The subject of this writing will be trauma. Some of the greatest recipients of trauma are domestic and sexual abuse victims, war veterans, victims of natural disasters, and victims of starvation. We all go through shock shame, distrust mistrust, panic dread, as we struggled to keep a sane disposition, or not. In this writing I will discuss trauma as it pertains to our war.
Stress – The Draft
I began this website with I was 9 years old when my world changed but I was actually 8 when it began to. I remember my mother was in the hospital when I began to act out in school. It was on the level of me talking back to the teacher and not sitting in my seat. Then Mrs. Christianson wanted to speak to someone from my household. So that girl cousin that came to live with us took me to school that day. Mrs. C. told her she knew my mother was in the hospital and maybe that was the reason for my unruliness. Girl cousin assured her that wasn’t an excuse for my misbehaving and things would get better. People go to the hospital all the time and then come home. Surely, I had nothing to worry about.
The homes we live in are attached to our well-being. I was still 8 years old when we had to move. When you move you are up-rooted. Stressors for sure but in the innocence of youth I didn’t yet consider my life stressful. I was a kid; I didn’t consider much. I’ll equate it to joining the army, the service, for it was my first time leaving home. You learn rank and file. Who you can protest to and the mates you can argue with. And although I knew people in the barracks, I was a little out of my element. Its akin to meeting someone you are going to date for the first time. At this point, no antennae of negativity are raising but things are changing.
Trauma – Boot Camp
Then my mother passed and the house’s inhabitants moved again. Cousins went with cousins. My brothers went with my brother. Me, I went with Somebody who had 2 babies. This is where at the age of 9, I entered Boot Camp. On an advertisement for one of branches of service, one of the commercial’s says, “We do more by 9am than most people do all day. Well at the age of 9, I did more all day than most women.
Somebody already had her apartment with her husband and children but she and my oldest brother found 2 apartments in the same building. It was there that I had to change diapers, make baby formula, wash boo-boo underwear, clean the kitchen, sweep and mop, take wet clothes to the laundry and take the garbage out. And although she went shopping once a month, I had to do the marketing in the neighborhood stores for the needs of her family. And if her children needed a sandwich or glass of water, I was called for that too.
At first, I protested and tried to stand up for myself but she was 9 years older and 200 lbs heavier. I was met with blistering pinches from her very sharp fingernails or a whipping for not completing a task to her liking. Yeah, Boot Camp. Hut, 2,3,4. In the service you have to get in shape for things to come. To carry a comrade to safety, or dig a trench 4feet deep and a mile long, or even to build a bridge to get to the next fight. I was being groomed for something much more sinister. This was the preamble. And I was not in shape. It’s as though you are married to a man for less than a year and he comes home to a hot meal waiting for him and all of a sudden, the wife is punched in the face. The reason: her car is parked in the wrong spot…and there was no prearrangement.
I guess you can say the honeymoon is over. It may continue with 3 buttons being buttoned on a cleaned shirt instead of 4 like they want it. Or a bloody nose because there were peas with the potatoes and not carrots. Or don’t go over to your mothers unless they escort you for your home is with them now. AND what were you doing in those 30 minutes it took you to go to the store to buy dinner and who were you doing it with. And if you go AWOL, the sentence is death.
Ms. Lenore Walker, EdD, founder of the Domestic Violence Institute describes one of the cycles of abuse.
- When tension is building between the batterer and the victim
- The explosion when the victim is battered and could be seriously injured
- The batterer is now calm and wants forgiveness
Dr. Walker further says,
- The victim believes the abuse is their fault; they can’t blame anyone else
- They fear for their lives as well as the lives of their children
- They believe their abuser is everywhere and sees everything they do.
And let’s not forget very limited connections outside of the cell called home. That’s control I know well.
