Tag: Reliving my childhood trauma

My algebra teacher was a prophet

~ Christi

A long time ago, when I was a kid, I used like being sick. I got sick a lot. I caught colds all the time, I had at least a sinus infection a month. My mom drove herself crazy dragging me to the doctor; I even had sinus surgery.

Only I was faking. For several years while I was in my early teens, it felt safer somehow to hide out at home, so I exaggerated my pain. I liked being sick, and I didn’t mind that I wreaked havoc on my life. I flunked math, and to this day I can’t do much beyond addition and subtraction. Complex equations elude me.

Around the time that I had that surgery, I had a really cool algebra teacher. I remember him with crystal clarity despite missing most of my time in his class. Mr. Cross was older, cute, male, and funny, and he liked me; in other words, he was perfect. He showed concern about my lack of mathematical ability, but much more compellingly, he showed an interest in me. Nothing out of place, just genuine concern for a girl who he could tell was stumbling.

He wrote me a message in my yearbook, and I’m telling you, I still think about it on a regular basis. He wrote, “Good luck, Christi. You’ll do great if you just stop being sick.” I liked Mr. Cross. I admired him, and I wanted his approval. So I did it. I stopped being sick.

You know, I still caught the occasional cold. I had not seen my last sinus infection. I just stopped using my colds as excuses to hide out at home. It wasn’t easy.

Years passed, and all the typical things happened: college, marriage, more college, work. And a few years into adulthood, I found myself in the gastroenterologist’s office with a bout of acid reflux. I followed the doctor’s instructions and traded spaghetti, wine, and chocolate for a daily pill that took the pain away. Just because I didn’t call myself sick doesn’t mean that I wasn’t.

At 28, I hesitated before I got pregnant with Anna. My medicine was off-limits for pregnancy. In blind faith I went cold-turkey, and I thought of Mr. Cross. I’d like to say that I willed his yearbook message to be a prophecy, but it was more like desperate hope than anything.

Blind faith paid off and I’m not sick anymore. But Mr. Cross was no prophet, only an algebra teacher smart enough to know that when you find the flow in life, things work themselves out. Thanks for the equation, Mr. Cross.

Feliz cumpleaños, chica

~ Christi ~ 1 Comment

Growing up is hard, that’s for sure. I’m not talking about those magical years when you get to skip out on college and bum around Europe or work some crummy dead-end job. No, I mean the day when you realize that you are irrevocably on your own for better or worse.

When I was 29, my mom died suddenly, from complications of an arthritis drug. She wasn’t exactly healthy beforehand but her death came as a shock. I got the call at five in the morning and we piled in the car and drove east for 12 hours with the radio off. I remember grasping for thoughts, for anything to make sense of what had happened. I tried to imagine a world without my mom in it, and I couldn’t do it. I was 29, about to turn 30, and I knew without a doubt that I was an adult.

I remember walking into a rest stop, and out of nowhere I heard a voice. “I love you,” the big warm voice said. “It’s going to be okay.” I looked around. No one was talking to me, but I wasn’t scared. I just imagined this voice belonged to my new – Hispanic, I imagined – mom. My new Hispanic mamá didn’t have to talk much to let me know she was there. She could just give me a word or two here, a hum or two there to let me know that things were all right. She calmed me down and showed me how to trust myself.

I know it’s silly and more than a little crazy, but I still think of my Hispanic mamá pretty often. She always knows just the right thing to say when I’m feeling bad, and she is always there with a smile when things are going right.

Today is my favorite niece’s birthday. She’s turning 29. She isn’t looking forward to her birthday or to the year ahead. She actually said that she can’t remember the last birthday that turned out how she wanted it to. She can’t remember the last birthday that was fun.

I love my niece, and I’m worried about her. She is a truly beautiful person who can’t seem to see that. She’s dealing with the fallout of having a mom who never knew how to love her. She’s struggling with health problems, with anxiety, with a comically bad living situation. I wish that I could do more for her than I can. I’m far away and ill-equipped. But I do love her very much.

I’ve been thinking of what to send my niece for her birthday. Cash is on the list, and music. But that doesn’t seem like nearly enough for a girl who is on the brink of adulthood and needs a lifesaving infusion of love. How do you love a girl from afar enough to make a difference?

I’m packing up a box to send to my favorite niece. I’m putting lots of little things in it that I hope will make her laugh, but I have one more gift for her and it won’t fit inside the box. Sarah, I’m giving you my Hispanic mamá. She’s yours now. Do you feel her inside of you? She’s sweet and kind and a little tough.

“Te amo, chica.” Can you hear her? “Tu eres hermosa.” Listen to her, it’s true. One more thing: She gives the best hugs.

 

 

Encore

~ Christi ~ 13 Comments

My mom was murdered by a used-car salesman.

