Scars Unseen: Why I'm Like This (Part 1)

Experts typically agree that there are six kinds of abuse. The five that I will be writing on have all been personally experienced by myself and people I know. The one I am leaving out of this series, elder abuse, is not something I feel I can speak on, for I have never personally experienced it. The experiences that I will be discussing will also only be my experiences, and while I may mention family members, I would never speak about them and what they went through. There may be instances where I include a brief mention of my mother’s experiences, but only as how they relate to my own past. Nothing that I will include will be anything that was shared with me in confidence, nor something that would violate the privacy of my family members.

This series is not meant to be warm and fuzzy like my favourite teddy bear, Brownie. It is meant to enlighten and prevent anyone who may enter an abusive relationship or may currently be in an abusive relationship. It is meant to keep people safe, much like my favourite teddy bear, Brownie.

Brownie and I

Child abuse is classified as a kind of domestic abuse, as the abuser is often the parent or caregiver. It can include mental, sexual, and physical abuse or any combination of those three. Included in child abuse are child neglect, bullying, and parentification/spousification. I have chosen to write about child abuse first because it is the first form of abuse I was subjected to.

(Please forgive the use of the passive voice that will be found in this series, I use it intentionally as abuse is something done to someone. I am not using the passive voice to intentionally annoy Dr Roxanne Hard, my English Professor who constantly scored my papers poorly because of my use of the passive voice.)

Child abuse can occur to any child, at any time during their childhood. Studies show that children with disabilities and those who belong to the LGBTQIA2+ community are at higher risk of child abuse. On the outside, anyone looking in might not notice the signs of abuse in my family. From all appearances, we looked to be a happy nuclear family, we even had a literal white picket fence. Mom, dad, my brother and I. Looking closer, one will see that my nine-years older half-sister comes to visit upon occasion and that we children are often staying with family members. We were raised on a farm in a small, rural Alberta border community, my father was a grain farmer and my mother worked full-time as a care-aid. On an even deeper inspection, anyone could have seen our bruises, tired faces, and fearful eyes should they have only bothered to care.

My mother met my father on a Joe-Max rig and they were married in August 1990. Shortly after my parents were engaged, my father informed my mother that he was supporting an ex-girlfriend and his young daughter. He had them living in his childhood home, but with plans to start a new family, he cast them out of that house and moved my mother in. Rightfully so, my sister’s mother was upset by this sudden change of events. Unfortunately, she took her anger out on my mother, instead of my father who deserved it and ensured my sister would never respect the man-stealing woman who broke up their happy family.

December 1991, I was born and my first home was the same house my sister had been evicted from. Coincidentally, this house was the second home of my German immigrant paternal grandparents and my first two aunts. I say second because the first house my grandmother and aunts lived in was the chicken coop next to the house. My grandfather built the coop first and had my grandmother raise two children in it before he built them a house. My mother had a difficult birth. I caused her kidneys to fail, she developed deadly allergies to nuts and multiple antibiotics, her blood pressure dropped dangerously low (something that has never recovered properly), and I was attempting to go the wrong way through her back. The doctor attempted to use the forceps and put the suction on me three times before I finally graced this world with my brilliantly bruised and jaundiced cone-head. My father was beside my mother the entire time, thoroughly disgusted with the entire process and my mother’s embarrassing display of pain (his words).

The Chicken Coop

My first home

I first experienced abuse before I even had a working memory. It was made clear that my mother’s pregnancy would not be allowed to interfere with the harvest. Hence why I was born in December. I was two weeks late, my mother worked on the farm throughout her entire pregnancy, once home, she was expected to now take care of a newborn and my father. Two weeks after I was born, mom could not get me to quiet (forever one to be heard!) Angered by my crying, my father informed my mother that she needs to shut me up or else he will do it for her. In her defence of me, she spoke back to my father; that was the first time he hit her. My mother took the brunt of his attacks until we were old enough to smack around. It was a common phrase in our house to hear “quit crying, or I will give you something to cry about.” Any misbehaviour or mistake was met with a belt or the barehand. I learned to run up the stairs quickly and lock myself in the bathroom; sometimes I made sure I was already halfway up the stairs before I answered a question, just in case I couldn't run fast enough. It got to the point that we were so terrified of doing something wrong, we thought anyone would yell or hit us. In our child minds, we twisted discipline and abuse. Seeing a kid misbehave at school either had us lash out physically to end the behaviour, or to cry and tell an adult to make it stop in case we also got in trouble.

Rather than help us, our small community and even smaller school of 60 students, turned a blind eye. Everyone knew how my grandfather was to my grandmother and their six surviving children. Everyone knew how my father was to my sister and her mother, (she once recounted to me remembering running for her life from him) as well as how he was to us. Yet, it was easier for them all to pretend otherwise; focussing on the negative can make one feel sick, and no one likes to feel sick. Keeping in mind that all citizens, especially teachers, in Canada are mandated reporters of abuse; it was easier for our teachers to think of us as troublemakers rather than abuse victims. I used to visit the principal’s office often because I couldn’t stand other students getting away with what I thought was unfair. I kicked a boy who budged in front of me in the line-up. I pinched a younger boy who tried to take away something I was using. The principal once referred to me in front of a visitor to the school as a bad child. Other kids were cruel to us because they knew they could get away with it. I came home from school crying every single night.

