"The Truth" - THE most painful hostage

So, what does one do when the truth is being withheld?  Hm?  Good question, isn't it?  I mean, really think about it. . . .what on Earth can we even do?  No.  Seriously.  I'm asking you.  Because, clearly I have no idea.

My step father has been holding the truth hostage for two decades.  He knows that he sexually abused me.  I know that he sexually abused me.  There are a small number of people in my "inner circle", whom also know that he sexually abused me.  The rub here is. . . .my own Mother doesn't believe me.  My own Aunt doesn't believe me.  I've lost huge chunks of my family to this lie.  Why, you might ask?  Well, it's simple, my step father REFUSES to admit the truth.  Alas.  What can I do?  I've told my story.  I've written him letters begging him to confess.  I've even gone so far as to remove myself ENTIRELY from their lives.  I haven't seen either my mother or step father, apart from mandatory family events, i.e. weddings, etc. in nearly two years.  My thought was, he'd see how hard this is on everyone and cave.  Um, yeah. . .not so much.

I have two sisters, whom are both his biological children.  Thankfully, he never abused them.  One of them, out of the blue, decided to confront her father one day.  She and I had had a lunch.  A LONG lunch. We talked about a lot of things.  One of those things was the manner in which this "family lie" has effected me.  It's a hard thing to explain to someone else.  Anyone else.  Anyone who hasn't been labeled a liar, for telling the truth, will never know how I feel.  But, I did the best that I could in explaining to my younger sister how this most tragic event has impacted me.  I must have touched a nerve in her, because it was this same day that she decided to confront her father.

She called him --- invited to him to dinner.  All seemed quite normal to him, I'm sure.  Little did he know that this dinner would forever change the course of our lives.  So, what EXACTLY did he confess to?  Hmm.  Well, that's a bit complicated.   A lot of it was with gesture and nuance, facial expression and by just simple NOT denying things she stated as fact.  This, of course, makes it rather hard to write about.  Suffices to say, he did confess to abusing me in a sexual way.  He confessed to being "in love with me". He confessed to KNOWING that he should tell the truth, but to being to afraid to do so.  Joy and rapture, right?  Not so fast.

The day he "confessed" to my sister was August 19th, 2010.  The only reason why I remember it so clearly is, my Mother's birthday is August 20th.  Now, I'm not heartless.  I would never ask him to confess to molesting a woman's child to her on her birthday.  So, clearly he couldn't say anything to her the next day.  Or the day after that.  Or the day after that.  And so on.  Fast forward to March 29, 2011.  He STILL hasn't confessed to anyone but my sister.  Now, for me, personally, if I were in my sisters shoes I would have already gone to my Mother and told her what he told me.  Case closed.  However, she hasn't felt so compelled.

So, again, I ask, what do you do with someone who's holding the truth hostage?  I have no way of forcing either one of them to do "the right thing".   I've sent emails to my step father, again, begging him to confess already.  Free me from this prison that he's caged me in for the better part of my life.  No response.  No action.  I've asked my sister to give him a "push" in the right direction.  She's afraid to do so.  Understandable.  I've written letters to my Mother telling her why I am the way I am and begging her to believe me.  No change.  So, I'm living in the ultimate stale mate.  No way to move forward, tired of looking backward.  I don't like who I am BECAUSE of this label I've been carrying my whole adult life.  I also can't change the "who I am" on any real, true, deeper level, because there has been NO resolution to the "problem".  No closure.  No freedom from the confines of my invisible prison.

So what?  Move on.  Right?  It's not quite that easy folks.  Imagine, if you can, your entire family turning their backs on you when you're only 16 years old.  Why did they do this?  Oh, well, because you finally turned in the person who's been abusing you for nearly a decade to the police.  Back in the 80's, they didn't really ever believe the child, the way that they do now.  No, back then, it was more like, "Gee, let's ask her abuser and see what he has to say."  Huh?  OF COURSE, he's going to deny it.  He wants to keep his ass out of jail, people.  Come on.  That's exactly what he did, too.  He denied it.  I stood by my story.  He continued to deny it.  I never even was allowed to go to court to tell my side of the story.  Not once.  I was placed in a foster home with a woman whom hated me, my Mother saw to that.  My Mother told everyone who would listen that I was a "troubled child", I ditched school, I was promiscuous, I had an eating disorder, I would isolate myself in my room.  Clearly, I had to be a liar, too.  Funny thing is. . . . . .we now know that all of my "issues" are a dead giveaway for an abused child.  Back then, though, this was enough "evidence" to convict ME.  He never served a day in jail.  He never paid any sort of a price ----- at all.  He's still married to my Mother.  I still had to be a part of their family, if I wanted to spend ANY time with my then, 6 and 3 year old sisters.  The perfect leverage.

So, here I sit, nearly 40 and STILL with no vindication.  No closure.  No peace of spirit.  No real extended family to speak of.  Labeled a liar.  I've worn this "Scarlet Letter" for the last 23 years.  I am unable to rip it off, by myself.  So, here I sit. . . . . .

Take a deep breath............it's just another day in Perfect!!!!!