If my mom were telling you this story, it would be a comedy. She would twist her heartbreak into dark tendrils of humor until you were on the floor laughing. But she’s dead, so I will try to do it justice.

My mom died under mysterious circumstances but she was not murdered. In retrospect, her death fell at the end of a long line of clues, as well documented as any stack of stolen credit card receipts shoved in a dresser drawer could hope to be.

My mom liked creeps and I suspect that she knew a lot of them. Three creeps in particular she knew intimately. She married one at nineteen, my sister’s dad, and she had a run-in with one at 35 that left her with me. She found the worst of her creeps in a phone-sex chat room in early 2002. She was 64 and ten years older than him – you can do the math.

Mike was an on-again, off-again used-car salesman. He’d sell you a used car whether you wanted one or not. He’d sell you a used car if you asked him about the weather and he’d sell you a used car on your birthday. He sold used cars so well that he went to jail for it several times, the last time just weeks after he married my mom in 2003.

My mom waited patiently for his return a year later. I won’t tell you about how I paid her rent and her expenses while he was in prison. It’s beside the point how much I worried that Mike the used-car salesman would return, or worse, that he wouldn’t.

Mike the used-car salesman returned shortly before my Bubbie died. He timed his reappearance well, and made off with my Bubbie’s life savings, an act that revealed his great ingenuity and patience. He spent his treasure trove on scummy motel rooms and gifts for younger, hotter finds from the sex chat room.

In 2006, my mom fell on the grass while she was walking their Yorkie. She waited hours on the ground for Mike to return from the used-car lot cum scummy motel room. My mom died a few days later in a crummy hospital ICU, her organs shutting down because of drug complications. My mom was not murdered by a used-car salesman, but she may as well have been.

In a cruel twist of fate like most twists of fate are, Mike the used-car salesman died two months later in my mom’s bed of all places. When I got there, I found all of his receipts and bank statements stuffed in a drawer and I had to laugh.

 

A revision of last week’s Yeah Write essay. Thanks for the thoughtful comments, Obed, I do think this post is a lot cleaner now.

My mom was murdered by a used-car salesman

~ Christi

It dawns on me that I don’t know how to tell you about my mom. Should I start with her untimely death or with her sad beginning? Should I tell you about her mistakes or her million miniscule victories? Should I start with the day she wished her father dead when she was five or the one when I stood in the shower at five a.m. and wished her back to life? Tell me what you want to know.

My mom did everything in the wrong order. She was a bad girl and then a good woman. She was a mother and then a girl on her own again, twice. She was a slut before she was a virgin and then she was a slut again at 60. My mom gave up everything she wanted for herself and then fought to get it back only to lose it again and again.

If my mom were telling you her own story, it would be a comedy. Somehow she would twist her heartbreak into dark tendrils of humor until you were on the floor laughing. One day I hope to tell her story like that.

Today I think I will start with the end, because one of you asked me to. My mom died under mysterious circumstances but she was not murdered. In retrospect, her death fell at the end of a long line of clues, as well documented as a stack of stolen credit card receipts shoved in a dresser drawer.

My mom liked creeps and I suspect that she knew a lot of them. Three creeps in particular she knew intimately. She married one at nineteen, my sister’s dad, and she had a run-in with one at 35 that left her with me. She found the worst of her creeps in a phone-sex chat room in early 2002.

Mike was an on-again, off-again used-car salesman. He’d sell you a used car whether you wanted one or not. He’d sell you a used car if you asked him about the weather and he’d sell you a used car on your birthday. He sold used cars so well that he went to jail for it several times, the last time just weeks after he married my mom in 2003.

My mom waited patiently for his return a year later. I won’t tell you about how I paid her rent and her expenses while he was in prison. I won’t tell you how much I worried that Mike the used-car salesman would return, or worse, that he wouldn’t.

Mike the used-car salesman returned shortly before my Bubbie died. He timed his reappearance well, and made off with my Bubbie’s savings. He spent his treasure trove on scummy motel rooms and gifts for younger, hotter finds from the sex chat room.

In 2006, my mom fell on the grass while she was walking their Yorkie. She waited hours on the ground for Mike to return from the used-car lot cum scummy motel room. My mom died a few days later in a crummy hospital ICU, her organs shutting down because of drug complications. My mom was not murdered by a used-car salesman, but she may as well have been.

Mike the used-car salesman died two months later in my mom’s bed of all places. When I got there, I found all of his receipts and bank statements stuffed in a drawer and I had to laugh.

 

 

I like black

~ Christi ~ 2 Comments

Black brought us together twice. The first time I was four years old. Your mom brought you over. We went outside to play, our moms had coffee inside. I slung my new pink purse with the cherries on it over my shoulder. Tucked inside I had my art book and my crayons.

