her for years, under the skin, re-emerging inopportunely.

But the full on smack down violence was later. Their sister watching helplessly and tensely. The fights were nasty and aggressive and for a while she took whatever he dealt out.

Til later, when she decided it didn’t matter how much he hurt her. She’d find a way to hurt him back. Waiting, goading him even, to see if she could find a weakness. Looking for a way to make him pay for his wickedness.

She had trouble explaining how bad that was to her parents, too.

But actually, the daily verbal torment was worse. The opposite of positive thinking hurled at her daily.

Say something to someone often enough and without a doubt, they’ll believe it. Which is one sure way to tear down the confidence of a young girl who, was never the most popular, the prettiest or anything special in her social circle anyway.

She didn’t see her future as bright, bristling with potential and no one told her otherwise. She couldn’t see anything great happening.

She had no idea what to do or where to go.

~Svasti

Child-like wisdom – part 1

Tags

Abuse, Assault, Castle, Child, Love, Raunchy, Scotch, Self-conscious, Verbal abuse, Wisdom

Like a fairytale covered with pixie dust, I was engaged. He proposed in a castle near Wales. I was just 24.

I’d been flown to the UK as a surprise to share the end of my boyfriend’s three month jaunt, planned with his mate before we’d met.

How does it happen that one day you meet a stranger for the first time and feel a ridiculously powerful connection?

Okay, so we didn’t end up together – we never made it down the aisle. But whilst it worked, we fired on all cylinders. It was magic. It was something.

Possibly the strength of our bond is what allowed him to talk me into doing something I never thought I’d ever do.

It was during one of the endless and expensive calls we had whilst he was gallivanting all over the UK. At first he said he’d ring me once a week because of the cost. But that seemed unlikely when he called me the very next day. And the day after that. And the day… well, you get the picture.

I miss you he said. Every day. Our phone calls were long and beautiful, discussing you know – everything.

Send me some raunchy photos to keep me company he begged. Although he couldn’t see how much I was blushing, he soon heard all about it.

He knew, ofcourse, of my body issues. I’m too tall, I’m not delicate, and I’m not waif thin. I’m not pretty. So said the negative internal voices – thanks, brother.

For many years I was my older brother’s physical and verbal punching bag. Mum went back to work once we reached a certain age. From the time I started high school, there was always a good hour or so before any parental figure showed up. Time my brother – a very angry person for reasons unknown – used to full advantage.

To bait me, to hurl threats and insults against the way I looked and my intelligence, to smack me around as he saw fit. It’s something that for the most part, I’ve moved past now, thankfully.

When someone tells you every single day of your life how ugly/stupid/fat etc you are, it sinks in. Throw enough mud…

Of my brother’s “conditioning”, the hardest part to overcome were insults about my looks. I knew I was more intelligent than him – that was easy to see. But I never drew much male attention, so I bought the rest hook, line and sinker.

A remaining side effect to this day is that I can’t look in a mirror or at a photo of myself, and see what other people see.

So as you can imagine, my boyfriend/soon-to-be-fiancé had asked me to do something that was anti every instinct I had. I was supremely self-conscious about my physical appearance.

However, I was madly in love and I really wanted to be able to do this for the man I loved.

I recruited one of my closest friends who had some skill as a photographer AND would be cool about the request. Giggling, we planned the ‘photo shoot’, working some alcohol, pizza and chocolate into the equation.

My ultra-tiny one bedroom unit was transformed. The sofa was pushed into the kitchen. A sheet was taped to the wall and props came out – sheepskin rugs, elaborate cushions etc. And costumes – there were several changes of scanty clothing to consider. I’m nothing if not creative!

A fine scotch lubricated proceedings. We turned on some music and um, got started…

Unexpectedly, it was a blast. Initially I felt strange being half naked with my friend B taking pictures. But with each costume change and more alcohol we were increasingly amused.

I was terrified about getting them developed. B took care of that for me and left me in peace to peek at the results. Drink in hand, deep breath, and I opened the packet.

~~~~~~~~~ To be continued…

~Svasti