Traumatized – The Horrors of War
From Enlistment to Boot Camp, there is no preparation for the things you are about to experience on the battlefield. One day the bedroom arrangement changed. My mother died in the Winter and by Spring I was appropriated the maid’s room in the back of the house. The room that used to be their weed and beer drinking room for their company. Their former playroom was now given to me. And once back there the abuse came from her husband and it was sexual. My life changed in all respects. And you are never the same.
For sexual abuse and molestations at an early age shatters your sense of self. Or any age for that matter. Self is an individual’s typical character or behavior. Up until then I was my typical self. I mean although I was doing nearly all the housework, my thoughts on doing them were typical me. They were more or less that Somebody was fat and lazy and was going to treat me as her personal servant. Then going to the store or the laundromat got a kid out of the house. So did going to school. But when sexual abuse started it shattered self. SA shattered safety. SA shattered love. SA shattered growth. SA shatters trust.
What most became high-lighted to me were the differences between me and my peer group. I mean my social habits totally changed but that began Day 1. Outside was already limited. And there was no such a thing as having my friends visit that house. No attention was given necessarily to the way I dressed and when my hair wasn’t done by someone that knew how, I did the best I could. Now add to that my thoughts. One of them was now, as I sat in my classroom, was I bet I’m the only one in here that’s having sex, no being molested. The actual thought was “doin’ it”. I wasn’t doin it, unless on some wholesome humanistic Freudian level of a 9-year-old which keeps clothes on.
The home, my mother’s home, I came from didn’t give me a remnant of anything like this. I didn’t have a precedent, never suspected anything like this and totally didn’t have a clue. A Soldier really never envisions his buddy’s body parts being blown-up against his face. A victim of domestic abuse never imagines a gun being held against their temple. I could still pass my classes bit now I acted out in class. The me that WANTED to excel was kind of gone.
Having to pass the people who were abusing me everyday lent to it a sense of horror. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know where to turn. I was in my personal boot camp and in a war at the same time. Trust was gone. Maybe because when you’re different you think everyone sees it, and they know your secret and will treat you trashy. Of course, trust was gone in that house. In that respect, it was worse than a war for I hear when worse comes to worse, in a war you can trust your brother(sister), someone you hadn’t even known. Boot camp gives you the strength to carry a comrade or be carried further than you think you could.
This is war and I was trapped in enemy territory and I didn’t know the terrain. In my boot camp the beatings may have seemed fitting preparation for war but sexual abuse was an island unto itself.
My boot camp consisted of being hit and punched and I had better fix my face to be agreeable with their demands. Like when they took a bath, I had to wash their dirt out of the tub. No debate. How couldI trust her with that secret, the secret she already knew. How could I trust her when the beatings became worse and worse? When I acted out in school and they complained, how could I trust the school? When I got up the courage to call the police and they told me to stop playing on the phone, how could I trust them? So, I was just traumatized. And that sexual abuse lasted for 3 years, from 1972-1975, when her firstborn started kindergarten and he had left her.
SA shatters your sense of safety. Passing him every day, I knew I wasn’t safe. I know what. I’ll go to the library everyday after school until it closes. No! That’s for houses that just want to get a check for you from the state. They wanted servitude. Constant belittling. No outside contact and monitoring.
SA shatters love. I didn’t have any for them. If I saw my mother or one of my brothers walking up the street, I would run to greet them. I would offer to carry my mother’s bag with a smile on my face along with endless chatter. I did not love them and for a long time afterward I did not greet people lovingly. That took time and space.
A victim of domestic abuse goes through their war too. How traumatizing to be beat to a pulp, not to mention demeaning. And for the children to witness that, how frightening. And all the while having to greet the abuser with a smile and perpetual forgiveness. How hopeful to get pass stages one and two, Denial and Guilt, and enter stages 3 and 4, Enlightenment and Responsibility – The Stages of Battered Wife Syndrome.
It’s a trip, it’s a journey to overcome the horrors of war, but we can and we do. To go through the shame and shock, mistrust and dread, and begin to heal is no easy feat. Not for the child of abuse, the spouse of abuse, or the soldier of war but it’s done Every Day!