POEM // AGE 8.
My mother told me
that I was evil
for whatever in hell
my eight-year-old self said.
And my mother told me
that she told the doctors
All about the things I did.
My mother told me
to take these pills
she handed them to me,
big and white.
My mother said
the spankings weren't working.
My mother told me
these things were from a doctor
that she found who could prescribe me
better health.
I asked my mother
if health could be prescribed?
But my mother did not answer
Because she did not respond
to back-talking sons of bitches.
My mother graciously gave me
till the count of three to obey.
My mother said
She knew what was
best for me.
My father said
He was always right.
My mother said
My father was a liar.
My mother said
these pills would cure me
of not cutting it out.
My mother told me
that medical control
was the good kind of rage
these days.
My mother told me
that the earlier the detection,
the better.
And my mother told me
she should have taken me
to the doctor's
-- sooner.
And now it's later.
I wanted to tell my mother,
I felt so behind at nine.
The reason I am making this poem come to life as a project to reclaim my voice and to tell the story "played out". These experiences ingrained beliefs that I was not capable of controlling myself. That I was a "bad child"/"problem child" for elusive rationales. The rationales of why I was angry were dismissed as unreasonable. I felt my emotions were dismissed at a young age.
And there was zero investigation of these superficial emotional disruptions. If anger, rage, or sadness occurred; it was either needed to be under full control and thus suppressed. Or, it should be medicated away.
I think why I am so angry is because a mother is "supposed" to work with me. This is what I believe is the fundamental element and purpose of a maternal figure. A child develops emotional awareness through this initial relationship.
The truth is that I was being molested right around the time my mother began medicating me.
Why did they medicate me so young? My parents used cognitive bias to justify that this had "progressed" up until this point. They talk to me about how I "got into everything" or "how I was a colicky baby" or "I was a different kid than all my siblings." There is this assumption that after eight long years they tried every method of nonintervention prior. And I was just different. I "needed" this treatment, and it was safe. Which I don't believe either is the full truth.
I think I was in actuality around 9/10 when I first began being medicated. I changed it in order to fit a better timeline for this fictionalized version. They told me that at ten I was having 'inappropriate temper-tantrums' of anger. And my parents used unique methods to "stop" me. For example, my father pulled out a video camera and began filming me. He was telling me he was going to record me and show this to my current school principal. It was humiliating. It was treated as a "behavioral" problem when I was not violent. I had a ton of emotions that rocked the house at times, sure.
And I was being molested at this time. I was extremely confused and angry. It was by someone of the same gender. And I had zero vocabularies to explain this event -- and was I going to tell these fools? The people who keep on antagonizing me with shame in order to control me better? How could I trust them with my secrets? I began keeping a diary around this age. I left out this story because I caught my mother reading it a few times.
This is when I first began to self-edit.
I began to self silence.
I could not trust my parents to hold my best interest in their hearts.
They held their best interest for me inside them.
And there is a difference.
I learned to just believe that my badness was due to a rotten core. I thought I was black on the inside. I started to believe that I needed external resources to fix this hole of problems my parents kept pointing out. I had only my sister to discuss this with. However, when I quit gymnastics (where the molestation occurred) I told her that we could no longer discuss it anymore. I said this out of shame.
She remembers asking my mother to pray with her that she would not be a lesbian. And I also remember how religious shame had a lot to do with why I did not confront my mother. I have known I was bisexual since preschool? When I was told, "do not tell, or I'll tell others you were gay." Well, that held me; wrapped me in cords.
Oh, that ten-year-old would not tell, because the other girl molesting me had seen my deepest shame. And I did not want my parents to like me less.
In order to process my abuse, I had to come out of the closet. I was married to a man. And still. I had to own that part of me she held against me --- even as a twenty-something-year-old.
This is where this belief about me began though. I was young and my emotions and perceptions of an event were not empowered to make an emotional connection. It was severed. I saw the two events as unrelated since they happened at two different times. I didn't see how my anger from the abuse could have left a ten-year-old emotionally drained at the slightest trigger -- and a full temper tantrum could unload.
It was due to these early memories that I began to believe, "It was me, not my parents." As if there were only two options. This is where I take issue with my mother's unawareness and emotional blindness. Due to her own trauma and insecurities; she could not see more options. It was black or white. It was her or me. I think this comes out through my poem as well.
One can see it in the lines where my mother fears she is a bad mom by projecting the problem on me. She could not humble herself to see, it was bigger than both of us.
How does a parent handle childhood sexual abuse?
Delicately. The answer is with care and with gentleness. My father and mother were bulls in the china shop -- always ready with a bigger, better solution to "stop my pain". When dealing and coping with life tragedy is a part of life.
I was taught external coping strategies instead of internal. If therapy is a persons' only mode of emotional coping strategies then what do they do when the therapy appointment is in two days -- and they need relief right now? What does the person do when the pills are not working?
I think that is the message of the poem -- what is the long term story when short term solutions are seen as king? Should we be medicating children? There are no easy answers. I guess that's why I just wrote my story. To get others to think. And for me to heal.
I mean, ultimately -- I am a selfish artist, this shit is for me.
And if you relate to it, great.
And if you don't? Well, I didn't make it for you.
Good art triggers.
Good art hurts a little bit.
Good is not comfortable.
I am really excited about this fictionalized poem to come to life before my eyes. I am really excited for you all to see the twist in the end, because the rough draft is just that -- rough.
