Nonamesyetthanks
New Here
I was born into a long line of apocalyptic cult abusers, fifth generation, but I broke the cycle.
Left the cult, married my wife, am raising two amazing toddlers, completely cut my abusive family out of my life.
And yet.
My son adores me. Every morning it's huge hugs and "DADDY!" and my angelic one year old daughter reminds me intensely of myself at her age.
I thrive on them.
And yet, every time I feel love, I feel the horrors wash over like crashing surf on jagged rocks.
With a screaming sobbing child stuck in the undertow.
My first memories of rape and beatings are in diapers, 1983. This switched on a video recorder in my head that hasn't stopped in 39 years.
It was handy for getting through school despite never studying because not only do I remember way more than the average person, but my tyrannical father didn't allow me to have friends outside the cult so I read thousands of books.
I was the firstborn of four, my mother confessed to me that I was definitely unplanned and highly unwelcome.
I have a suspicion I was the product of infidelity, since my uncle and I look way too alike, plus my mother's first words in the delivery room upon my arrival were "Oh no, he looks like *****(my uncle)!"
Never, not once in my life do I recall a genuine tender moment with my father. He used physical pain like a virtuoso, coming up with ingenious ways to inflict it without leaving marks.
Mechanical pencil jab to the side, squeeze the metatarsal bones in the hand or the radial bones in the forearms so they grind together, pinch the back of the neck until the vertebrae feel like separating, full strength adult finger flicks to the soft spot of a little skull, open-palm beatings over clothes to avoid broken skin or bruises, sodomizing rape.
My mother would hold his menace over me like the sword of Damocles.
"When your father gets home you are getting a SPANKING!" she would snarl if I caused trouble with my siblings.
If that happened in the morning it became an entire day of agonizing dread, ears alert for the breath-stopping sound of a Volkswagen diesel and the crunch of tires in the driveway at 6pm.
Then, murmured voices downstairs followed by the enraged pounding of his feet storming up to my room before flinging open the door with a concussive bang.
Then the real pain.
After a point, no sound comes from your throat no matter how hard you scream. You pass out in a puddle of spit and mucus face down in the pillow and wake up as the sun disappears, supper dishes from the rest of the family long gone.
If I was lucky it was on a night where we didn't have to go to a meeting, otherwise I had to wash my face and put on my little suit and tie and sit for two hours listening to old men preach the coming end of Satan's wicked world, sandwiched between hellish car rides of additional psychological torture and guilt tripping in front of my siblings.
I had no Saturday morning cartoons, I knocked on doors handing out pamphlets.
I had no birthdays or Christmases or Halloween candy or Easter chocolate, I had multiple annual cult conventions where I had to sit still eight hours a day for four days in a stifling hot stadium.
If you dozed off or didn't flip your Bible open at the right time, mechanical pencil below the ribcage. Do it too much and get beaten at the cheap hotel before the next day's session.
Sleepovers at grampa and gramma's were fun, at least. Or so I thought. Turns out putting on rubber gloves and playing "operation" with gramma was my father's mother molesting me repeatedly until I was 4.
The problem is I was so beaten and bible-brainwashed into loving them that, like an abused partner who genuinely does feel love for their abuser, I still feel affection for them despite never receiving it.
The social stigma of cutting my entire family churns deep guilt, and I bury my emotional injuries in front of my kids while the memories froth. Every. Day.
Thanks for listening.
Left the cult, married my wife, am raising two amazing toddlers, completely cut my abusive family out of my life.
And yet.
My son adores me. Every morning it's huge hugs and "DADDY!" and my angelic one year old daughter reminds me intensely of myself at her age.
I thrive on them.
And yet, every time I feel love, I feel the horrors wash over like crashing surf on jagged rocks.
With a screaming sobbing child stuck in the undertow.
My first memories of rape and beatings are in diapers, 1983. This switched on a video recorder in my head that hasn't stopped in 39 years.
It was handy for getting through school despite never studying because not only do I remember way more than the average person, but my tyrannical father didn't allow me to have friends outside the cult so I read thousands of books.
I was the firstborn of four, my mother confessed to me that I was definitely unplanned and highly unwelcome.
I have a suspicion I was the product of infidelity, since my uncle and I look way too alike, plus my mother's first words in the delivery room upon my arrival were "Oh no, he looks like *****(my uncle)!"
Never, not once in my life do I recall a genuine tender moment with my father. He used physical pain like a virtuoso, coming up with ingenious ways to inflict it without leaving marks.
Mechanical pencil jab to the side, squeeze the metatarsal bones in the hand or the radial bones in the forearms so they grind together, pinch the back of the neck until the vertebrae feel like separating, full strength adult finger flicks to the soft spot of a little skull, open-palm beatings over clothes to avoid broken skin or bruises, sodomizing rape.
My mother would hold his menace over me like the sword of Damocles.
"When your father gets home you are getting a SPANKING!" she would snarl if I caused trouble with my siblings.
If that happened in the morning it became an entire day of agonizing dread, ears alert for the breath-stopping sound of a Volkswagen diesel and the crunch of tires in the driveway at 6pm.
Then, murmured voices downstairs followed by the enraged pounding of his feet storming up to my room before flinging open the door with a concussive bang.
Then the real pain.
After a point, no sound comes from your throat no matter how hard you scream. You pass out in a puddle of spit and mucus face down in the pillow and wake up as the sun disappears, supper dishes from the rest of the family long gone.
If I was lucky it was on a night where we didn't have to go to a meeting, otherwise I had to wash my face and put on my little suit and tie and sit for two hours listening to old men preach the coming end of Satan's wicked world, sandwiched between hellish car rides of additional psychological torture and guilt tripping in front of my siblings.
I had no Saturday morning cartoons, I knocked on doors handing out pamphlets.
I had no birthdays or Christmases or Halloween candy or Easter chocolate, I had multiple annual cult conventions where I had to sit still eight hours a day for four days in a stifling hot stadium.
If you dozed off or didn't flip your Bible open at the right time, mechanical pencil below the ribcage. Do it too much and get beaten at the cheap hotel before the next day's session.
Sleepovers at grampa and gramma's were fun, at least. Or so I thought. Turns out putting on rubber gloves and playing "operation" with gramma was my father's mother molesting me repeatedly until I was 4.
The problem is I was so beaten and bible-brainwashed into loving them that, like an abused partner who genuinely does feel love for their abuser, I still feel affection for them despite never receiving it.
The social stigma of cutting my entire family churns deep guilt, and I bury my emotional injuries in front of my kids while the memories froth. Every. Day.
Thanks for listening.