So where does this leave me? Wanna guess?

So, you might have noticed I crack jokes when I feel an emotional pull to lighten the mood. I actively avoid confrontation.* I get anxious, my heart rate goes up, fight or flight kicks in and I want to gloss over it if I can. HOWEVER, I don’t back down when you come for me. Ex used to say my eyes turned black. Well, he should’ve known better but here we are.

I don’t like fighting. With anyone. Hell, I even tried to make nice with a man who spent twelve years putting me down, isolating me, calling me names, perpetrating all manner of abuses and later, thousands of dollars to try to ruin me once and for all. And I’ve got a secret to tell you: I didn’t just do it for my children, I did it for me, too. Because it made me feel good to be nice and I WANT PEACE.

Won’t ever happen again. Read that again.

I used to say the many reasons I chose to end that marriage was because of the toxic atmosphere, that I was sick of living on eggshells, and I did not want my kids growing up in the midst of that. I didn’t want my son to grow up and think it was okay to treat women the way his father treated me. I didn’t want my daughter to grow up and believe it was acceptable for someone who is supposed to love you turn your life into a prison.

I had hoped that the transition, though clearly painful and challenging for them, would ultimately make life feel peaceful, happy, and SAFE. Was the damage already done? I had wanted to write more extensively, like a novel, on those early years but decided to abandon it because it was just too much for me to revisit.

What was it about me, that I lowered myself to be controlled that way by another? That it had not happened overnight but instead gradually, insidiously, entreating me like the hypnotizing whisper of a hovering spider who would trap me as tightly as Shelob trapped Frodo, is a testament to the cunning manipulative power of a narcissist. I’ve stopped asking myself why.

But now I’m asking myself – the great overthinker – are my children affected by those years with us screaming at each other? Of the violence? Surely, they must be.  I mean, the first 10 years of O’s life and the first 6 of Veruca’s.

In an emotional phone call a full year after he left here, O expressed that when he lived here (with Todd and me) he “was always afraid.” He said he and V were “always afraid.” Afraid of what?  He insinuated that Todd was the culprit. He could not provide details, instead just a blanket statement. My initial reaction was, bullshit. Todd never did anything to harm either one of them, except call them out when they were wrong. I wanted to tell him it wasn’t HERE you were afraid. It was in that house with your dad and me. How can he not remember that?

What about all the times he was lost in Playstation two rooms away, seeming to escape the escalating drama in the kitchen? What about the night his father picked up his Star Wars foosball table and threw it until it was reduced to a pile of sticks?

Am I wrong to question his memories? I find myself reckoning with each of my kids’ perceptions. Their experiences are theirs to keep, right? Who has the right to tell them they are wrong?

All the reading I have done, all the soul-searching, the counseling, the prayer, has strengthened me. But I understand better that I can only claim my own experiences as truth. It is not my job to make anyone see what I see. I don’t have the authority to question someone else’s truths, even my own children who lived with me.

My memories are of Todd and O playing video games together for hours, V dancing with Oliver at the counter, watching movies, playing board games, eating dinner together every night, attending family events and hosting holiday dinners with our extended family. I have pictures. Pictures where O’s arm is slung around Todd and everyone is smiling. Isn’t that real?

There were times when Todd would be crabby about other drivers on the road, or that time we drove to his parents with a trailer attached to the car and the backup camera kept beeping when he put the car in reverse and the kids both were cracking up because they knew it irritated him. O often joked, with Todd, citing that meme of Kermit the Frog pulling up next the offending car at a traffic stop. We all laughed out loud. Is that what kids who are scared do?

In his late teens, he often had groups of friends over, playing pool and darts and poker in the basement, or piling into the hot tub and listening to loud music and laughing. I loved that. It made my house come alive. Do kids who are “always scared” want to have friends over in that environment? My perception would be they’d want to escape, avoid having people inside.

Who am I to say? I read somewhere that perhaps the only answer is, “that’s not the way I remember it.” It acknowledges what you heard while at the same time not agreeing with it. My perception, your perception.

I used to think my kids had been convinced, however “innocently” the topic of mom’s temper came up, that I am a loose cannon and “you know how angry she gets.” Twelve years doesn’t let you forget how his voice sounds, the way he speaks, the tone of judgement made in a half-joking way meant to sound flippant. That that is why they won’t talk to me, because they somehow believe that I will attack them. Make them horribly uncomfortable.

I have never, not once in 24 and 20 years, ever been the kind of angry (at them) they could be convinced I was capable of. If I only claim one fault today, it is that I loved my kids so fucking much that I did nearly everything for them. I would do anything to make them happy. They didn’t have to do dishes or clean the house OR their bathroom (though V took it on later because O was “dirty”). They didn’t have do yard work. I did their laundry “most” of their lives. O was tasked with taking the trash out and making sure the cans were at the end of the driveway once a week and even that was a hardship sometimes.

Perhaps their avoidance is not so different from my conflict-avoidance. Perhaps this is their generational trauma. I said before that I hate the overuse of these clinical terms because I think it’s misleading some people. However, I cannot NOT acknowledge that I believe I have experienced generational trauma – that I embody all eight characteristics. Some of those traits I carried into a marriage and there was no way my kids weren’t going to be affected by it too.

I am by no means blaming either of my parents for this. I do believe, however, that my mom is also a victim of generational trauma. Her childhood was not without trauma. I cannot speak for her mother. She had her own emotional issues that she never fully came to terms with. My mom was a terrific mom and role model. I have all the love and respect for her that is her due. She is my everything mom and I know that I was the mother I was because of her. I am the woman I am because of her, and also because of my dad.

The first phone conversation I had with O was several months ago. A letter came for him here that I needed to get to him. I texted and asked if we could chat a moment. He called me. He called me! It was a simple conversation, a catching up. The first time in three years. I told him I don’t want to rehash the past, just wanted to move forward, and he concurred. I’d like to think he felt the same relief that I did. I told him it was so nice to hear his voice and that I love him so very much. He said he loved me too.

If nothing else, the three of us can avoid conflict.

Sidebar:

*I do actively avoid confrontation; however, to be clear, I am no shrinking violet. Historically in romantic relationships I will stand my ground. I will avoid it with my parents, if I can help it. People on the street will get a nasty look, but I generally keep my mouth shut. Well, except for the man who pulled left in front of me as I was crossing in parking lot – I looked at him through the window and said, A TURN SIGNAL WOULD BE NICE. It didn’t make sense but he almost hit us and this was the best I could come up with.

Confrontations do happen at work with unhappy parents. I am getting better at taking deep breaths and repeating what I can do to help. When all else fails, I tap out and someone else takes over. I still feel my heart racing and I’m shaky by the time it’s over.

Come for someone I love? I’m coming for you. Even if it’s only in my head. (You know, the whole choose-your-battles mantra.)