So we went outside to play. I led the way up the hill, that hill that seemed so large back then but that was really rather small. We climbed it and sat down next to each other at the top. I opened my purse and pulled out my art book.

“Can I see it?” you asked.

“Okay,” I said and handed it to you.

You flipped through my drawings as I pulled out my crayons and lined them up on the grass. Your eyes roamed over my pages, taking in my imaginary friends, my master plans for a motor home, my silly four-year-old dreams.

“They’re all black,” you said, confused.

“Black is my favorite color,” I told you, putting the crayons in rainbow order because they were not all black. I like to choose.

You laughed.

The laugh cut through me and I hated you. I reached for you and yanked a handful of your sweet, shaggy, golden hair.

You cried.

Your mom saw everything through the window and blamed me. But she was wrong. You deserved it. I gave you my secret and you tried to destroy it.

Years later you reminded me. “Black was your favorite color,” you laughed.

Yes, I know it was. It always has been.

The day before you asked me to marry you, you hid my engagement ring in a drawer. I looked. Damn my intuition.

The next night you wanted to walk on the beach. I knew what you wanted. I stalled, lurked in the bathroom, and bided my time. I don’t know why. When we reached the gloomy beach just after sunset, you got down on one knee and slipped the ring on my finger. You didn’t even have to ask. We lingered awhile until we couldn’t see each other anymore, the black night sky dropping heavy on us and the black water crashing on the sand. The scene was straight out of my art book.

It’s funny, black brought us together and black sealed the deal. You always knew what you were getting, even as you laughed about it. So I think that you like black too.

Dear Mr. Hoffman

~ Christi ~ 22 Comments
Photo via vanityfair.com
Photo via vanityfair.com

I’m sorry you’re dead. I’m going to miss you, you, one of the few actors who really got self-destruction. You always made me believe in the bad in the good and the good in the bad. You always creeped me out.

Mr. Hoffman, if you’re up there in ODer’s heaven, keep an eye out for my dad. He’s funny and you’ll like him. He’s a youngish-looking fifty-something with white hair and a jaunty fedora. He died seeking that alternate plane of existence that I know you knew so well. He chose the tantalizing promises of a sly lover—alcohol—over the greedy gropings of his little daughter. He died alone, like you.

Mr. Hoffman, I know your secret. Everyone else thinks that you died on your bathroom floor atop a scattered mess of needles and baggies, but I know the truth. No, you died in an elusive, exquisite, and delightful paradise. You died happy.

Mr. Hoffman, I feel like we know each other. May I call you Phil? Phil, this isn’t easy to ask. Phil, if you’re wandering around ODer’s heaven and you bump into a dark and curly-haired, middle-aged former beauty, Phil, will you please tell her that I love her? Phil, go ahead and give my sister a hug for me. Tell her that I get it, that I finally understand that infinite draw to the dark side. I finally understand how your soul responds to vice as much as virtue. I get that sometimes you can only find peace on the path to self-destruction. I realize how sin is a long-lost art supply.

Phil, I’m going to miss you, but perhaps one day I’ll join you on that alternate plane of existence. I hope that someday I learn to eviscerate and reinvent myself through my art the way that you did. Phil, I admire the way that you lived, and although it terrifies me, I have to commend you on your death as well. You never failed to surprise me. Maybe someday you’ll look for me up there, too.

Betrayal

~ Christi ~ 11 Comments

He lay in a cheap hotel bed as she lay in the street, dying.

After they laid him in the morgue and her to rest, they found the truth lying in a drawer.

 

Thirty-three words on love gone wrong, minus love, sad, tears, wept, heart, and pain for this week’s Trifextra. Oh, and this is a true story.

My two-year old is a monster

~ Christi ~ 2 Comments

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Yeah, Nate is a real monster, just like every other two-year old in the world. They even have their own moniker, like some kind of generational coup condoning their bad behavior. I’m sure you’ve heard of it.

On the walk home from school today, he pulled me over to the row of snow-capped ice piles lining the sidewalk.

“I yant to climb on the snow mountains, Mama,” he told me, slipping off of the nearest one onto the concrete. I held his arm tightly and helped him navigate.

The five-minute walk took twenty monster minutes and I arrived home chilled and with a left arm sore from dragging the happily oblivious terrible two-year old. He was red faced and thrilled that his day included a mountain-climbing adventure.

At lunch, he yanted my pancakes, and helped himself to my food without asking.

Now, he’s looking for the dimes he calls diamonds that he hid in his cargo pants this morning. He doesn’t yant to nap, so he’s busy setting booby traps for his brother and sister who get home in three hours. He’s yammering, always yammering, invading my consciousness, making me angry.