It was easier for neighbours to tell our father where we were hiding rather than have him be angry with them, making the community uncomfortable (don’t rock the boat!) We often left my father to stay at the women’s shelter, stay with my mother’s family, or go on extended visits to my mom’s work friends. I remember thinking that the woman’s shelter was so much fun because there were so many toys and movies that we could play with and not be yelled at. There were other kids there to play with and they weren’t mean to me.

It was easier for my extended family members to tell us to never speak of the things our father did than to face the reality of our situation. I remember one clear instance of my aunt driving her two kids, my brother, and I to visit my grandmother. She asked us what was new and I told her that dad had picked mom up by the throat and thrown her into the closet. She was screaming for him to stop and he started hitting her. I had to take my brother upstairs and play with him until the fight ended so he wouldn’t see all that was happening. Without even pausing, my aunt responded that I was never to repeat that. If I said anything like that again, we would get in trouble.

We never knew how my father would react to anything. He once kicked me from behind and I fell into the gravel road, cutting up my legs and hands. The cause? I was too loud outside and might wake my mother who was resting from an evening shift. He once called me a whore because of the way I was sitting on the floor. I was laying on my side (in case you were confused as me as to how a whore sits on the floor). He would often tell me I was going to grow up to be a slut because I like to wear shiny nightgowns. As a baby, he let me crawl around and eat fibreglass insulation and laughed when his friends would ash out their cigarette butts for me to eat. He used to tell us kids that cat food was healthy and pretend to eat it in front of us. I have eaten a lot more cat food in my life than most children. Remember that chicken coop that my grandfather forced my grandmother to live in? Not seeing any issue with it, my father tried to do something similar. With the impending arrival of my younger brother, we had outgrown my first house. My father decided to build a mechanic shop large enough for farm equipment; he saw no reason why we would need living quarters on this new property. He fully intended on having us live in a cold, concrete room amongst his machinery. Thankfully, my mother convinced him otherwise and we grew up in smaller concrete rooms attached to the shop. We got linoleum floors a few years later after an incident where I fell down the stairs and cracked my skulls on the concrete below. I wasn’t allowed to call him “daddy” or “father”, only “dad”. Anything else would result in a slap.

Inspiration for our new home

The house we built

He took great pleasure in using my love of horses against me. Often telling me whatever I was eating was actually horse meat, and telling me each rumble strip we hit was a horse. He loved intentionally crossing the centre lane or riding the shoulder of a road to “hit as many horses as he could”. I still feel sick whenever I go over a rumble strip. I believed him, because I was young and because he once drove me past a burning pile of dead horses. He once took the family to a nearby city and left us at the grocery store for hours while he went to look at farm equipment and then proceeded to get drunk (excessive drinking and/or drug use that endangers children is considered neglect and abuse). We had to walk across town until we found the truck and could pick him up and go home. On another instance, he took me to town for a dentist appointment, where I hadn’t eaten all morning and couldn’t eat immediately after my appointment. He promised to take me for ice-cream after my appointment. Instead, he took me to the seed cleaning plant and continued to ignore me for hours until I fainted on the concrete floor from hunger and the shock of my appointment. I never got my ice-cream.

Reading all of this, it is easy to recognize my father as a cruel man. However, he would not have been able to do all these things for over a decade if he wasn’t capable of hiding it. I will go deeper into his character when I talk about physical abuse; but it is important to understand now, that my father was and is a charming man. When I was young he was tall and had an athletic physique. He had a head full of dark hair and a black moustache. He was funny and easily endeared people to him. It was easy to ignore the fact that he had been blacklisted from working on any oilrig company ever again, he was always getting into physical fights with coworkers and authority figures. His constant bar fights were easily seen as drunk mistakes and not alcoholism and anger issues. If you met him now, you would find a quiet man. Balding, short, overweight, glasses and nearly deaf without his hearing aids (which he refuses to wear because he doesn’t want anyone to think he is deaf). He spends every morning and afternoon at the local bar, reading the newspaper and drinking his coffee or beer (depending on the time of day). He is still a charming individual, who has ensnared many women since marrying, and since divorcing, my mother. People find it difficult to meld the image I have painted for you all with, the lonely man that they see before them. However, do not allow his current appearance to fool you, he is still a dangerous man.

