What would you do if your abuser asked for your help?
It’s a question which rips, twisting inside me, burrowing tentacles like a cancer.
The wording of his email, as formal as a legal document, is manipulative but begging.
Different from his usual venom-tongued messages.
His choice of words, stilted sentences, archaic English; he always writes the way he speaks, which injects more reality into this one-sided conversation than I would like. It’s difficult to be this near to him.
As usual, I must dissociate slightly to read it, his words churning in my brain day and night.
Even an email can give me flashbacks, mood swings, making me teary, angry, fearful, erratic.
I do not need this. Not right now. Not ever.
There’s no apology in any of his sentences, no hint of regret, nothing to indicate an acceptance of culpability.
I’m not disappointed - there never has been and I don’t expect one. I already know their stance: they are good long-suffering parents, betrayed by a neglectful/abusive daughter.
And now asking for my help.
I am cynical, used to years of the same pattern; they disown me, swing back, berate me for my neglect of them, disown me, swing back…
How often have I wished that they would just disown me and be done with it. I want nothing from them, not a cent, just their silence.
He is not offering me either.
He knows where I am, there’s nowhere to run, and little point.
And it’s unwise to block his email address; it’s safer if he does have it because if he thinks he can ‘get to’ me in writing, he’s less likely to turn up on my doorstep. Arrows shot from afar are still satisfying, to him.
Generally, I skim his nasty diatribes in case someone has died, before pressing delete, then emptying my email’s bin. Like taking out smelly trash.
No one has died in this letter. But the idea of it haunts him, the impending reality of death. He’s always been dominant and controlling, but now they are old, facing frailty, afraid of the future. Afraid of being alone.
“You made your bed, you lie on it,” is what she always said to teen-me, referring to him and I. How I would like to say that to them both. A part of me mouths it as I sit here.
I think of my 10 free years. The decade I vanished off the face of their earth, unreachable as I ran from place to place. How I long for those days.
Inevitably, I was found.
Our infrequent communications since, have been formal, often hostile.
But now, this.
What do I feel?
Tired. So very tired.
What to do? Whatever do I do?
I should have been more prepared.
It’s not an uncommon situation; most survivors I know who were abused by close family members never leave, or leave and later reconcile as if nothing ever happened. Even those who do escape, don’t really; the legacy of our abusers stays with us in one way or the other, branded deep into even those who have ‘healed’.
My situation is complicated because, unlike many survivors, I have a few ‘good’ memories of childhood. Scraps of parental kindness. Those positive memories are dulled by the other memories, but they’re distinct enough to bleed together love and hate. It would be easier if there had been nothing positive to remember. My parents ‘loved’ me, perhaps, but in a wrong, wrong way. I loved them, feared them, hated them as a child - twisted strands of emotions which stuck like cobwebs far into adult life. Until, somewhere along the line, some of it began to slip away.
Or did it? What do I feel for them now, in 2022? I’m unsure, I realise. There’s a numb space where perhaps a loving-without-abusing parent would have been, ringed with guilt that I’m unable to feel anything for my own parents. I simply can’t find an emotion for either of them, not even hatred. Just…nothing. Except a tug of fear, a flick of the deepest kind of sorrow, a jolt of rage, then a floaty mist around my body, when I see their name on an email.
Just like his overly long email, there is too much stuff crammed into this situation.
To think through it, I must try to push the abuse memories aside. A hopeless task because they’re ground into me like slivers of metal, unable to be extracted. And, unlike the law, there is no black and white here, not really. Instead, black and white make purple or khaki or blood red or…something, a quirk unique to the space in my head labelled “the abuse”.
These two people destroyed who I could have been, the life I could have had, the opportunities, the dreams. I live with the impact of their actions every day. Decades after I left, I still suffer.
Yet, I do not like to think of them suffering.
There are so many layers to this. My ‘numb’ heart is bleeding everywhere.
What to do?
Over the decades, many many people have voiced an opinion about what I should do about my ‘estranged-from-my-parents’ situation, to the point where I deflect questions about my past until they stop asking.
I do not want their judgement.
