I’ve been off of FB for the past week to make sure I hit a writing deadline. Decided to jump on yesterday after a grueling work week and found this screenshot from my younger sister.
She was cautiously updating me that she had been contacted by our paternal aunt, who we’ve never met, to share that our father/my abuser, had died last Saturday. I told her I thought he had died years ago and that I wish him well in hell for the 2nd time. Then I checked on her to see how she was doing, though I knew our energies were aligned when I read her righteous response “We don’t want the body”. Still I know our parents’ abusive behaviors have fucked my younger siblings up in some way and my oldest sibling heart breaks daily knowing that I could not protect them from harm when we were younger and after I left for college.
I guess I’m here to testify once again that traumas are real AND that triggers are real AND that yesterday’s news definitely sent me spiraling. I’m also here to testify that my inner circle held me yesterday. At first my body went numb and I tried to just float away while I watched TV. This has been a coping mechanism for me since I was a kid. I’d “escape” my reality and travel to other worlds via Star Trek or fantasize about being a super shero like Wonder Woman or Princess Leai who kicked mofos’ asses or I’d become part of a safe, loving and well functioning family like “The Cosby’s” 🤦🏽♀️. This numbing/dissociative strategy worked for a bit yesterday but my current healing practice has been to allow my feelings in and deal with them. I wasn’t ready so after awhile I ratcheted up my numbing by emotional eating. I remember at some point becoming aware that I was heart hungry not food hungry and what I really wanted was a hug. Damn you, mindfulness! My old ways of surviving were not working so I began texting my family, friends and my therapist. They all responding with care and compassion though some shared that they didn’t quite know what to say. I acknowledged that there aren’t any Hallmark cards for people’s fathers who died who had also been their abusers. I decided that I would give them grace and did not feel unsupported when they didn’t say the “right” things because I didn’t even know what to say or how to feel.
Some tried to call to check on me right away but I was still wanting to sit in my numbing space and wasn’t quite ready to feel or process the full heaviness of it all yet. But at some point I began struggling to find oxygen. I could feel the pain and tears bubbling up into my throat and I knew texts were not enough. When my childhood BFF, Akilah Monik, asked me if I needed to talk, I accepted her gift. No strong black woman here. I knew needed softness and connection. And because she has known this particular pain the longest, I felt safe coming undone. In fact, my tears began to fall right at that moment of texting, “yes, I would like to talk”. I felt myself return to my body but I also remember feeling surprised at how hot and deep the pain felt almost 35 years since the last time my father sexually violated me. It felt like fresh wounds again. Like I hadn’t “healed” one bit. Like I hadn’t spent pages upon pages journaling or hours upon hours in therapy. I was 5 again. 10 again. 16 again. But I needed to come undone again. I needed to be allowed to sit in my pain again even when I didn’t know why or what I was feeling. I gave myself permission. To feel the rage, the sadness, the neglect, the loneliness, the forced independence, the years of not knowing what love and safety were, the years of internalized slut shaming and suppressed sexuality and desire, and the loss of my family system, my sibling relationship and my home town. I opened the flood gates and chose to feel it all.
I am so grateful that she created a tender space for me to release it. She said she was happy to be my “ram in the bush”. My heathen ass pretended to know what that Biblical reference meant and we laughed about it but she said she understands it to mean, being granted a choice/space that provides some ease and comfort. She was my ease and my comfort last night. The place where I could crumple. My ram.
I also am deeply grateful for the other loving texts, attempted calls, and offers to stop by and care for me. I have accepted that I may always walk with this pain but I also now walk with a safety net of care and love. And for that I am eternally grateful. We all deserve to have places to ease into our softness and work through our pains in this life