Honestly, this kid invaded my consciousness long before he was born, even before his conception. He lurked in my imagination, demanding a life of his own. He haunted me, and against my better judgment, despite all logic, I gave him what he yanted.

Come to think of it, all of my kids are monsters.

 

Thanks to this guy for inspiring me to write this post. I think he knows what I mean when I say that sometimes we parents just have to give our kids what they yant.

Mean girls come from mean grandmas

~ Christi ~ 11 Comments

Hear me out, I have a theory. Girls end up like their moms, right? If your mom is a neat freak, you will probably be one too. You probably still remember the little red dress that your mom slipped on for date nights. Maybe you were unlucky enough to have a crazy mom who didn’t get out of bed in the morning to see you off to school; maybe love feels like making your own PB&J in the dark kitchen on a cold morning.

No, I don’t think so. Girls reject their moms. Somewhere around twelve or thirteen, moms start to gross us out. Even if your mom is beautiful – and perfect – you start to hate her beauty. It’s confusing. Somehow the very existence of your mom feels annihilating. Maybe this goes both ways, maybe the fact of her daughter’s becoming a teenager feels annihilating to the mom as well. Maybe they both reject each other.

In their mutual rejection, mother and daughter reach out, grope for another connection, an alternate link to life. I suspect that fathers often fill this role for the girls, but for me it was my grandma. If you’ve read here awhile, then you know that my Bubbie was mean. She made me rinse with Listerine before I’d even lost all of my baby teeth. She blamed me for my older sister’s mental illnesses, and she regularly withheld her love for me. Still, she had a huge effect on me. I couldn’t help myself from loving her anyway, from seeking her approval and even trying to be like her despite her despicable ways.

My Bubbie was incredibly strong. She knew how to protect herself, which my loving, kind, honest mom never learned. She set her limits and didn’t let anyone cross them. My Bubbie showed me how you can love people who you don’t like. She demonstrated that meanness is just another form of admiration, that it is the recognition of dangerous difference.

I’m not defending my grandma, nor advocating meanness. I’m only noticing two decades into my adulthood how valuable that alliance has been for me. At 36, I am probably more like my mom than my Bubbie, but I learned from the best how to be mean. On a daily basis, I let my mean side temper my loving side. I use it to demand the most from my friends, and I use it to set my kids free from unhealthy expectations.

My Bubbie taught me how to protect myself. What about you? Did your grandma give you a secret super power?

Thanks to this guy for inspiring my title. So, Jack B, is it true for men, too? Do mean guys come from mean grandpas? 

Let’s expose ourselves

~ Christi ~ 3 Comments

I read an interesting article a couple of weeks ago, on exposure therapy for young rape victims. Edna Foa, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, led a study last year to test the results of this controversial technique, which is usually reserved for veterans with PTSD, on girls as young as 13.

The article noted that the traditional treatment for girls who have been raped is supportive counseling – kind words and protective environments aimed at helping the victims forget all about what happened to them. Unlike supportive counseling, exposure therapy requires the girls to talk. They tell what happened to them. They tell their horror stories over and over again until finally, they are not scared anymore.

Foa’s study had astounding results. After 14 weeks of exposure therapy, 83 percent of the girls in the study no longer had PTSD, compared with 54 percent of the girls who had traditional therapy. I’m not a scientist, but nearly a 30-percent improvement sounds impressive.

So what was it about the exposure therapy that worked so well? It seems counterintuitive. At first, the article admitted, exposure therapy is very traumatic for the victims. They have to re-live the rape, not just once, but during every therapy session. Foa explained that at the beginning of therapy, the patients get very upset about what happened to them. Their symptoms – presumably anxiety, fear, depression – worsen. At the point where a traditional therapist would veer back toward kind, helpful words, an exposure therapist continues to have her patient repeat her tale again at the next session. Somewhere along the line, after many sessions, the patient begins to realize that the story is in the past and that it doesn’t control the present. “They get a new perspective,” Foa explained.

I like this idea of perspective and of owning our stories, even the painful ones. If you’ve been reading here awhile, then you know that I’ve been rethinking my past. I’ve been retelling my own stories, thankfully none of them about rape. When I began this blog, I could not have explained why I felt drawn to dredge up the past. Now I can tell you that the experience of telling my stories has been hard but good. Sure enough, it makes me anxious at times. Medication and extra sleep help me deal with the side effects, but it’s not easy. Still, for me, feeling the pain has been life affirming. That’s my pain, and it’s okay to feel it.

To me, exposure is not so much a process of letting go as one of acknowledging what I hold onto and why. I think the same thing goes for the 13-year-old rape victims. Telling their stories is a concrete activity that gives them power over the past. Rather than fighting the memory of their trauma, they can shape it. It’s healing.