Of those who do know about my past, some are kind about the way I feel about my childhood, attempting to understand with compassion, the decisions I’ve made. To those ones I can tell my truth safely, soaking in their wisdom. Support for which I am grateful.
But, most are less helpful.
Plenty have said I am bitter, twisted, nasty. Cold hearted. Am I? As a Christian the expectation is to “forgive and reconcile,” a pointed reminder whispered to me by people who don’t realise that these are two different things. No one can neatly explain how the Biblical ‘turn the other cheek’ translates to a situation like mine. So, they say I should pretend nothing happened, not understanding that I can’t.
I flinch at their disapproval, feeling as if there is no good in me.
Sometimes, they offer to ‘help’, picturing a reconciliation facilitated by themselves: three people hugging, wiping out the past. It’s easy perhaps, to come up with this image from the perspective of a good life. Less so when it was not. The image in my own mind is a mosaic of his wandering hands and her turned away eyes.
“They are your parents. Despite the lack of evidence for it, they could have changed”, people insist, not seeing the danger of walking back into a cycle of abuse, because ‘abuse’ is so far from their own childhoods that they can barely imagine it. Or, they were abused, but don’t realise it: “Surely, life wasn’t so bad. Your parents did the best they could” - words from a generation who grew up hearing “spare the rod, spoil the child”.
Then, there are the abuse survivors who have chosen to reconcile, “we were abused too but we went back because…”. I feel their judgement, these survivors who are perhaps better humans than I. But, I’m unable to follow the beat of their drum.
Worse are those people who simply say, “You lie!”, not realising how much two words can hurt, given that they were overused when I was a child.
All echoes of their sentiments.
Society can’t cope with the reality of a child-parent relationship estranged through abuse. An uncomfortable subject.
“Disappear again”, others say enthusiastically, their voices pushing at me, failing to recognise the glazed eyes of someone too tired to run.
“Vengeance! Seek vengeance, or justice” (described in a way which implies they are the same thing, by people who have the energy for that and/or the belief that there is a well-functioning justice system).
I have been told…I have been told…I have been told everything and nothing over the years by people who can’t understand. Words which slap at me, and which I try to ignore.
I’d go insane otherwise.
Can I forgive my parents? I don’t know. The one thing I am sure of is that I cannot pretend, forget or reconcile. For me, I cannot go back. I cannot play ‘happy families’ as if we always were. At the thought of it, something agonising stirs; the growl of a wolf prowling deep inside me and the whispered despair of a child, little Hope from decades ago: “If you pretend nothing happened it means you don’t believe my story, you’re not on my side. You’d be Just. Like. Them – the friends, relatives, teachers, who turned away”.
I remember that child-teenager too numb to even cry.
I am sorry, but I cannot return.
Yet…understanding agony, even in my rejection of them, I do not like to think of them, those two humans, suffering.
I read his email again.
My poor painful head, mangled heart.
What to do?
It’s my duty to help them. I have no duty.
They’re human, made in the image of God. They didn’t see me that way.
Everyone deserves quality of life. They fed me, clothed me, educated me, housed me.
An eye for an eye. I could harm them because they harmed me. Don’t be like them.
I don’t want them to suffer. I suffered.
I feel free without them. I was trapped with them.
Turn away. They are old.
I feel sorry for them. Their situation is their own fault.
I must obey. No, they no longer have power over me.
God will judge me if I refuse to help. Surely God would understand?
They refuse to admit they did anything wrong, blaming me. They’ll never change, don’t expect change.
Don’t be sucked in. They will always manipulate. Don’t play games.
Can I, should I, bail them out from afar? How does that work?
I can’t go back. I was dying. That’s why I left.
I must help them. I don’t have to.
They can no longer physically harm me. They harm with words.
Turn the other cheek. And walk back into a cycle of abuse.
Forget the abuse. Pretending would kill me inside. I will not be silenced.
They were not kind. Be kind.
Just some of the thoughts in the mess of my head.
What do I do now my abuser has asked for my help? It’s a question which cleaves me, raggedly, clumsily; a physical feeling.