Seriously? A Midlife Crisis? Could I Be More Cliche'?

So, here I sit.  Looking at this blank screen and it feels like I'm looking in a mirror.  I feel blank.  Full of potential; as of yet, unfulfilled.  I turned 39 three days ago.  Yep.  Thirty NINE.  Just 362 more days and I'll be the big 4-0.  I've always chosen to see the "big birthdays" a bit differently than your average person; I've chosen to see them as opportunity.  I choose to see them as my chance to make a really "big change".  

It usually starts stirring in my about the seventh year in any given decade.  The restlessness.  The retrospective look at "who" I am.  The wonder about who am I now; who I'll be tomorrow, or even more so now, next year!  Who will I be when I'm forty?  So, at about thirty seven, I started making my move.  I took a good hard look around and saw some things that just "didn't work for me".  I saw some "friends" who really weren't, some "family" that was only by genetics, and some behaviors, in myself, that were plainly embarrassing.  Hm?  What to do?  What to do?

It sounded so simple. . . . .change.  One simple little word.  Yeah, like hell it is!!  It's a HUGE word.  Maybe the biggest one any of us will ever know.  So, I took a deep breath and jumped.  I cut out my "cancers".  It felt like it, too.  I felt as though I had undergone some sort of deeply damaging chemotherapy.  I was wondering if the treatment was going to kill me quicker than the cancer would of?  There were days when it felt like I had made a huge mistake.  What was I thinking?  After all, it's just me, who cares if I suffer, right?  Surely, living WITH these folks was better than living WITHOUT them?  Wrong.  After the shock of it faded, I felt the most surprising thing. . . .relief!  I mean, serious relief.  Like, I can take a deep breath, a real one, for the first time in years; hell decades!  Step one - complete!  Oh yeah. . . do the happy dance.  Wait.  The worst is yet to come.

Now, I'm here, with the person who's the hardest on me.  Me.  What do I do. . . now?  Again, I'm drawn to the word change; yet I find that that's not quite right.  Perhaps, enhance, would be a better word choice.  I'm choosing to ENHANCE who I am at my core.  I'm choosing to be true to myself.  Really, deeply, profoundly true.  One might think that this sounds easy or even say "DUH?", but, I challenge you to really think about it yourself.  Are you really genuine, all the time?  Doubtful.  Most of us put on some sort of facade or mask or at least pretend to be something we're not, usually for someone else's benefit or out of fear.  Fear of rejection or of being ostracized.  Ridiculed.  Sad, isn't it?  So.  I sit here and dig deep into who am I and who I'm willing to spend my precious time with.  I search my basis of faith.  I search my basis for the way I treat people and the way I react to them.  I search my soul to find out where the "real me" lies.  I won't lie, some things WERE shocking to me!

I've found that I'm NOT many of the things that people have wanted me to be.  I've found that I'm unique in my thinking.  I found that my faith isn't what my world has told me it SHOULD be.  I've found that I'm allowed to have limits.  I've found that I'm good enough, just the way that I am.  I'm happy with that.  I've found that I can get by on less.  Less noise.  Less drama.  Less anger.  Less frenemies.  Less hate.  Less blame.  Less finger pointing.  Less food.  Less love.  Less neediness.  Less attachment.  Less fear.  I've found that I've created a lot of my own suffering by having so MUCH of these things.  I truly believe, at my core, that you have this same problem, too. I believe that most of us do this.  We self sabotage.  We under-mind ourselves.  We don't TRUST ourselves.  We're afraid.  

Letting go of that fear and embracing the "who" you are, right now, isn't easy.  Realizing that I don't yet know what I want to be when "I grow up", is a scary proposition.  Accepting that I'm overweight and have crows feet, pains me.  Knowing that I tend to ramble on and say stupid shit when I'm nervous, embarrasses me.  The fact that I "over share", is something I'm trying to over come.  The face that greets me in the mirror, I sometimes don't recognize.  The man who I married seems like a stranger to me, as I'm sure, I seem to him.  I let that relationship suffer and even whither, due to neglect.  I haven't spoken up enough and asked for what I've wanted.  I'm beginning to do that now.  So, yeah. . . .I'm having a midlife crisis.  Yes, it's cliche'.  The only way out is through, people.  I'm embracing it fully.  I'm running into it, headlong.  I'm excited to see who'll be there with me and what we'll all look like. . . .on the other side of it.  I can say that I'm older and wiser now.  I'm hoping to be even wiser when I'm done on this portion of my path.

I don't mind looking back and seeing all the bumps in the road.  Hell, there are even mortar shells.  Land mines that I somehow was able to circumvent.  Barbed wire that blocked my way at times; that is now been cut through and lays in coiled spindles at my feet.  Yes, I'm older.  Yes, I'll be older still.  No, I don't know everything.  Nor do I claim to or even want to.  What I do know, I know with all of my being.  Believe it to my core.  I'm living my life, out loud and I'm unashamed of the events that have brought me here.  I'm well traveled, indeed!

Take a deep breath..................it's just another day in Perfect!