He did not make me who I am. He treated me like someone I was not all my life. I became particularly aware of this the summer I turned eleven. We always went to His lake house when we saw him. I'd been on vacation and hadn't seen Him. So when he blew raspberries on my stomach it felt weird. He hadn't touched me in a month so coming back to it was a little strange. Sometimes it felt like He didn't understand that I had grown up. As I was reflecting on this, I felt a shiver run down my spine and an uncomfortable dark feeling overwhelmed me, so I suggested we go out on the lake, just to do something, anything else.
Out on the lake in the paddle-boat was like any other time. As usual He and my sister were paddling and I was sitting in the back. I was looking at the little cracks in the white fiberglass armrest when all of a sudden the boat stopped. I stood up to see what was happening and He pushed me. All I heard was laughter, His laughter, as I went in. I hit the cold water and the darkness closed in all around me. His laughter became muffled and I focused on getting to the surface. When I surfaced the boat was 50 meters or so away. I heard him yell that I would have to swim to the boat if I didn't want to be left in the lake. So I swam. But the boat kept getting further and further away. So, I swam harder, but each time I surfaced the boat was further. I saw Him paddling. I swam and he paddled. I would never catch the boat. I had been swimming for 30 minutes and was most of the way across the lake. I was tired. I was done. I stopped. That was when He got mad. I knew if I didn't make it to the boat I would have to swim back to the house. It had happened before.
When I finally felt the cold metal of the pontoon I thought I'd finally beat Him. But, I didn't. He would always win.
When I would say something that made Him upset he would pin me down. He claimed it made me tougher. One day it got worse. He pinned me and I couldn't move a muscle. My hands were wrapped behind my back and He was sitting on me. I couldn't breathe, it felt like someone was squeezing my lungs and I started to cry. He told me to stop faking, to toughen up and that I could get out of it. I couldn't. I hoped that if I just went limp he would let me go, and finally he did. I decided to go to bed because I didn't want to spend another waking minute with Him.
As I was drifting off to sleep, I felt His hands touching me. I shifted so He couldn't reach me. The peace only lasted a minute until I felt His hands again. All I wanted in that moment was to be anywhere else. I just wanted it to stop. I rolled over and curled up so He couldn't reach me. In that moment He got mad and I was afraid again. I felt like a speck, too small to defend myself. I had no idea what was going to happen. All He did was say, "Oh, well I guess you don't like me touching you."
It was like He was trying to make me feel bad. In a way, I did. I felt like I had done something wrong. Are fathers supposed to touch their daughters like that? Was I wrong? It didn't feel right to me but then what did I know, I was only eleven. That night those questions kept going through my mind, as I was kept awake by the scratchy sheets and bad feeling in my stomach. The only thing getting me through the night was that I was going home to my mom tomorrow.
When we woke up the next morning I felt numb. I didn't say anything while He made us toaster strudels for breakfast. I didn't eat. I barely blinked. There was nothing going through my head at all. I was frozen. In the car ride home he kept trying to talk to us. I just a stared out the window in frigid silence.
When I walked through the door my mom asked me how my night was. I sat down on the couch and just kept repeating, "It was weird, it was just weird."
She asked me questions until I broke down and told her what happened, the raspberries, the monkey, the boat and finally the touching. It was her reaction that stuck with me. Her immediate words were, "That is not normal behavior Keara, that is so wrong. So beyond wrong. I am going to make sure that this NEVER happens again." Those are words I will never forget. Those words were what made me question the other things He'd done to me. It all hit me like a ton of bricks. I had flashbacks to Him hiding from me in stores and me just sitting down and crying when I couldn't find Him, Him knocking my ice-cream out of my hand, Him forcing me to dive into pools to fetch His keys time and time again, Him tearing me down with his words to bring Himself up, Him trying to make me tougher, Him making me cry while he laughed, Him trying to make me something that I'm not, Him trying to change me, just Him. I sat down on my kitchen floor and cried and cried. It was this summer day when I was eleven that I vowed to myself that I I wouldn't let Him hurt me anymore. I would be myself and never let what He did to me affect the rest of my life. And I haven't.
I am a survivor of eleven years of belittlement and abuse. But now, I have developed an indifference to these events. As I have written about my memories, I have felt like I was watching a movie. There were no feelings running through me. I don't live each day in fear or remembrance of what happened. As Elie Wiesel once said, "The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference." I don't love Him nor do I hate Him for what He did to me, I am indifferent towards Him and these events. I refuse to let these events rule me. I refuse to be controlled by anything. I have survived and now each day I work to never be trapped or controlled again.
People frequently ask me about my Him and I usually tell them the same thing. That I haven't talked to him in years and it's okay. Most people get upset when they hear that but they don't understand that I have grown up with 5 Dads. My uncles and my Grandpa. They have all been like a Dad to me in different ways. My Uncle Frank teaches me about law every time I see him. He supports my plans for becoming a lawyer. My Uncle Kevin is always giving me brilliant books to read and talking about literature with me. My Grandpa tells me stories about the world and my family and reassures me of myself. My Uncle John has shown me what makes a good athlete. He was the person that taught me to be tough, and it was through self discipline not abuse. My Uncle Dennis is a supportive presence no matter the situation. The most important thing about all of them, is that every time I see them they ask me how I am. I don't think He ever did. They care about me and show that every time I see them with both their words and actions. And this is a beautiful thing about having 5 Dads. The have all filled in the void that He left. I have Dads who support me and love me and I am fortunate to have that, because if I didn't have them, I don't know where I would be.