Two things I briefly mentioned earlier but did not go in-depth with are parentification and spousification. These are two new terms that are now being recognized as child abuse. Parentification is when a child is obligated to act as the parent to their own parent, or the as the parent of a sibling. It can be further broken down into two versions. One, where the child is physically providing for the family (paying bills, tending sick relatives, raising siblings). The other, where the child takes on the role of mediator between or confidant for the actual parent(s) and other family members. Spousification is similar to parentification, but rather the child taking the place of a parent, they fill the role of spouse to their parent. I was expected to take care of my brother a lot growing up. My dad was never going to spend time with us or put aside what he wanted to do and prioritize our needs. My mom was busy working full-time to save enough money to eventually leave my father, as well as pay off my father’s debts (he had a bad habit of obsessively buying the newest farm equipment). With my mom absent so much, I was in charge of making our meals and doing chores around the house. My father never once cooked a meal. My parents slept in separate rooms from the time my bother was born. Some nights he would make me sleep in his bed with him. He’d hold me so tight, I felt like I was suffocating. He had no windows in his room, so I’d lay awake in that sweltering, dark room all night until I could get away. My mother never knew that he used to do this. I still don’t sleep well at night, and can’t stand to be held for too long, especially at night. There are no benefits to parentification or spousification. Many people would comment on my maturity at such a young age. Let me tell you, I so desperately wish I could have had a childhood. By taking on the roles of parent and spouse, I lost my own role as a child. It was made all the worse by the lack of acknowledgement of my sacrifices. As a result, I have anxiety and abandonment issues, I am worried that people only like me for what I can provide and that should I cease to fill these roles, then they will no longer want me around. My emotional resilience is a direct consequence of my childhood trauma, I am strong and capable because I had to be to survive. I’d much rather have learned to be strong from different circumstances.

One final component of child abuse is enmeshment. Another fairly new term in the child abuse world, enmeshment describes a family relationship that lacks boundaries and roles are confused. Family members are so emotionally dependent that they fuse in an unhealthy way. You know if you grew up in an enmeshed family if there is a lack of emotional and physical boundaries. You don’t think about what is best for you or what you want; it is always about pleasing or taking care of others or when you’re guilted or shamed if you want less contact or you try to make a choice that’s good for you. If your parents’ self-worth seems to hinge on your success or accomplishments and they want to know everything about your life. When family members overshare personal experiences and feelings in a way that creates unrealistic expectations, unhealthy dependence, and confused roles. Often, enmeshed parents treat their children as friends, rely on them for emotional support, and share inappropriate personal information. If you try to avoid conflicts and don’t know how to say “no”, don’t have a strong sense of who you are, and/or you absorb other people’s feelings feel like you need to fix other people’s problems, you may be enmeshed.

So how do you escape from child abuse? This is likely the most difficult situation to leave, as one would be a minor and not financially independent. I am glad my mother was working hard to be able to provide for us so we could leave. Unfortunately, it required her to leave us alone often, and more so once she was a single mom in a new town. I was eleven when my parents divorced. I was completely unaware of the process until a teacher kept me inside from recess one day to talk to the only other student who had divorced parents. I didn’t even know what divorce was at the time. I recall waking up one day and mom had a moving van in the front yard. She told us to pack our clothes and toys while her friends handled the big stuff. We were able to do this because dad was out of town visiting a girlfriend; however, he came home when a neighbour who drove by our yard called dad to notify him of our escape. Dad arrived home just as we were about to leave, he hugged us goodbye and that was the last time I saw him for over a year.

I would recommend that should this be the reality for you, to tell a trusted adult in your life. During my childhood, I never had anyone I could rely on. My community and family were toxic, and I am forever thankful that my mother knew she needed to save us all herself. If I knew anyone outside of my isolated life, I would have spoken to them. That is why I am writing this series, to identify myself as an ally to you. As a teacher, it is my duty to protect as much to educate. By detailing my experiences, I can humanize myself for you all, in the hopes that it will make me more attainable for anyone who might need me.

Ideally, we would not live in a world where such horrors existed. Ideally, we would not live in a world where children were required to save themselves. However, the reality is that victims of child abuse are raised by their abusers and rely on them in more ways than one. Tell a teacher, a school counsellor, a coach, a friend’s parent, tell your doctor, call the police or call the KIDS Helpline.

Perhaps you aren’t sure if you are or have experienced abuse. Maybe you are like me, and couldn’t recognize it until it was too late. Despite the circumstances of my childhood seeming normal to me, it should never have been my normal; and I do not want it to be your “normal”. Or maybe you have so many feelings and are confused about what you are experiencing. Living with abuse can play tricks on the mind and affect the way you feel about yourself and others. Abuse can also trick you into saying things that may not be true and prevent you from getting help. Abuse makes you feel guilty, thinking that somehow you deserved the treatment you received; or that you should have been able to stop what happened, thus you must have somehow wanted it; or you could experience “survivor’s guilt”, wondering why someone else was hurt in place of you. You could experience shame from abuse, feeling humiliation, or fearing what others will think if they find out. Anger is common from abuse, questioning why it is you who goes through the abuse, assuming you need to be punished, making one hateful. If you ever feel afraid, hopeless, worthless, helpless, confused, betrayed, rejected, or trapped, please tell someone.